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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Configure Desktop Background
From:       Simon Edwards <simon () simonzone ! com>
Date:       2002-06-07 18:05:42
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On Thursday 06 June 2002 19:26, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On June 6, 2002 11:00 am, Simon Edwards wrote:
> > 1) Because people will *not* realise that those two controls are actually
> > the same thing.
>
> please back this up with proof; my intuition says the exact opposite.

It looks like two separate things. How do people magically realise that it's 
the same thing? (and feel confident that they have correctly 'deduced' what's 
happening behind the scenes?)

> as it stands this is an empty assertion, something that this list is
> getting frustratingly full of recently. (this isn't your fault, we need
> users to test on)

Well, I did try to give some support to my assertion below. The stuff about 
virtual spaces comes directly from HCI research. (And I'll try to find the 
URL where I read about it. It's quite interesting actually). I don't just 
make this stuff up. ;-)

> > 2) It's not normal.
> nothing is normal, 

There are definately norms and expectations that people have/learn w.r.t. 
computers.

> > If if they do notice that a control is in two places
> > they will be very confused, and assume that they must be separate things
> > somehow. Otherwise why would there be two of them?
>
> because it belongs in more than one category. similar to how the same page
> might be indexed under two different headings in a book's index...

yes, but there is still one page, and you still turn to same page which is 
located at one place. I guess the real problem with the control center is 
that the categories suck. Each control should have one and only one position 
which is 'obvious' to the average user (or at least more obvious than any 
where else). Another thing, if a user looks for something and doesn't find 
under one category, then will just look somewhere else. I don't think putting 
things in the tree twice really buys much.

Anyway, if the control center was well organised, any need to duplicate 
controls would disappear and this conversation would rendered moot.

> > 3) People conceptulise (sp?) areas of software as being 'spaces' or
> > 'places'; things which are navigated through like space in the real
> > world. Having the same thing be in two different places at the same
> > deeply violates one of the basic pricipals of space. "A thing in space
> > only has one location." You don't see that happening in the real world do
> > you? Is you chair ever in two places at the same time?
>
> don't confuse "control" for "object".

I don't think users abstract a setting from the controls that are used to edit 
it. The control is the object from the users point of view. (Although from 
the programming point of view, a control just edits a setting somewhere, with 
the setting and control usually being separate QObjects etc)

> light switches for the same light source are found in multiple places in my

This is a good point. But I think that the situation in the Control Center is 
more like have two light switches locate less than one meter from each other. 
Having two switches located at opposite ends of a room makes sense, and it is 
obvious what's going on. It doesn't make sense to have two controls for the 
same thing positioned so close to each other.

> > 4) It needlessly clutters the control center and makes it appear big than
> > what it really is. Although the number of unique settings may be the
> > same, if you are looking for something you still have to look amongest
> > *all* of the controls in the center.
>
> in normal mode of usage, the user doesn't graze through every single
> control panel. 

Perhaps, but each extra piece of UI is another thing that people have to 
search through and ignore when they are looking for something else.

> > Aaron, can provide a quick list of which settings are duplicated? I don't
> > actually know, and I thought that I knew the control center quite well...
> no, because i honestly have better things to do with my time.

Can you point out just one pair? I'm searching through KDE 3.0.0 and I can't 
find one in the Control Center. :-/ or is this a CVS thing?

> [pixmap cache in the background kcm]
> > I've yet to meet someone who actually
> > *knew* what real effect this setting had on anything. Which is why this
> > setting is so useless... No one knows what it's consequences are...
>
> well, i know what the numbers mean, as do many other power users. which is
> why it needs to remain a power user's setting. it is useful in low memory
> situations.

But what does it do? Where is this cache? Is it in RAM? on disk? Gfx card mem? 
What? and how much mem do I have left over? Is it caching the current 
background or multiple images? I appreciate that it's for power users, but 
god damn, why should I have to read the source to find out what it really 
does? What if I really *do* need to use this setting, but I can't because I 
don't know it is what I need... The GUI could at least make some effort to 
explain what it is talking about here...


-- 
Simon Edwards             | Guarddog Firewall
simon@simonzone.com       | http://www.simonzone.com/software/
Nijmegen, The Netherlands | "ZooTV? You made the right choice."

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