Re: Three Point Zero - Idea Mockups

[Nat Friedman <nat novell com>]

Hey,

On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 12:47 -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> You kind of replied here as if you were arguing, but I think what you
> said is consistent with what I said ;-) so just checking.

Actually, I was just sort of attaching to your message as a useful place
in the thread to soapbox.  It wasn't so much a reply as a soliloquy. :-)

> Owen's argument as I take it is that the sort of changes you just listed
> in your mail could simply be labeled GNOME 3. In other words we should
> be dropping this "big break" concept from GNOME 3 planning.

Yeah, I agree with this, and with most of the rest of what you've said.

> Although, I would disagree a bit with your emphasis. Usability testing
> is important, but the really important focus is on interaction design

Anyone who wants to can read about this stuff in any number of superb
books (The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Joel's usability book, The
Design of Everyday Things, Emotional Design, etc), but I guess I'll just
reiterate some basics here.

They're both important.  Ideally you do things in order: smart, creative
people design elegant user interfaces, which you then test and refine.  

But in the case where that hasn't happened (a significant percentage of
our software falls in this category), usability testing can point out
where we need to step back and do some interaction design.

So I'm thinking of usability testing in large part as a way of
motivating the people on this mailing list to focus on things that
matter now, instead of on wholly original and fledgling ideas that might
matter later.

Nat