Hi Paolo,
(I'm copying the GNOME usability list on this for some more expert
opinions.)
As I mentioned in one of the bugs I submitted yesterday, I've been
talking to a user trying gthumb for the first time, and observing some
of his critiques and various frustrations. I have a number of
suggestions for gThumb's UI that I'd like to run by you. I will try to
implement these changes and submit a patch, so you can get a better idea
for what I'm trying to accomplish.
The main problem I've noticed is that this new user had significant
troubles determining that there are really three primary modes in
gthumb: folders, catalogs, image. The Folders / Catalogs modes are
much clearer, but the Image mode can be rather confusing and
inconsistent.
The user's main frustration is that key buttons on the toolbar move
around depending on the mode. He further became frustrated when
clicking on the Folders button when already in Folders mode did
something completely unexpected: it made the folders go away, and moved
the Folders button on the toolbar from underneath his cursor.
He also expressed confusion over the back/forward buttons. After having
gone from Folders mode to Catalogs mode, he clicked the Back button,
expecting it to take him back to Folders mode, except that the Back
button was disabled. (He didn't immediately understand that
Back/Forward/Up/Home applied only to folders, not modes and images as
well.)
So, based on these observations, I would like to suggest a number of UI
changes to gThumb. I am not a usability expert, so I hope that others
on the usability list can step in if and when I'm out to lunch. :)
1. Because back/forward/up/home buttons apply only to navigating
folders/catalogs, I suggest removing these buttons from the
primary toolbar, and creating a secondary toolbar in the
folders/catalogs pane with these buttons. This will more
tightly couple the relationship between these buttons and
navigating the folders/catalogs.
2. Move the Folders and Catalogs togglebuttons on the main toolbar
to the left, add a third togglebutton "Images" to more clearly
define the three possible modes. These buttons must never go
away, or move around, or become disabled. Although these 3
buttons are in fact toggle button widgets, they should behave
like radio buttons. Only one of them can be active (pressed) at
one time, but clicking a currently active button shouldn't do
something strange like make that mode go away -- it should do
nothing. This is pretty much what I've argued in bug 143023. I
see these mode buttons the same as Evolution 1.5's
Mail/Contacts/Calendar/Tasks buttons: specifically, the behave
like a radio button group, and they never move around.
3. In image mode, the prev/next buttons should be moved to the far
left (to the right of the three mode buttons, separated of
course by a toolbar separator). These buttons are navigation
buttons, and I think make more sense to be the first group of
all the image-view-specific buttons.
4. When no image is selected, the preview pane should have a
generic "gthumb" logo image of some sort, to at least provide
some visual indication as to the purpose of the pane. Otherwise
when the user first starts gthumb, he sees an empty pane and he
may have the impression something is broken. (This was my test
user's first reaction.) I'm not an artist, so maybe we can ask
the community for some help with creating a nice looking image
for this purpose.
I believe these changes above, while significant enough, aren't terribly
disruptive, and will go a long way to improve gthumb's usability. No
doubt there are smarter people than I on the usability list who will
have some good suggestions. I hope we can get some solid feedback so
that I can help improve my favorite image application. :)
Cheers,
Jason.
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