Re: [HIG] Another alternative



We did target 15 pages (I think that was the number), and its true that
the current document is longer than that, but the HIG written and
reviews are already in process. I don't feel that producing a longer
document than initially planned is a bad thing, so long as the document
is not excessively verbose. Assuming authors actually perform the
revisions within the two week time frame, the HIG will be in pretty good
shape. We're a little behind schedule, but GNOME2 has slipped
significantly and there is little ongoing GNOME2 application development
at present. I hope the HIG will be useful as soon as it is published in
public form, so even if we don't have the final version when application
porting begins we can still point to the public draft as a
more-or-less-correct guideline (much like having a development platform
alpha). We shouldn't switch the base. 

> > I also think that it would be far, far better to have a single
> > document than for us to post our HIG and for mpt to also post his,
> > and thus have two often-conflicting documents both purporting to be
> > GNOME HI guidelines.
> 
> We can't stop him from posting whatever he wants, but I think only the
> HIG group as a whole and more generally the GNOME Usability Project
> can publish an official GNOME HIG.

Mathew is not creating a competing style guide, I think we all agree
that consistency between applications is of utmost import (so there
should not be policy conflicts between the two documents once the final
IG2H is published). Stylistically I like IG2H a lot, and I would love to
see large parts of it integrated into the current HIG (or eventually
have the HIG reshaped around it). In the short run I think IG2H could
serve as a supplement to the HIG, e.g. it does not establish policy but
it provides smoother understanding of what different things mean and how
usability fits into GNOME as a whole.

Contrasting MacOS/X's HIG with the WindowsXP Design Guidelines, for
example, you see that MacOS/X is guidelines + a fuzzy usability document
(whereas XP is largely policy with some minor explanation). I think of
the current HIG as more akin to the XP guidelines, so I see IG2H as a
very complementary document. In the generation of the HIG we should
definitely attempt to integrate the two.

For now I suggest working off the current base and stealing sections
from IG2H as desired and/or appropriate. Like Maciej, I think it would
be a bad idea to change so much midstream, and I think the HIG will look
a lot nicer after the reviewer comments are taken into account (and
maybe a way to fix a lot of the reviewer comments will be rewrite parts
with IG2H's treatment of things in mind!).

-Seth



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