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List: kde-usability
Subject: Proposal for KDE 4
From: fourhead <fourhead () geekspot ! de>
Date: 2005-09-23 18:12:32
Message-ID: 200509232012.40223.fourhead () geekspot ! de
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First, let me say hello to everybody, I'm new here, I have many ideas, and
since it's my job to set up computers for absolutely non-technical people, I
think I can tell a lot of the problems people have that are new to
computers :-)
Today I found a very interesting mockup of how KDE 4 could look:
http://kde-artists.org/main/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,48/expv,0/topic,417.0
I think this mockup has some very interesting ideas that should be considered.
It basically shows a document- or task-oriented design, instead of a
application-oriented design. In the top left, you have a few menus that give
you direct access to most common functions. "Create" lets you create text
documents, presentations, burn CDs etc. "Communicate" gives you quick access
to all your friends and to the internet. "Configure" gives you quick access
to the most common sysem config options.
The idea is kind of radical, but I think it's worth it. Non-technical people
that sit in front of a computer don't want to work with programs, they want
to get their work done. They don't want to use KOffice, they want to create
an text document. They don't want to open K3b (what does that mean
actually?), they want to burn a CD.
An interface similar to this mockup would give you the ability to concentrate
of what you actually want to do. If you want to write an email to a friend,
you don't have to care about your mail program, remember your friend's mail
address etc., you just click "Communicate->Contacts->Mary->Send mail". Thats
quick and intuitive.
I came up with a few more ideas that I've also posted in the threaded linked
above. I would get rid of the "Configure" button and instead add a button
"Computer" and a button "Media". The computer buttons has these entries
(propably a few more):
- Browse files
- Log off
- Shutdown
- Hibernate
- Configure
- Lock screen
Well, I think you get the point. A menu "Media" could contain entries like:
- Watch a movie
- View photos
- Listen to music
- Listen to webradio
... and stuff like that. Now, what do these link actually do (in the Media
menu)? Well, I was thinking about a file browser to be something like an
"universal file open dialog". Look at the file browser in the mockup: It
combines concepts of Konqueror and desktop search apps like Beagle. Now when
you click "Media->Watch a movie" this file browser could pop up, being
auto-configured to show you only video files, and your DVD drive if a DVD is
inserted. I mean, thas what you want, you want to watch a movie, so the
computer presents you a list of all movies on your computer. Of course this
list should be well organized, like showing recently used movies first,
ordering by some criteria etc.
Today, if I want to watch a movie, I have to either open Konqueror, browse
trough all my directories until I'm in my video directory, find the one I
want to look at and click it. Or I open a video application, click "Open
file" and do the same searching. I think the approach shown in this mockup
would be much more intuitive and useful.
So, this top-left menu should be only for the most common tasks. The
"Contacts" menu for example could show you only the 20 most frequently used
contacts, the "Read mail" menu could just display new messages etc. If you
want to see ALL yourcontacts, you can click on "Contact book" and you'll see
them, reorganize them etc. But the most common tasks - actually contacting
your contact, or perhaps update his telephone number, you can do right on the
desktop.
Now about this file browser. Well, actually, it's about apps in general. I
think most KDE apps today are just too bloated, too cluttered and too
overwhelming when you look at them. Honestly, it's sometimes not fun to look
at them, and with each KDE workstation I set up I first spend a few hours
removing all this unecessary stuff that 90% of all users will never use. A
default installation of Showimg for example has 26!!! toolbar buttons! I
immideately removed it, this was just too much to look at. I tried to just
quickly look at a photo fullscreen, and you first have to go trough this
mile-long toolbar to find the "fullscreen" button. It's somewhere in the
middle, it's the 18th button actually. Am I the only one using the fullscreen
button so often? Should't this be on the very left, large and bright, easy to
recognize and easy to find?
Well, I hope I don't sound like ranting, but I love KDE and I want it to be
the easiest, cleanest, smoothest, straight-forwardest and user-friendliest
desktop on the world, and think KDE needs some work to achieve this.
I'm looking forward to your comments!
Tom
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