Re: [Usability] Compliance to GNOME UI Patterns of Cross-Platform Apps

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 15:06 +0800, Allan Caeg wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Mozilla is coming up with a new Add-ons Manager UI for Firefox. I was
> asked what Linux-specific stuff should be designed and how much should
> be specified, because the look and feel depends on the DE's settings.
> I said that all I can think of at that time is that it should follow
> the GTK+ "skinning" of XUL like how other XUL elements do it, because
> the Add-ons Manager doesn't yet (in Firefox 4.0 Beta 4).
> 
> After looking at the Add-ons Manager a while ago, it looks like it's a
> bit alienated in my GNOME desktop. Apparently, other than the lack of
> skinning, it's because of the widgets (or however they should be
> called) that I don't usually see on other apps. Perhaps, Firefox would
> fit more in the GNOME desktop if it followed the UI Patterns. 
> 
> Right now, the UI Patterns could use some help (see the Etherpad
> page). In the future, cross-platform apps can refer to it. Right now,
> correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that we can simply assess which
> UI elements are fit and not. 

That UI Patterns page is ollldddd and I wouldn't pay too much attention
to that Etherpad either. The HIG [1] are still the recommended
guidelines, and the in-progress future version can be found here [2].
(But yes, it needs work.)

> Should we encourage cross-platform apps like Firefox to follow GNOME's
> UI Patterns? This *could* be an issue because GNOME isn't the only DE,
> so this solution may not be beneficial for KDE and maybe environments.
> 
> Thoughts?

There may be specific instances where a GNOME pattern leads a user to do
or think the wrong thing in a third party app, so it's good to review
for that. Generally though, consistency shouldn't matter all that much
if it's well designed.

Allan

[1] http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/
[2] http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/HIG3
--
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org