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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: optionitis
From:       "Michael W. Collette" <metrol () metrol ! net>
Date:       2002-02-19 9:33:00
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There's a fella by the name of Joel Spolsky who has a pretty interesting site 
up concerning software development.  Not always in agreement with his 
opinions on things, but he does tend to make some darn good points along the 
way.

The following is an excerpt from his comments concerning "bloatware".

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000020.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of software developers are seduced by the old "80/20" rule. It seems to 
make a lot of sense: 80% of the people use 20% of the features. So you 
convince yourself that you only need to implement 20% of the features, and 
you can still sell 80% as many copies. 

Unfortunately, it's never the same 20%.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I think KDE has optionitis. That is, there are too many unnecessary
> options.

If there's a problem, it's not that there are too many options.  The real 
problem is that the options are either stuffed away into "Control Center" or 
application preferences.  Where the options need to be is where the specific 
tweaks will actually have an effect.

A couple of quick examples.

A while back I was evaluating an E-Mail app for Windows.  One of the features 
that stuck out was so obvious as to be baffling why others don't do this.  At 
the bottom of the new message composition were all the controls needed for 
creating, editing, and saving signatures.  There it all was, right at the 
time I would most likely be thinking about it, not buried away in some config 
screen.

As I'm sure has been mentioned about quite a bit, take a look at what 
Microsoft did with the "Start" menu as of Win98.  You can drag and drop items 
around, copy them from place to place, pull up properties, and even delete 
items right there IN the menu.  No special app, or knowledge of where the 
shortcuts are located is required.  Heck, I learned about this from my then 
12 year old daughter!

Personal Probs:

I personally hate the "single-click to launch" default that KDE comes with.  
I know, it's supposed to be some sort of web thing... bleh.  When I first got 
to looking around to put things back to the "right way"(tm) of doing things I 
started with a right-click on the desktop.  No help.  Ahh, must be in the 
"Control Center" someplace I reckon.  Seems like a look and feel sortta 
thing.  First stop, Icons.  No help.  Of course, Launch Feedback.  Foiled 
again!  Window Behavior maybe??  Not a chance!  Ummm, Desktop then?  Nope!

Of course I eventually did locate it under Periphals > Mouse... err, after 
someone on IRC was kind enough to point me in the direction.  I've been in 
front of a computer of some sort for well over 15 years.  I've been an admin 
in a number of places using a variety of operating systems.  Here I found 
myself totally perplexed by one simple tweak.  I just couldn't connect in my 
mind mouse settings with how an icon would respond by clicking on it.

The moral of this story is not specifically about the double click option.  
There are a number of options such as this that have one place to change 
them, and if you don't know that specific place you've got hours of 
not-so-fun time on your hands.  Simple things like this need to be mirrored 
to multiple locations, and provided for at the point where the user is most 
likely to be concerned with them.  Had "Mouse Clicking" options been a part 
of the "Desktop" settings I would have been 2 clicks away from gettings 
things like I wanted.

The primary question that should be asked for most of the usability options 
should be, "when would I most likely be thinking about tweaking this?"

Sigs for E-Mail  -- When composing a message
Mouse clicks     -- Clicking on desktop, or browsing files
K Menu Placement -- When looking at it

That single question is the one that I don't think has been asked nearly 
enough on any system.  I would hope that this is the kind of question that 
this project puts a laser beam focus on.

Later on,
-- 
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too 
dark to read."
 - Groucho Marx
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