Re: levels of compliance

[John R Sheets <dusk smsi-roman com>]

sungod wrote:

> can someone give me an example of how a _rule_ for human interface would
> meet, say, level 3 compliance or level 4 compliance but not level 1 or
> 2?

I believe I was pushing for the compliance levels to be an indication of how
important each style element/rule was towards being a good GNOME app.  It
would be a measure of 1) how uniquely "GNOME-y" a rule was, and 2) how much
it contributed towards being a universally good UI.  I think it would be
good to separate (or at least make note of) which style elements are
universal, and which are GNOME-specific.  This will have the side effect of
distilling "what it means to be GNOME" into a quicker, more concise read (a
step toward sun's other post about learning by browsing).  Developers
already familiar with good UI design could skip over the universal elements,
but they should definitely be included somewhere.

The previous proposal was to put these universal elements into the core-most
compliance level, and have the GNOME-specific elements in the following
(less critical) compliance levels.  However, now I am beginning to question
that idea, too.

> good human interface design is not limited to whether a feature is in
> or out; it involves determining _where_ and _how_ the features (_any_
> features really) are implemented.

Yep.  I think we should also make it clear where to find a given style
element, whether it's in gnome-libs (and what the API looks like), or
supported by some external library, or even if it's some experimental new
feature that isn't fully implemented yet, but that people should be free to
make use of (and so they're aware of it in the first place).

So maybe three conceptual types of style elements: Universal, GNOMEish, and
Experimental.  Should they be intermixed throughout the style guide, or
should they be separated into each of three discrete parts/chapters/books?

John

P.S.--Hi, sun!  Good to see ya again.