Re: [Usability]widget style vs window decoration, (was "cheat to window-manager integration")

[Sunnanvind Fenderson <sunnanvind fenderson com>]

Ugh. I had to rewrite this because I apparently mistyped the adress.

Christian Rose <menthos menthos com> writes:
> fre 2002-07-26 klockan 01.09 skrev Sunnanvind Fenderson:
> > That's a start of a long argument, but I'll agree that there will be
> > some users who care not for understanding their UI but just want to
> > get their job done.
> 
> Yeah, and if not already this will soon be a big part or even the
> majority of our users.

Perhaps.

> > > we are here to present people with a usable desktop, and preferrably
> > > regardless of their previous familiarity with certain design
> > > terminology.
> > 
> > Yes. This does not mean that we have to go to extreme lengths to dumb
> > things down, however.
> 
> Oh, please, not the "let's not dumb things down" trollfest again. If you
> think usability is about dumbing things down, you have misunderstood a
> lot of things, and this forum is a very bad choice for you.
> 
> Believe it or not, this forum has previously had and should have a
> practical purpose in encouraging *creative* discussions that can
> directly improve the usability of GNOME. "Let's not dumb things down"
> trolls aren't just plain wrong about what this is about, they are also
> directly counterproductive.

Oh, please, not the "you're a troll and you don't share my exact views
word-for-word so you don't even know what usability is so I'm not
going to listen to what you say" flamefest.

As you very well know (as we've discussed this before, and as my other
posts should hopefully make apparent), I like simplicity.

Simplifying things is in itself a good thing, but sometimes the
"simplifications" have detrimental effects that actually make it
harder to use the UI. In those cases, I use the expression "dumbing
things down".

The gnome-usability study published by sun pointed out a lot of things
that could be done to simplify things (like "terminal emulator").

I agreed with the recent Sun beta tester that "profiles" look weird.

> It *is* jargony and complex terminology, because:
> 
> * Widgets are hard to describe. Widgets aren't like each other. They
> don't resemble each other much. There's not much that makes a button, a
> check box and a selection list look like each other. Terminology that is
> used as a collective name for lots of different things are by nature
> harder to learn.

Yes, it's hard to describe without a word for it. That's why we need a
word for it!

> * "Widget" is an invented word that doesn't use any real-world metaphor
> (not any that I know about at least), so you have not a big chance of
> guessing what it is if you don't know it already. "Controls" is better
> in this case since you can make the connection to real-world controls
> (real buttons, levers etc.).