Re: Re-inventing Metatheme

[Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>]

Bryan said:

> 
> >2002-08-30 20:23 Lars Weber
> >>  * While I decided to use an extensible list of theme-settings in my
> >>    design I can also see the problems related to changing things like
> >>    backgrounds or fonts in such a dialog.  Asking the user in such
> >>    situtations whether he also wants to apply these changes might be a
> >>    good idea.
> 
> 9:23 PM 30/08/02 +0100 Bill Haneman <bill haneman sun com>
> >That's an interesting idea too. Instead of asking every time, 
> >maybe the 'metatheme' capplet should have two more checkbuttons, "use
> >Theme Set's Font" or "Override User Font" or something,  
> >"Allow Theme Set to change Background", (or "Keep User Background",
> >"Preserve User Font"....  we could discuss the wording)
> 
> hi, that is good idea. On few other lists folks with lower vision were very
> particular about fonts since change can make their systems unusable to them
> [heck I'm 47 now & have my fonts a bit bigger than new designers tend to
> use so I want a "Keep My Fonts" option, too]. Among upper level Opera beta
> testers we always followed Opera's idea the computer does not belong to the
> software and leave the person running the computer in control! Perhaps call
> it polite software design [grin] 

Bryan:

You are right that there is no question that applications should not
override user preferences, I'd say it's more than just polite :-)  this
is a core accessibility requirement when it comes to "theme compliance".

The issue here however isn't about applications, it's about the
preferences controls themselves.  If the preferences users need are
scattered in many dialogs, it presents a barrier to using them.   Once
you've found and used the Fonts control then yes, you're done, but what
if you also need special colors, larger icons, different window borders,
a plain background... well it gets a lot slower and without good
documentation users may not discover the settings that are helpful to
them.  Of course there's the "bootstrapping" problem as well.

The case where it gets hard, and the one where the accessibility
requirement for "meta-themer" is most pressing, is for things like
shared desktops (for instance in libraries, kiosks, etc.)  where the
desktop is "not your own".  In these cases we need to give the user as
quick and effective a means as possible to changing the settings to what
they need.  

Including fonts in low-vision themes reduces the number of actions which
a user needs to take in a desktop environment which may be largely
inaccessible to them.   Keeping them out of other themes might be better
for accessibility in other ways, for users who are on their own
famliliar, customized desktop.  The downside of the 'keep my fonts'
button is of course that its another control which the user must be
aware of, to avoid confusion if it's checked instead of unchecked, etc.

regards,

-Bill

> Giving folks 1 place to say Keep My Fonts
> strikes good balance between asking too often [as some media players do
> about playing given kinds of formats] & not having enough control over items
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Bryan Campbell
> 
> --> "It has been said the pebbles can't stop the avalanche, guess the
> pebbles didn't have access to the Web!"