Re: GNOME HIG: Feedback Wanted

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Lasse Schuirmann <lasse schuirmann gmail com> wrote:
...
> Some feedback from me:
>
> Typography
> ----------------
> One thing that is missing IMO in the font size discussion is the uglieness
> of absolute font sizes. In the "Universal Access" menu you have the "Large
> Text" option: if you use absolute font sizes these wont scale to that making
> this an accessibility issue. So using something like "font-size: 80%" should
> be recommended IMO.
...

Isn't this more of a coding standard than a design guideline?

> On long term it would be nice if the theme would provide some css classes
> small-text, large-text. Then we could recommend using those instead of
> having our application developers dealing with those issues which should IMO
> be solved by the theme.

I have to admit that I haven't looked into the predefined text styles
that GTK+ does provide, but that is something to mention here. I know
there's a dim style... anything else?

In the future it would be fantastic to have a wider range of text
styles ("heading", "body", "emphasis", etc) like on the web, so the
theme can specify weights and font variants.

> Visual Layour - Margins
> ----------------------------------
> I'd like to avoid numbers on long term here. Spacing could be done by the
> theme by providing spacing related classes IMO.

I fully agree. The numbers are mostly a reflection of how GTK+ works
today, but it would be great to move to pure CSS for spacing.

> Hardcoded Colors
> -------------------------
> Note that I didnt read the whole thing yet, but: I didnt find anything like
> "dont use hardcoded colors they are evil and screw up your design if someone
> uses e.g. the accessibility theme". And I searched. So IMO it is either too
> well hidden or it should come in.

I have a stub for a page on color [1], which I haven't managed to
finish. I'll try to get around to it.

> Accessibility
> ------------------
> Although blind users are probably not the main target group I think GNOME is
> proud to provide one of the most accessible linux desktops. I think it would
> be nice to have an accessibility page somewhere. Some advise how to make the
> application accessible to everyone without throwing away the mouse & screen
> one day, because noone really does the latter.

The keyboard input page contains guidance on this. There's also the
accessibility guide [2].

One thing I would really like to add to the docs is a page on getting
your app ready to be distributed. This would be a checklist on things
like documentation, translations and accessibility. I'm not sure
whether this should belong to the HIG or should be a standalone
document, though.

Allan

[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/HIG/Color
[2] https://developer.gnome.org/accessibility-devel-guide/stable/