Re: Proposal for default panel layout

[Matthew Butterick <matthewb mutagenetics com>]

In a general sense, eventually any UI issue comes down to solving a
problem of how the user & the software communicate. 

And for any UI problem, the easy part is coming up with possibilities &
alternatives. The hard part comes earlier -- refining the definition of
the problem space well enough to have a metric for how well a given
solution works. Without that, there's no basis for choosing among a set
of alternatives.

To build a "user interface" you need to have a concept of a "user". One
of the things the gnome-gui project seems to be missing is an adequate
definition of who the target user(s) are.  The well-known GUIs -- Win,
Mac, Be, Next, et al -- were each designed to appeal to different types
of users.

For that reason, GNOME's GUI won't be successful if it's a bunch of
stuck-together ideas from other GUIs without its own focus. It also
won't be successful if the mission is to make it the ideal UI for anyone
and any application -- that's not realistic.

When I see a call to action like "let's make it intuitive" it begs the
question "intuitive FOR WHOM"? If you don't know, then all that's
definite is you're *changing* the UI, but you can't necessarily say
you're *improving* it.

MB



Kevin Cullis wrote:
> 
> Ben Ford wrote:
> > Improving the GUI != hand holding.
> >
> > Improving, great!  Making it consistant, great!  Making it intuitive,
> > great!  Making everything *work*, great!
> >
> > Dumb it down, I'm outta here.
> 
> Don't think of it as dumbing down, but doing QA analysis: 80% of the
> people do what top 20% of the tasks with the GUI?  That's not dumbing
> down unless you don't access it at all like the Mac OS does.
> 
> Make the GNOME GUI highly configurable, but make the default simpler for
> encouraging migration from Windows and Mac users, such as myself.
> Sometimes GNOME is SO configurable that it can be confusing at times
> when simple actions are wanted and there are TOO many options. A
> beginner, intemediate, and expert configurations should be considered.
> 
> Kevin
> 
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