GNOME User Interface Improvement Project

["James M. Cape" <jcape jcinteractive com>]

This is an FAQ for the GNOME UI Improvement Project:

1. What is the GNOME UI Improvement Project?

A project to take in user's problems, suggestions, and rantings about
the user interface of *any* GNOME app, come up with workable solutions
to these problems, and then contact the author of the program in
question to work towards fixing these problems. This means that I need
YOU THE USER to tell me and the rest of the UI Team (not yet formed, but
contactable via the gnome-gui mailing list) about these problems. Those
of us on the team will:

        1. Make the interface easier to use.
        2. Make the interface as intuitive as possible.
        3. Make the interface consistent.
        4. Make it generally nicer to the user.
        5. Make the interface better than *any* other.
           We are in competition with KDE, Windows, GNUStep/NeXT,
           Mac, and CDE. I want to win :-).
        6. Document *everything*. Ever Windows app has a help file,
           and every GNOME app needs to as well.


2. Where will all of that take place?

All of the above will go through the GUI mailing list, and a GNOME UI
website (location yet to be determined).


3. Who will be involved?

The UI Team.
Random Programmers
The application authors.
You the user.


4. When will this start?

As soon as people start sending us their rantings about UIs.


5. What isn't fair game?

Blue Sky Stuff: Open dialogs, for one. The desktop icon model, for
another. The minimum resolution aimed for, for another. This just wastes
everyone's time, and causes a lot of headaches.

Legal:
- Having the close item in GMC's File menu exit the app if there aren't
any desktop icons. 

Illegal:
- Getting rid of the desktop icons altogether.
- Expanding GMC to be an Windows style MDI app, which takes up the
entire desktop.


6. I want to help, but don't know where to start?

If you can program, you can help us out by creating patches for apps for
all the suggestions/solutions we put together.

If you can't program, you can help us out by telling us your beefs with
GNOME app X.

If you know UI design, you can help us out by coming up with solutions
to the problems pointed out by other users.

I will be putting together a team that can come up with solutions for
this, and I would *like* to hold discussions with this team in the open,
on the gnome-gui list. For those who will post to the gnome-gui list,
please don't make me reconsider :-).


7. What are some UI resources I can look at before I start coming up
with solutions?

Interface Hall of Shame/Fame
    http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
    This are the starting documents. Read them and follow
    them religiously, because I will :-).

Ask Tog
    http://www.asktog.com/menus/designMenu.html
    This site provides a large group of resources for
    designing an interface, including a set of abstract
    rules for which examples are given in the Hall of
    Shame/Fame.

Also, please read the links associated with the above sites.


For right now, discussion about this can take place on the GNOME GUI
list:

mailto:gnome-gui-list@gnome.org

(subscribing)
mailto:gnome-gui-list-request@gnome.org?subject=subscribe

Please do not bring your personal gripes to the list. I would like to
keep this as civil and restrained as possible (and not touch on the
Illegal stuff mentioned above as well) :-).

    Jim Cape
    http://www.jcinteractive.com

    "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them
     pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."
        -- Winston Churchill