Re: [RFC]

[Steffen Klemer <masterofheap gmx net>]

Am 2002.05.16 15:41 schrieb(en) Emmanuel:
> 	Hi all,
> I submit this idea to the crowd listening on the list ;-)
> Because of all customisation we made possible, the pref dialog is 
> getting too crowded and certainly just unreadable for a newby. Should 
> not we use something like customizability levels : one for expert (full 
> blwon options), for not too experts and for total newbies (just the 
> important options)?

A brought a similar proposal to the galeon-list and Christian Rose 
answered:

<quote>
This beginner/intermediate/expert type of scheme thing is actually
deprecated and won't be there in Nautilus for Gnome2. It's a nice idea
in theory but in practice it causes a lot of problems too (please see
the archives of the usability@gnome.org list for details). Some of the
important drawbacks is that it is difficult/hard to realize what
settings are hidden depending on the user level and that you need to
change user level (and how) in order to "get to change them". Also many
users really hate to have to classify themselves in a user category like
this.
[...]
You can. It's difficult, but it can be done. That's the whole point of
usability; to allow an application to be easily used while still
allowing flexibility by doing a careful design that will allow almost
all users to easily get their job done.
A single design that will let most users get their job done is usually
better than multiple ones because users cannot normally be divided into
"experts" and "novices" - users often migrate between the areas
depending on application used/task done and experience. If there is only
one interface they can reuse their knowledge and do not have to re-learn
interfaces.
</quote>

It will even be removed from nautilus in newer versions.

One thing you could improve with the dialog is for example the layout with 
two rows of tabs, it's just confusing for a newbie...
IMHO it should go with the dafault-gnome-pref-layout with all the topics 
in a left side panel.

cu
/Steffen

-- 
  /"\
  \ /  ASCII Ribbon Campaign    | "Diejenigen, die mich verstehen,
   X  * NO HTML/RTF in e-mail   |      wissen was ich meine"
  / \ * NO MSWord docs in e-mail|          -- cassiel