Re: [Usability] New UI for gnome-about-me capplet

[Diego González <diego pemas net>]

On Sun, 2006-04-30 at 23:04 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> (I'm aiming for constructive criticism, sorry if it seems a bit harsh)
> 
> On Sun, 30 Apr 2006, Diego [ISO-8859-1] Gonzlez wrote:
> 
> > Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2006 22:15:42 +0200
> > From: "Diego [ISO-8859-1] Gonzlez" <diego pemas net>
> > To: usability gnome org
> > Subject: [Usability] New UI for gnome-about-me capplet
> >
> > hi
> >
> > i'm the maintainer of the gnome-about-me capplet that is in the control
> > center, i'm thinking about redoing the UI for the new release of gnome.
> 
> I was looking at Ubunut and I noticed there were seperate items for the
> Login picture and the About me picture.  If this isn't an Ubuntu only
> thing have you given any thought to having About Me do both?
> 
Since the begining of the times gnome-about-me has had the ability to
set the login picture. So this will not change. 

> > Currently i have thought about something like the screenshot attached.
> 
> It does look a lot tidier.
> 
> Having space either side of the picture like that seems like a bit of
> waste.  I'd prefer a slightly wider layout with the picture on the left
> then the details beside it.
> 
>   ____
>  |    |  Full Name  [                  ]
>  |    |  Nickname   [                  ]
>  |___ |
> 
> 
> I'm assuming Full name  (First Name)+(Family Name) in whatever order
> and nickname is autofilled with the system username/logname.
> 
> (Double barreled surnames are strange* but some cultures list their family
> history in their family name so if you aren't going to split family name
> and first name into seperate fields you'd want to leave a good amount of
> space.)
> 
> Have you considered using the term "Web Page" rather than home page?  It
> is a little more generic but home page implies some assumptions such as
> having a personal homepage with something like a journal/blog and not all
> users would necessarily want to have this which is why I prefer the
> generic (it would be more useful for me to bookmark google since i use it
> more often than my own journal).  I suppose it would depend where and when
> this link is actually shown and how it can be used.
> 
> If I were on slashdot I might use 'insensative clod' cliche since not
> everyone has a job (or cares enough about it to fill in that information)
> and I'd be inclined to push that to seperate section (another tab, hide it
> behind an expander or something) so as to keep the about me dialog
> extremly simple with just the basics, although I'm sure there will be some
> question of what are the most important basic details to include
> (presumably email address goes elsewhere with more detailed contact
> information).
> 
OK, I can remove this.

> > Clicking on the picture of the first screenshort would show a file
> > selector in the $prefix/share/pixmap/faces directory.
> >
> > Clicking on the change password would bring the dialog shown in the
> > second screenshot.
> 
> The dialog seems somewhat verbose.  The two step process of having to
> authenticate and provide the new passwords seems convoluted.
> 
> I've recently been reconsidering the new password/confirm password user
> interface.  I have seen how error prone this process can be and how much
> difficulty many users have typing the same hidden text twice correctly.
> Frankly I use cut and paste to bypass the annoyance of typing this twice
> (and no I'm not impressed when applications try to prevent me from doing
> this).  The alternative I have seen has been to include a checkbox which
> allows you to [] Show Password but there may be other ways to show users
> instantly the values do not match (and if I were trying to slap something
> together using existing widgets I'd use the broken chain ratio constraint
> widget to show this but there might be a better way).
> 

Ok, here we run into problems the Linux way to change a password is a
pain in the ass. In Linux this is usually a two step process and cannot
be simplified further. Right not there is no authenticate button and the
authentication is carried impleicitly when leaving the entry, which
doesn't work in some cases.

Once authenticated the lock icons closes it self (before authentication
it is open) and the message on the bottom changes to indicate the status
of both passwords (if they match). Also the "change password" button
should be disabled if both passwords don't match.

What about this? 

> I think it comes down to an ease of use versus security tradeoff we
> might have to leave for another day but I do hope this dialog can be
> substantially simplified, by both removing the need to hit an authenticate
> button and providing realtime feedback and input checking to help users
> type the same text twice.
> 


> > Clicking on the "Address book card" would show a dialog very simmilar to
> > the current evolution "new contact" dialog.
> 
> Similar ... can the new contact dialog be hacked out of Evolution and
> be directly reused by both?
> 
Well i fear this will take more time than i can devote to it. So your
now it will have to be copied somewhat.

> > What do you think about this new UI? how can it be improved?
> 
> I very much appreciate your making the effort to improve the user inteface
> and I hope you will consider my suggestions and that they will be of some
> help to you.  Best of luck.
> 
> Sincerely
> 
> Alan Horkan
> 
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> 
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> 
> P.S. Mispellings of Ubuntu were not intentional but it amuses me not to
> correct them.