From kde-usability Sat Mar 12 15:31:18 2005 From: "Aaron J. Seigo" Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 15:31:18 +0000 To: kde-usability Subject: Re: What is obvious?; Context sensitive sidebars. Message-Id: <200503120832.08483.aseigo () kde ! org> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde-usability&m=111064163226494 MIME-Version: 1 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="--===============1863277440==" --===============1863277440== Content-type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary=nextPart1914407.B8s6Z8FYTO Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit --nextPart1914407.B8s6Z8FYTO Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline On Saturday 12 March 2005 03:49, Sven Burmeister wrote: > Am Samstag, 12. M=C3=A4rz 2005 03:09 schrieb Aaron Seigo: > > didn't we just finish discussing how it isn't intuitive for new users? > > perhaps you could refer to that thread... > > I am new to this list, so sorry for repeating the obvious. Why was there > not added some text for 3.4 then? because it doesn't look nice on anything other than a tiny panel. i=20 experimented with it briefly one day, but didn't have the time to try out=20 every possible combination. KDE is not what i do for employment, so my time= =20 is limited. there were also a lot of other bigger issues that affected more= =20 than first time users that needed (and still need) addresisng. > > > http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=3DKDE+Context-Sidebar > > > > this totally fails on lower resolution screens > > Might be, yet there will be less and less of those, apparently people tend > to buy bigger displays, leaving aside those WXGA displays. we have a policy of our UIs working on 800x600. there are a lot of people o= ut=20 there with 1024x768 and less, ergo the policy. > And as one could=20 > turn the sidebar off anyway I do not see your point. the point was that it doesn't work on low resolutions. not that people are= =20 forced to use them, but that it's a solution (which would require a LOT of= =20 effort to implement) that wouldn't be globally useful. > > i also think it's largely a solution looking for a problem. kmail's > > composer (shown in your screenshot) really doesn't present huge issues > > for the user. what would the sidebar provide, really? > > It would provide obvious functionality, i.e. written out as a basis. > Further have a look at the XP sidebars for the explorer the XP sidebar is a file manager thing. this is very different concept than= a=20 global context sidebar. i think such things make lots of sense for file=20 managers. i just don't see the applicability to a mail application. if you= =20 could help explain that, that would help things along. note that it's a lot less development effort to make a sidebar for a specif= ic=20 type of app than one for every type of app, and so that must be ballanced=20 against the utility of it.=20 > and gnome's dashboard to get some idea. the dashboard is a single pane, and even then it too gets in the way.=20 > As you did not find a single positive thing in the idea I somehow do not > know what to think, i'm not here to be the chearleader, i'm here to (hopefully) encourage criti= cal=20 thought and engage in a creative process. creating software isn't simply throwing random first draft ideas at develop= ers=20 who then code them and slap into CVS. or at least it shouldn't be. new=20 interface concepts should be thoroughly reviewed and considered. it's a tim= e=20 intensive effort to create these things, and our users (which includes us t= oo=20 =3D) are impacted enormously by our decisions here. > as I have seen many people who found Copy To.., as well=20 > as e.g. Slideshow for pictures on the XP sidebar immediately, because it > was written out. So there is definitively a thing that could be improved, > as they did not in KDE. this is specific to the konqueror sidebar, yes. i don't think this is a=20 problem shared globally amongst applications, however. we also just recentl= y=20 discussed how much the konqueror sidebar could use improving. perhaps you=20 could start by creating a set of mockups showing what an improved _konquero= r_=20 sidebar would look like. i just don't think that context sidebars really extend very naturally to ma= ny=20 applications. it's useful in a file manager, it's cool in amaroK... but wha= t=20 would appear in a kmail context sidebar that would improve the user=20 experience? =2D-=20 Aaron J. Seigo GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43 --nextPart1914407.B8s6Z8FYTO Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBCMwt41rcusafx20MRAsDSAKCSNJp7Jin/C4FI0uoMcCrBfUdflACffoTp cwXIyLu9d0ds5qQLM0dutuQ= =GoP+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --nextPart1914407.B8s6Z8FYTO-- --===============1863277440== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline _______________________________________________ kde-usability mailing list kde-usability@kde.org https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability --===============1863277440==--