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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Toolbars
From:       Luciano Montanaro <mikelima () virgilio ! it>
Date:       2003-11-09 19:33:49
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On Sunday 09 November 2003 19:07, Henrique Pinto wrote:
> Hi!
>
> IMO, one of the biggest usability quirks of KDE is the toolbar layout of
> most apps. Consider, for example, Konqueror. It's default toolbar contains
> way too many icons (most of which are never used by average users), all of
> these being incredibly small.
>
> Most users assume toolbars contain quick links to the most used
> functionallity of an app. Right now, most of our apps contain much more
> options than needed, and, because of default settings, they aren't really
> "quick links", as it's difficult to find and click them.
>
> Based on Fitt's Law, I believe the better approach is using larger icons as
> default (32x32), with text at the bottom. Enabling this at KDE right now,
> however, will bring you more problems than solutions, since some text
> labels are incredibly long (and translations don't help, either), and most
> buttons end up hidden because of lack of space.
>
> My proposal here is to discuss ways by which toolbars can get better, and
> implement these after the release of KDE 3.2 (It is madness to try to do
> that for 3.2, IMO).
>

I'd remove the "print" button from most toolbars, for example. It is present 
almost anywhere, but I think it is not an operation done frequently enough to 
warrant it a place on the toolbar. When composing text with a word processor, 
it is common enough to print it out sooner or later, but most of the time 
the space occupied by the print icon could be put to better use.

Luciano

> Comments?
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