Re: [HIG] Naming

[Adam Elman <aelman users sourceforge net>]

On Wednesday, November 7, 2001, at 03:52 AM, Maciej Stachowiak wrote:

> On 07Nov2001 03:58AM (-0600), Gregory Merchan wrote:
> > As you may have guessed, I don't like Human Interface Guidelines 
> > because
> > it isn't clear what the interface is between; put another way,
> > "Interfacing with humans sounds like fun!" Perhaps more frightful -
> > "Humans have interfaces? Do they accept RJ-45 connectors?"
>
> The complete title is GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. Therefore it's
> about GNOME interfacing with humans.

As I said before, I continue to believe that GNOME Human Interface 
Guidelines is the best title, and unless everybody else besides Maciej 
feels that this is too "Apple-like" for comfort, I would continue to 
stick with it.

All amusing jokes aside, the usability community tends to be pretty 
consistent in trying to include "human" as much as possible -- the field 
is called Human-Computer Interaction (or Computer-Human Interaction if 
you happen to be the ACM, but that's a whole 'nother rant :)  Human 
Interface is an accurate description and very common terminology for 
what we're talking about.  Every other way of stating it ("User 
Interface", "Usability", or just "Interface") has additional 
ramifications which at best I find uncomfortable and at worst I find 
unacceptable.  If hackers don't understand the term "Human Interface," 
(or, as Maciej noted, "GNOME Human Interface,") well, it's time for them 
to learn about it.

As Kathy said, "Standard" is way too strong for this, and "Style Guide" 
is too weak.  So "Guidelines" is the right term.  Hence, we are left 
with the current title, and so I vote for keeping it as is.

Adam