[HIG] [Fwd: [Usability]Some HIG comments]

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

comments from Dave, gathering them here for our convenience....

--- Begin Message ---

• From: Dave Camp <dave ximian com>
• To: usability gnome org
• Subject: [Usability]Some HIG comments
• Date: 21 Aug 2002 19:43:49 -0400

I was reading the HIG today.  On the whole it's a darned helpful
document.  This mail has some questions and comments, in case they're
useful to someone.  These are mostly nit-picky little things.  On the
whole it's a great document.

General:

There should be a clear way of marking iffy situations.  There are a
lot of caveats mentioned in the various UI concepts (things like "be
careful when doing this" or "only do this when...").  Things like this
should be prominently flagged.

Chapter 3: Windows

* CSDI:

Are you sure this should be in here?  CSDI is pretty useless (as you
mention).  It seems to me that the HIG shouldn't be in the business of
mentioning every possible UI layout.

The only noted exception to the "CSDI is bad" you mention is "an
application that must handle large numbers of small images well".
Does an application as specialized as this needs real-estate in the
HIG?

* Toolboxes:

The screenshot of the toolbox is four wide, and the guidelines say to
make them two wide.

You should make it clear whether CSDI apps should use a title, since
they're in the window list (this of course assumes you leave the CSDI
stuff in).

* Alert Buttons:

It would be nice if under the Button Phrasing section, the buttons
were listed in the same order they should be displayed.

* Confirmation Alerts:

"Following the GNOME-Human Interface Guidelines..."   

Pathetic GNOME-Humans!  You will be crushed under our mighty might!

Chapter 4: Menus

* It would be nice if you casually mentioned that right aligning the
  Help menu is a Bad Idea.

* Mutable Command Items: 

I can't tell if theses are suggested or not.  We were told during the
UI review to change "Cut Files/Cut Text" to just "Cut", and replacing
Refresh with Stop just seems like a bad idea.  In fact, the guidelines
seem to point out the only places where they might be useful, and
tells you better ways.  Is there a valid use for these items?  If
so, it should be mentioned.  If not, this section should either be
removed or marked as a "Don't Do This" sort of thing.

* You use the same shortcut for replace and refresh, I don't don't
  know if that's known/intentional (I imagine these two items don't
  end up in the same place often.)

Chapter 9: Icons

* Clearly GNOME needs some sort of squirrel-related application, because
that icon is too cool.



_______________________________________________
Usability mailing list
Usability gnome org
http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability

--- End Message ---