Re: [Usability]List policy, usability leadership, mission statement [Was: "widget"]

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Hi,

The way to organize the usability effort IMO is to focus on concrete
tasks. Which usability@ has been a lot better at than past gnome UI
efforts, and why we made a lot of progress in GNOME 2.

The concrete tasks probably include:

 - changes to the HIG; there has to be a process for this, and a clear
   maintainer or team who can and does make decisions

 - UI review for HIG compliance, resulting in filing bugzilla reports

 - user testing

 - reviewing prior art and/or studies and posting results

Long threads arguing the merits of XYZ in the abstract, or where
everyone posts their vote on what they personally use, are just not
useful. I don't think those threads will ever go away, they're a fact
of life, and honestly they are fairly harmless. The important issue is
whether the concrete tasks are getting done, which hinges on good
leadership and good process.

If we can make UI decisions (instead of punting and making it
configurable or whatever), and can communicate those decisions (by
documenting them in HIG and bugzilla), then we have something that
works.

Havoc