[Usability] Re: Suggestion for the actual UI of GTK+'s New FileSelector

[Federico Mena Quintero <federico ximian com>]

On Tue, 2004-01-06 at 19:51, Eugenia Loli-Queru wrote:

> http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5582
> Please read the article for full explanation as to why things are the way
> they are in the mockup.
> 
> Suggestions (but mostly source code :-) are welcome.

Complex things like the Path Navigator are not going to magically happen
unless they are preceded by an actual usability test on real users.
Please read this for a good starting point:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/gtk-devel-list/2003-November/msg00009.html

Note that you don't need a working prototype to test this on users.
Paper prototypes are enough.

For the Path Navigator in particular, you also need to consider visual
aspects like how it is to be displayed when partially scrolled off. 
Buttons that get cut in the middle like in Xchat's scrolling channel
tabs look just horrible.

Thanks for the suggestions; they actually look very good, but they need
to be tested on users before we rewrite the GUI code for the Nth time.

  Federico