Re: [HIG] [Fwd: [Usability]Question on Multiple Document Interfaces]

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

Hey Luis,

On Wed, 2002-08-21 at 17:02, Luis Villa wrote:
> -----Forwarded Message-----
> 
> Along the same lines, what exactly *are* the usabilty problems with MDI?

(I'll try to address this later, but it'll take some time, and I need to
work on that whole thread....... I took a vacation from mail yesterday
:-)

> 2) Calling things .0 when they've had little/no outside commentary
> feedback is... not great form :) Do you think we'll see a 1.1 with any
> useful feedback incorporated in the next month or two? [Not that I
> expect tons of useful feedback, but what there is it would be good to
> get in and get in quickly- release early and often is good for docs too
> :) 

We're planning to release the HIG about every month or two for the
forseeable future.

> 3) I'm really sorry I ran out of time to comment on it before release.
> The line above worries me- from what I've had time to read so far, this
> is a very solid document, but there are parts where it needs to persuade
> and educate hackers and it doesn't- it takes for granted things hackers
> don't know and want to know. I hope to give this a marketing-to-hackers 
> review soon- will that be useful/acceptable? 

Yes, though obviously commentary from actual hackers about marketability
would be most useful ;-) Part of the reason that I've always pushed for
including the reasoning behind each guideline (some hig people would
prefer a slicker document that just laid down the law) is because
rational argument is very important for marketing to hackers. That said,
we also need to work a lot on making the document more skimmable for
hackers that have accepted the document and just want to get in, get the
info, and get on with business. One idea on this front is to do some
docbook mods/magic to a to-the-point document with little links next to
each guideline that contain an explanation of why the guideline was
chosen over other alternatives.

-Seth