Trond wrote:...using a message on the other side of of the screen has been tested and it does not work.
I recall this being the conclusion that Microsoft designers came to, and a few non-Microsoft applications picked up on. However, it's my considered opinion that the jury is (or should be) still out on this. I contend that designers in this camp simply haven't experienced or tested with a design that uses it well. Microsoft has made notoriously inane use of their statusbar control, and it is no wonder that their usability testing confimed its uselessness.
I think it's important that we dispatch what may be a misconception in this dialogue--that is, what we are referring to when we say something like "status message" or "statusbar". Microsoft provided us with the statusbar common control in Windows 95 (iirc). Most of the time, when we talk about a statusbar, this is what we're probably referring to; it's almost certainly what the OP was referring to. I'm not that rigid in my definition, though, and I think a statusbar can be integrated into an interface in different ways. In other words, it need not be miles away from the toolbar, down on the edge of the screen, if you don't want it to be. If you use it for status messages and the like, it's still a statusbar, innit? Integrating it in a way that makes sense to the application is what I mean by using it properly, as a concept.
That out of the way, I can cite examples of award-winning software, which are regarded as highly usable and which make heavy, heavy use of the concept of flyby help. All Avid products are a fine example of this, but in particular I point to
Softimage XSI (I betray a bit of my history in 3D animation here). It's prohibitively expensive and not appropriate for the casual user, but I believe there's a demo you can download if you really want to get an idea of what I mean. Also, there's the Opera browser, which in its default configuration integrates the statusbar into the toolbar area, making for an elegant user experience.
Another fine example is a product for which development and sales now unfortunately seem to be discontinued:
Nichimen/Izware's Mirai. Also a 3D animation and rendering package, it made novel use of context-sensitive right-click menus which would display statusbar messages indicating the different actions if the user left-, right-, or middle-clicked the menu item. Everybody who used this software could not help but be impressed with its ultra-elegant design (in fact it had a cult-like following), and its use of statusbar messages was an important part of that experience. You can't download a demo of it, but if you want to see something that approaches its style, there's a free 3D modeler called
Wings3D that you can check out. It's not quite as good, but it conveys the idea.
Finally, I should perhaps note that as a professional I have yet to design an application that even uses the Windows common statusbar control, let alone for the (in your opinion) deprecated usage we're discussing here. I haven't used it because I haven't yet designed an application which justified or required its use. I'm willing to keep an open mind about it, though, and I think my brain will remain safely in place
