Re: [Usability] Control Center Appearance Capplet

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

Picking and choosing the parts I want to reply to.

On Thu, 2007-04-19 at 04:53 +1200, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> Another approach would be to have a narrow vertical list of themes with 
> previews (each theme name under its preview) down the left, with the 
> tabs for adjusting the current theme (or auto-creating a custom theme, 
> if you started tweaking one of the presets) on the right. (If you were 
> determined to allow multiple custom themes, the bottom of the theme 
> list could have [+][-] buttons for adding/removing them.) The biggest 
> drawback of this approach would be that the name "High Contrast Large 
> Print Inverse" would be too wide. (But with all respect to whoever drew 
> that theme, high contrast, large print, and inverse video should all be 
> compositing options in an Accessibility control panel, not a theme unto 
> themselves.)

As Bill has pointed out many, many times, a custom-drawn
set of high-contrast icons produces better results than
any automatic high-contrastification anybody has done.

That said, I'm certain we could make things more intuitive
with some design love on the accessibility preferences.

> "Appearance" tab:
> 
> *   What are "input boxes"? Perhaps you mean "text fields"?

Is "text fields" still an acceptable term, given that it also
affects things like numeric spinners?  (Maybe it is.  I'm just
asking.)

> "Fonts" tab:
> <http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=160547#c10>

>From your comment:
  Abolish "Document font" and "Fixed width font"...

I'd be interested to discuss this further in a new thread.

> "Desktop" tab:
> 
> *   This tab probably would be more obvious if named "Background".
>      "Desktop" and "wallpaper" are mutually exclusive metaphors -- when
>      was the last time you saw a desk covered with wallpaper?

I'm sad to say I've seen it.

> *   Despite that indentation style being demonstrated in the HIG, it
>      still looks like an accident. Try removing the indentation.

I've also thought that with some other preference windows.
Basically, when a group contains nothing but a big white
box (list view, text area, etc), the indentation looks
awkward.  Maybe the HIG could address this further.

> *   People want their background to be either a solid color, *or* a
>      gradient, *or* a picture. Make these options mutually exclusive, and
>      make them *look* mutually exclusive (e.g. as radiobuttons or a
>      single option menu).

My background is a semi-transparent picture on top of a color.
Since we ship a number of such backgrounds in gnome-backgrounds,
I strongly suspect I'm not alone in this.

--
Shaun