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List:       kde-panel-devel
Subject:    Re: Ways of Plasma Questions
From:       Michael Rudolph <michael.rudolph () gmail ! com>
Date:       2008-07-25 16:15:27
Message-ID: 200807251815.28121.michael.rudolph () gmail ! com
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On Thursday 24 July 2008 16:24:58 Celeste Lyn Paul wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I just finished reading "The ways of Plasma".  I assume that this is
> the latest inception of the desktop vision document. From the mailing
> lists, it seemed like a few people have been working on it over the
> past few months.
>
> As a designer, I feel there is still a lot of information missing
> from this document.  I've learned the parts of the desktop (windows,
> icons, systray, etc.), but all of the information is either very
> conceptual or too specific. It doesn't give me any context in to how
> the system is supposed to work as a whole and what the user's role
> will be.
>
> Take for example, the Icons section.  I'm not sure what I'm supposed
> to take away from this section that will help me design a better
> Plasmoid. I'm I repurposing the document in to something it was never
> supposed to be?
>
> The document also describes two use cases -- Maria and Carlos.  But
> for actual use, they are too incomplete to be useful to me.  They
> tell me what the user is doing, how they do it, but not why.  Knowing
> the why helps me solve problems.
>
> * Why did Mario create those categories (University, Hobbies,
> Private)?  Did she have too much information to deal with it all at
> once?  Or is she just a maximizer-organizer who likes to
> compartmentalize her life?
>
> * Why did Carlos create a document workspace?  Is this something he
> has been working on recently or over a long period of time?  Does he
> create work spaces for all of his activities or only some of them? 
> How many activities does he normally have going on and which ones
> make the cut to become "activities" on his desktop?
>
> From what I gather, Plasma is trying to be a dashboard or portal for
> activities; activities being any combination of tasks involving one
> or more applications or documents over a period of time.  Instead of
> the user having to manage documents and applications separately and
> time and space, all the tools can be put in the same bucket, tray,
> container, whatever, which can be labeled, put to the side, and
> called on when the user wants to play with the stuff in that bucket.
>
> So basically, it a glorified shortcut manager with lots of cool and
> useful tools and looks pretty?  In the end, I think (I'm sure I will
> be corrected) I understand the vision of Plasma (what Plasma is
> trying to do), but I still don't understand the user's role in it.
>
> Some user information useful to me as a designer which is currently
> missing from the Plasma documentation:
>
> * What types of users are going to be using Plasma.  All of them.  If
> I change something for one user group, I need to know how it effects
> all the other user groups.
>
> * What types of users are going to be taking advantage of
> non-defaults, so I know which user groups I can ignore when designing
> certain classes of functionality
>
> * What are the kinds of things you can do with Plasma, and which user
> types will be likely to do them (related to the previous question). 
> Obviously not everyone is going to do everything.
>
> * What are the parts of the Plasma desktop, their interactions, and
> their roles within a user's activities?  Are differnt users going to
> use the same parts of the desktop in different ways?
>
> * What are some user scenarios and cases of some real-life
> activities.
>
> These are the types of questions I am asking myself as I take a
> critical look at a UI or am trying to change or design a new one. 
> Are there answers for these questions?
>
> As a side discussion, has anyone used, read, or generally found the
> results from user research interviews I did back in April useful? 
> Once the raw results came out, no one seemed to do anything with it
> further and so I stopped working on it.  It would be helpful to know
> what went wrong because I often do this type of activity with clients
> and they get a lot out of it. What was different for Plasma?  Did you
> not like the results?
>
> ~ Celeste

Hi Celeste,

thank you so much. This is the kind of feedback I've been hoping for. 
Yes, the version on techbase is the latest version. And no, so far I'm 
the only one writing on the document.

I think I mastered a bearable level of linguistic precision along with 
clarity in my native language; but I'm clearly still lacking that in 
the English language. I hope to improve that, for my own sake and also 
for the sake of the ways of the plasma. So I'm really grateful for your 
suggestions and corrections.

You are right, that it is pretty apparent that I'm having trouble to 
uphold a leitmotiv throughout the document. This has to do with my 
fuzzy definition of the target audience. I surely want the document to 
be an inspiration in the user interface design process, but at the same 
time hope to explain to the interested user, what Plasma tries to 
achieve for her or him. I will have to do better in this department.

I'd just like to outline, how I hope the ways of the plasma will come 
out in the end. I won't comment on all of your points (now); and I'll 
create a new thread to discuss the scenarios to prevent this thread 
from getting too loaded and confusing.

In the first part I want to give some context; who we are, where we're 
coming from, and where we want to go. From there (1.2) I want to 
explain how we can get there. Namely by focusing on the user and 
understanding what the user wants to do when he uses a computer. The 
sections 1.2.x are supposed to show how we failed so far by picking a 
few interface concepts and highlighting how they are advanced without 
any regard for their real purpose of easing the use of computers for 
humans. These subsections aren't supposed to present any solutions (as 
if I had them), but to unbuckle the mental straightjacket in the ui 
design process and to show how all concepts can and need to be 
questioned.
After that (1.3) I want to present some sketches of how a system might 
look like, that's been designed without any attachment to these false 
concepts. So far there are two (Maria and Carlos), but there are at 
least two more, that I'd like to do (when inspiration hits), that deal 
with mobile devices and with socializing in the age of myspace, 
linkedin, et al. 

The next part (not written yet) deals with Plasma's architecture and how 
plasmoids and containments can be used to create a system like Maria's 
or Carlos'. But how this architecture also allows to create other 
interesting interfaces (and uninteresting ones).

These are basically my plans for the document. The writing needs to be 
improved for sure, but I also wanted to release early, release often, 
to get the necessary feedback, so I won't learn, after the document is 
finished, that the community actually wanted to go into a different 
direction and has another vision.

I take away from your comments so far, that my writing needs to be much 
clearer and that the scenarios need to be improved. If you are okay 
with the general structure proposed, I'll start with improvements, 
otherwise I'd rather get the structure sorted out first.

As I said, I'd like to break the discussion of scenarios up into another 
thread. So thanks again, Celeste.

michael
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