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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Some conclusions regarding kickers default layout
From:       wvl <yatsu () wanadoo ! nl>
Date:       2002-07-26 22:18:17
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On Friday 26 July 2002 23:10, Eric Ellsworth wrote:
> > Is there any procedure, or 'default UI'-owner who can be consulted when
>
> there
>
> > is a UI change?
>
> This is a _really_ interesting idea - a coordinator for UI elements - like
> a kicker coordinator, a KFM coordinator, etc...
>
> Let me take this idea and run with it for a sec.....
>
> IIRC, one of the usability project's original ideas was to have a usability
> report coordinator for lots of parts of KDE.  I it would be great to have a
> usability coordinator that worked intensively with core developers as new
> things are being added to KDE.

I'm not sure you'd want this person to work 'intensively with core developers 
as new things are being added '. Afterall, everyone is in this for their own 
reasons. 

Instead of someone who fully focuses on usability you'd preferably want 
someone who is a common (read: any) KDE developer but is known to hack with 
the user in mind.

Anyway, the idea behind this is that instead of having to convince 20 people 
on a mailinglist of how things should be done, you would only have to 
convince one and ofcourse try not to step on too many peoples toes in the 
progress.

The advantages are pretty obvious. The disadvantage is that there might be 
less sense of freedom: a developer won't be able to just add his/she nifty 
feature infront of the user's nose.

> The coordinator would just be someone who was on top of what was going on
> with each piece of the UI, and hopefully someone the devs respected enough
> to listen to.  So for example, when someone wanted to adds a patch to put
> an image preview into tooltips in KFM,

Great feature BTW.

> would need to ask any new people for
> permission, but they'd give a heads-up to the usability coordinator, who'd
> throw to the usability (and other) lists, consolidate opinions from the
> list, and then give some feedback to the developer.  It looks like this is
> starting to happen, but a specific coordinator might be nice.
> So that's an idea.  Would it be worthwhile, or overly bureaucratic? 

That's how it could work. Although I wouldn't use the word 'permission'. Such 
a coordinator should be respected (or earn such respect in the progress) 
enough not to be 'forgotten' by the developer.

> What
> I'm thinking about is the seeming disconnect between the usability lists,
> where most people are not doing active development, but trying to consider
> interface issues, and the main development process of KDE.  In a nutshell,
> what's the best way to get the usability point of view to be considered as
> early as possible in the development process?

By hacking the code right _after_ it gets checked in ;)

- wvl
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