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Incorporated quotes of the solutions from the OP which are referenced in the answer, so you don't have to repeatedly scroll up and down

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edit approved Feb 1, 2018 at 14:23

TheEspinosa

Software development IDEs have some of the most complicated settings pages I've ever seen, and IntelliJ IDEA does a great job with discoverability. Not only do they offer a search to narrow down the left "tree" to matching pages, they also have a special highlighting effect for matching options. This is similar to your Chrome example, but even better since it doesn't lose the original layout and hierarchy of the unfiltered options.

To your solutions:

To your solutions:(All quotes are from the OP)

Please don't slim down too much! certainly you could make a "common" settings page but we power users hate it when there's no way at all to change something

This is always good practice, but in addition to the options/settings dialog. It should be a one stop shop for all customization of the software.

I think people would use them, and more importantly, it would be additional text that could be matched by the filter at the top of the dialog. If the option was "Export to CSV" and the help text was "Export files to comma-delimited files that can be opened in Microsoft Excel", then that allows for queries "csv" and "excel" to match that option.

Yes, to an extent- no categories with one option, but removing "General" and "Advance" and organize in a tree (if there are too many for a simple list like Firefox or your Word example).

Slim down the options dialog and put only the most common options there (it always starts small, but many of the options present are there at user request!)

Please don't slim down too much! certainly you could make a "common" settings page but we power users hate it when there's no way at all to change something

Do without the options dialog and find other places to put customisation, such as a toolbar or ribbon (anecdotal, but I've found this just makes it even more annoying to find what you need);

This is always good practice, but in addition to the options/settings dialog. It should be a one stop shop for all customization of the software.

Use help icons for longer explanations of option functionality (surely no-one would actually use them?)

I think people would use them, and more importantly, it would be additional text that could be matched by the filter at the top of the dialog. If the option was "Export to CSV" and the help text was "Export files to comma-delimited files that can be opened in Microsoft Excel", then that allows for queries "csv" and "excel" to match that option.

Create more categories to get rid of an "Advanced" or "General" category (then you just end up with a whole heap of categories you can't really navigate, some of which only have one option in them.)

Yes, to an extent- no categories with one option, but removing "General" and "Advance" and organize in a tree (if there are too many for a simple list like Firefox or your Word example).

To your solutions:

Please don't slim down too much! certainly you could make a "common" settings page but we power users hate it when there's no way at all to change something

This is always good practice, but in addition to the options/settings dialog. It should be a one stop shop for all customization of the software.

I think people would use them, and more importantly, it would be additional text that could be matched by the filter at the top of the dialog. If the option was "Export to CSV" and the help text was "Export files to comma-delimited files that can be opened in Microsoft Excel", then that allows for queries "csv" and "excel" to match that option.

Yes, to an extent- no categories with one option, but removing "General" and "Advance" and organize in a tree (if there are too many for a simple list like Firefox or your Word example).

To your solutions:

(All quotes are from the OP)

Slim down the options dialog and put only the most common options there (it always starts small, but many of the options present are there at user request!)

Please don't slim down too much! certainly you could make a "common" settings page but we power users hate it when there's no way at all to change something

Do without the options dialog and find other places to put customisation, such as a toolbar or ribbon (anecdotal, but I've found this just makes it even more annoying to find what you need);

This is always good practice, but in addition to the options/settings dialog. It should be a one stop shop for all customization of the software.

Use help icons for longer explanations of option functionality (surely no-one would actually use them?)

Create more categories to get rid of an "Advanced" or "General" category (then you just end up with a whole heap of categories you can't really navigate, some of which only have one option in them.)

Yes, to an extent- no categories with one option, but removing "General" and "Advance" and organize in a tree (if there are too many for a simple list like Firefox or your Word example).

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answered Jan 31, 2018 at 11:33

J. Dimeo

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To your solutions:

Please don't slim down too much! certainly you could make a "common" settings page but we power users hate it when there's no way at all to change something
This is always good practice, but in addition to the options/settings dialog. It should be a one stop shop for all customization of the software.
I think people would use them, and more importantly, it would be additional text that could be matched by the filter at the top of the dialog. If the option was "Export to CSV" and the help text was "Export files to comma-delimited files that can be opened in Microsoft Excel", then that allows for queries "csv" and "excel" to match that option.
Yes, to an extent- no categories with one option, but removing "General" and "Advance" and organize in a tree (if there are too many for a simple list like Firefox or your Word example).