Re: [Usability] user levels, etc.

[Tuomas Kuosmanen <tigert ximian com>]

On Mon, 2001-11-12 at 22:31, Gregory Merchan wrote:
    >   - the "power tweak app" solution passes the KISS test and should 
    >     work pretty well
    
    Let somebody else do it. Real power users touch magnetic pins to the disks
    when they want to tweak something.

No. Our power users bitch and moan on IRC at you. :^)

I would really want to avoid what happened with the  "lets simplify
galeon prefs" -thing. I agree we should make things easier to use, but
there are just two things:

        * New users who are lost with the gazillion options on
          preferences, or power users who dont want to waste their time
          *finding* that particular setting they want to change..
        * Power users who love to have a knob for everything. If you ask
          them, the preferences should look like the cockpit of a modern
          commercial jetliner with knobs for everything. Even more
          interesting when combined with a "I want to be in control"
          -attitude[1], which means ones goal is to bend the app around
          ones usage pattern instead of getting a good general look on
          an app, and thinking whether it might be a good idea to change
          ones learnt habits sometimes[2].

    >   - apps can also use Advanced tabs or disclosure triangles as
    >     appropriate, to complement the power tweak app
    
    We need a good disclosure triangle widget and a simple api so it isn't too
    easily abused. (I know of two people who have considered or started writing
    one.)

Yea. Whatever we do, it should be generic enough and easy to use for the
*hackers* so people actually use it. So that it is used consistently all
over.

Tuomas

[1] Also known as the "slackware-syndrome", though it is usually cured
after the person realizes that having "free time" is nice, and Linux is
a neat OS for doing other things as well instead of just doing sysadmin
stuff for your own machine 24/7...

[2] This is actually very useful, since if you manage to learn the
defaults for an app you never need to waste time configuring the stuff
if you are on some other computer. (Unless it is your friend's box[1]) -
I did it with the Gimp and it has been good. I used to have all those
weird shortcuts for everything, but I just got frustrated when I tried
to use Gimp on other peoples machines and they wouldnt work :-)

Of course this circles back into the fact that we need useful defaults.
On most cases we can just copy how stuff works on other software and
operating systems, if those make sense. It is also good for consistency.

-- 
:: :: Tuomas Kuosmanen  :: Art Director, Ximian :: ::
:: :: tigert ximian com :: www.ximian.com       :: ::