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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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