Re: fundamentals of the gnome user interface

[sungod <as387 yfn ysu edu>]

Federico Mena Quintero wrote:
> 
> [snip]
> >  gnome application developers must honor each of these two approaches to
> >  tool usage
> 
> What you posted is an interesting bit.  Do you have any particular
> examples where the existing GNOME applications are or are not
> following the principles you exposed?

i didn't have a specific gnome example in mind while writing this up,
but emacs did come to mind (o travesty! how dare thee invoke the holy
name of the unholy non-gnome non-wp!) :) it is, in fact, an example of
how to do it _right_ (sort of):

here are two ways to maneuver within a document, as they fit my two
levels of user psychology:

1) this level features controls that are easy to use, easy to discover,
and make sense to occasional users: to move up a line, the user presses
the up arrow. to move down a line, the user presses the down arrow. to
move left or right one character, the user presses the left or right
arrows. too easy. pageup, pagedown, home, and end all work. just as they
should. those of us who use emacs rarely are taken care of.

2) "power users" are going to be good typists who never want their
fingers to leave the home row, because it slows down how their work.
consequently, the same functions available to the casual user in 1)
above are also available as control-key shortcuts, ^n, ^b, ^f, ^p, etc.
this way a programmer with an idea can maneuver to the appropriate spot
within his program and add the appropriate code almost as fast as he can
think about it, without having to drastically change his style of entry
(i. e. moving his fingers from the home row).

of course, this example breaks when you look at some of the more indepth
features of emacs: for instance, how does the casual user in 1) above
_quit_ emacs? he doesn't. he breaks open his "linux for dummies" book
and teaches himself enough in level 2) to do what he wants. that's bad
user interface design.

also, be aware (bowie, this is for you, because it applies directly what
you said about "levels" and programmable icons and such) that
implementing tier 2 does _not_ necessarily mean sane keyboard shortcuts.
for a text editor or irc client it does, but a power user in the gimp
should not have to take his hand off the mouse while stretching a
rubberband box to reach the "p" key while pressing "control" in order to
apply a transformation of some sort. see what this means? 

if the basic user interface is through dragging with the mouse, tier 2
means adding handles to selection boxes to apply transformations in the
quickest way most similar to the basic user interaction technique.

btw, i've seen a few "amens" to the original "intro to psychology" along
these lines... i'm going to go ahead and try typing it up in a style
suitable for the user interface guide unless i see a few "no stupid
that's not how it works" messages like, today. speak up now, everybody.

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