Re: [Usability]Some HIG comments

[Seth Nickell <snickell stanford edu>]

On Wed, 2002-08-21 at 18:43, Dave Camp wrote:
> 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.

Thanks for the comments Dave!

> 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.

Would <warning> tags be too strong? These would seperate the statements
from the rest of the text and put a little warning image next to them.

> 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?

I think I agree with you here. I'll look at nixing the CSDI section from
future versions.

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

Yup. Curse of last minute screenshots... Every time I go through that
section it makes me wince ;-)

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

ok

> * Confirmation Alerts:
> 
> "Following the GNOME-Human Interface Guidelines..."   
> 
> Pathetic GNOME-Humans!  You will be crushed under our mighty might!

lol

> Chapter 4: Menus
> 
> * It would be nice if you casually mentioned that right aligning the
>   Help menu is a Bad Idea.

good point

> * 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.

hrm... Good point though this seems like a tricky issue to get right.

> * 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.)

er, oops.

> Chapter 9: Icons
> 
> * Clearly GNOME needs some sort of squirrel-related application, because
> that icon is too cool.

I'll be happy to work with somebody to write gnome-roadkill.

-Seth