From kde-core-devel Wed Aug 25 23:41:55 2004 From: James Richard Tyrer Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 23:41:55 +0000 To: kde-core-devel Subject: Re: K-ARTIST: KDE HIG, CIG and AG Message-Id: <412D23C3.5090206 () acm ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-core-devel&m=109351623932695 Aaron Seigo wrote: > Hi all... > > yesterday we had a lengthy and very productive BOF to discuss the creation of > a new set of KDE development-related guidelines. I see problems with the user interface design, icons, and styles. It appears to me that it won't be of much help to produce User (Human) Interface Guidelines that specify the use of "magic buttons" and hidden configuration options that confuse users and Guidelines for artwork that specify low contrast bluish icons containing no black or dark lines (icons that have little information according to classic information theory and are, therefore, not easy to see) and busy styles (with signal to noise ratio issues) that are not easy to use. So, the important issue is to establish what the usability mistakes are before guidelines can be written to prevent them in the future. After it is determined what these usability mistakes are, it is probably more important to correct them than to write guidelines. But, if guidelines are needed as part of the process to fix the problem, then that is what should be done. And, yes such guidelines are needed and it would have been a good thing if they had existed before some of the recent usability "improvements" were implemented and before the Crystal icon theme and Keramik style were implemented. Actually, we have icons guidelines, but some of the Crystal icons that have too much detail (e.g. Krita), and therefore have low usability in small sizes, were still committed. The major problem is, are the developers that implemented these serious usability mistakes and those that produced the Crystal icons and the Keramik style going to be willing to produce guidelines that recognize that mistakes were made and that they need to be corrected. -- JRT