From kde-usability Sun Jul 25 06:14:21 2004 From: "Jamethiel Knorth" Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 06:14:21 +0000 To: kde-usability Subject: Re: Few miscellaneous suggestions Message-Id: X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-usability&m=109073679800881 >From: Brad Hards >Date: Sun, 25 Jul 2004 14:06:31 +1000 > >On Sun, 25 Jul 2004 05:53 am, James Richard Tyrer wrote: > > A simple metric would be to decompose it into three matrices one for >each > > color, take the two dimensional FFT of each one. You can obtain the > > digital equivalent to a volume under each FFT by a scalar addition of >all > > of the entries in each FFT result matrix. So that icons of different >sizes > > can be compared, you actually want the average so you should normalize >the > > sum by dividing it by the number of scalers summed (the area of the icon >in > > square pixels). Then take the square root of the sum of the squares of > > these three (normalized) scalar sums and you will have a very rough >metric > > of the information contained in an icon. Note that for a first example, >it > > should be obvious that a gray square would have a value of 0 indicating > > that it had no information. >You are still missing my point that the useability of a desktop is not only >a >function of the information in each icon. The screen doesn't have equal >importance at all areas - you'd need to apply some form of weighting >function. > >Even at the icon level, you're still incorrect in assuming that something >that >has a wide range of frequencies in each colour is going to be more useable >than something that has less. That would mean that the more garish an icon, >the more useable it is! I think that grey'd out icons actually convey >information to the user, but by the frequency measure, an icon set without >grey'd out icons would be considered more useable. Further, why do you >think >that root-sum-squares of the per-colour scalar sums is meaningful in >general? >We know that men and women perceive colour differently. So I don't seen >even >a meaningful measure of how useful an icon is (even with some opinion based >weighting of a FFT of a YUV representation). > >Real life test results of various theme options, using the same test tasks >(with the same apps, same displays, statistically significant test >population, etc) is objective. Anything less is opinion. Arguing that everything which isn't backed by a study is useless is not useful. If we decide to do nothing whenever we don't have a study, we will never do anything. And, even besides that, studies are commonly wrong and should only ever be one element involved in a decision. The fact is, accuracte tests are virtually non-existent, and a test good enough to be considered infallible is exorbidantly expensive. We work with what we have, and what we have does not usually include massive usability testing. Just because you were responding to someone who said 'information theory' doesn't mean it isn't a basic usability rule that more information is more confusing to users. If we are ignoring some fundamental things like that (which have been backed up by studies) we might as well not have this list because we cannot afford to do a study for everything we do. Keramik does give more information. The window border includes more lines, shapes, and gradients. This is easily provable. Plastik gives the same amount of useful information because both Keramik and Plastik have the exact same button set. The same thing goes for the widget style, in which Keramik buttons ARE more complex, while Plastik buttons convey the identical purpose with less information. Since Plastik has a solid outline with no frills around all widgets, if contrast is an issue it is due to the color scheme more than the widget style. This doesn't mean that we should just switch to Plastik right now; the documentation thing is still a major issue. I'd have to say that we shouldn't switch to Plastik for 3.3 because it is too close to the deadline right now, there is too much documentation which will be out-of-date, and because it will represent a sweeping change between two minor version numbers in a system. If the switch were to be made, I would say it should be made more for reasons of public outcry than usability. The fact is, window decoration styles are mostly a subjective issue, and there are a ton of people vocally requesting the change. It's a good thing to listen to the user-base, especially when the impact on usability is so incredibly minor. _________________________________________________________________ Discover the best of the best at MSN Luxury Living. http://lexus.msn.com/ _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability