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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: The art of not offering customization
From:       "Michael W. Collette" <metrol () metrol ! net>
Date:       2002-05-31 4:16:15
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On Thursday 30 May 2002 06:49 am, Kristian Koehntopp wrote:
> Yes, and no. The control center was extremely unorganized, that
> was one problem. Part of the problem was, that the controls
> address the wrong level of abstraction, though.
>
> I believe my father would have had it easier if there were
> controls like "make all fonts larger", "make the system suitable
> for <profile group>/behave like <profile name>" - like themes,
> only capturing all aspects of the system.

Some good points all the way around in your post.  I have had an opportunity 
to observe a non-technical person start into getting comfortable with KDE.  
Although I probably provided more assistance than you did with your father, 
it still provides an interesting insight.  I also am the only computer tech 
support at my company, with mainly Windows machines and a couple of Macs.  
It's a very different perspective from being on the development end of 
things.  "Please turn the computer on BEFORE calling me" kind of 
conversations.

Anyhow, I wanted to address the above paragraphs for a moment.  Perhaps this 
is the middle ground between your position and Aaron's on this.  The hard 
part about this, is that in different respects you're both correct.  A new 
user to KDE is presented with too much, and user levels are most likely a bad 
idea.  These are not conflicting ideas.

Case in point, the initial KDE start up wizard.  Aside from some of the basic 
stuff like time zones and such, the usability tweaks are kept at a very high 
level of abstraction.  Quite honestly, too high for regular settings use.  If 
the level of abstraction were to be brought down a notch, seperated based on 
general concepts, and providing for advanced users to dig in deeper, we might 
be on to something.

Like the font issue you were describing.  Even if that area had 20 tabs worth 
of advanced settings, the first tab a user is presented with should instead 
have a high level control that tweaks a multitude of other settings.  
Settings the overall font size to "Ludicrously Huge" does this to all of the 
various places that font size is specified.  More involved users could then 
dig in beyond that to tweak all the different font settings they want.

Rather than user levels, this would involve more of a hiearchial setup.  More 
advanced users are simply more apt to go digging deeper than the rest of the 
crowd.  Deeper you dig, the more nit picky you can get about your settings.  
Nothing is hidden.

What you, me, and others on this list should be at least thinking about is how 
to get all this stuff organized in that kind of fashion.  Well, assuming that 
what I'm describing has any usable merit.

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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