Re: [Usability] Usability meeting minutes

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

On 30 Oct 2008, at 14:10, Kirk Bridger wrote:

> > Glade could probably have been rather more helpful in the meantime,  
> > too, by shielding designers from any non-optimal gtk+ defaults.  I  
> > don't know how much time I've wasted over the years left- or right- 
> > aligning text labels that always default to centre alignment, or  
> > adding the same HIG-compliant row and column spacing to tables and  
> > boxes that Glade always adds to my dialogs with a spacing of zero.
>
> Perhaps we should step back and ask if that level of fidelity is  
> always needed for usability feedback.  If we wanted to paint a  
> picture then pen and paper are all we need (and a scanner).  Do the  
> developers actually value us using glade for interface designs?   
> That's a sincere question.

In this case, I was really talking about using Glade in the context of  
implementing the final product.  Delivering glade files to developers  
is something I (quite reasonably) end up doing on many of the projects  
I work on, and sometimes it's more of a chore than it ought to be just  
to make a HIG-compliant dialog.  (Text label alignment being one of  
the most annoying.)

> As an aside, have we thought about putting together a GNOME list of  
> usability heuristics we use in our reviews by default, perhaps in  
> the HIG?

Not properly.  The HIG has a not-really-very-useful sort of list at  
the end:
<http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/checks-yourself.html.en>

and when we were doing UI reviews, we had as short list of things to  
look out for at those, too:
<http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/Archives?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=checklist.html 
>

> > > > Usability studies. Having some sponsored would help. Dave  
> > > > Richards had
> > > > feedback from users on what's wrong and what works.
> Sorry, I didn't see this feedback - is there a link or can it be  
> provided?

<http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/CityOfLargoPresentation>
<http://live.gnome.org/Boston2008/GUIHackfest/IdeaDump/LargoPresentationFeedback 
>

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            GNOME Desktop Team
http://blogs.sun.com/calum             +353 1 819 9771

Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems