[Usability] making the conceptual model more concrete

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Hi,

A random thought I had - we have the "ideal conceptual model"
(most recently mentioned in Calum's presentation
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/articles/guadec-2003/img8.html)

If we really think such a model would be easier to use (and perhaps
also more general/powerful), and I think it might be, perhaps what's
missing is a translation from the model into concrete changes to be
made in the code.

For example, "allow applets to be dragged to the desktop background"
would be one, no? Or more generally "make the desktop background and
the panel the same kind of container"

This gives a concrete programming task that someone can hack on. I
think it might be hard for people to make the leap from the diagram of
the model to the specific code/UI changes that it implies.

So perhaps a simple list of such changes, or even a writeup describing
the overall utopian desktop (complete with mockup screenshots), 
would go a long way toward helping the developers visualize the
suggested changes and encourage them to code it up.

In short, a sort of high-level roadmap for desktop design changes over
the next few years.

Havoc