Re: [HIG] Mini-Guidelines content

[Calum Benson <calum benson sun com>]

colin z robertson wrote:

> If we have time to fit it in then I wouldn't have any objections. It
> looks like it could easily get quite big though. Should we perhaps
> have a list of essential and optional topics for the mini-guidelines?

Sounds like a good idea.  Something I'd like to add in somewhere is
something about the basic internationalisation and localisation issues
to be aware of-- this needn't be long, the Java guidelines cover the
essentials in a single page (some of which is Java-specific anyway):

http://java.sun.com/products/jlf/ed2/book/HIG.Issues3.html

So, by my reckoning, the current topic list, in no particular order,
looks something like this.  (I've added Os and Es to suggest my opinion
of what's Optional and Essential, although High Priority and Low
Priority might be more accurate...)


(O) Introduction: "Why we care about usability (and so should you)"

(O) Usability Principles

    Menus + Toolbars
(E) - Principles
(E) - Standard Menus
(E) - Standard toolbar layout, where to put app-specific toolbar btns
etc.

    Dialogs
(E) - Principles, plus whatever of the following that doesn't cover:
(E) - Modal v. modeless
(E) - General layout, standard dialog button labels
(O) - Standard Dialogs (does this mean File/Print/Font etc.?)

    Layout and Aesthetics / Controls and Layout 
(E) - Choosing the right control for the right job
(O) - Why layout is important
(E) - Fonts + colours, inc. relevant accessibility/i18n/l10n issues

(O) Terminology

    Keyboard and Mouse Input basics
(E) - Relevant bits from accessibility guidelines
(E) - Default Keybindings
(O) - Guidelines for drag and drop

(O) Reality Checks (aka Doing Simple Usability Testing)


Some of the things I've taken the liberty of marking as "O" aren't
because they're not important, but because something similar is already
available elsewhere so it wouldn't be a disaster if we didn't have time
to do a mini-HIG-specific version (e.g. usability principles, on which
there is a section in the usability report, and terminology, for which
the GDP wordlist is a pretty good start).

Have I missed anything?  It sounds like a reasonable list to me, so as
well as starting to think about who writes what, another couple of
things to consider are:

- at which point we want to circulate things (including the draft
contents list) to the wider usability team for comments, and
- the guidleines format we want to produce-- a styleguide for the
styleguide, in other words, so the bits we all write end up looking like
part of the same document.

Cheeri,
Calum.

-- 
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson ireland sun com    Desktop Engineering Group
http://www.sun.ie                      +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems