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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: System Settings as a Design Lesson
From:       Celeste Lyn Paul <cpaul () user-centereddesign ! com>
Date:       2008-12-03 15:23:12
Message-ID: 200812031023.12528.cpaul () user-centereddesign ! com
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On Wednesday 03 December 2008 09:56:55 Michael Rudolph wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 18:27, Celeste Lyn Paul <celeste@kde.org> wrote:
> > This is really a minor MINOR issue compared to all the other System
> > Settings problems, such as a bad information architecture (what I plan on
> > talking about next). It is discouraging that a simple discussion meant to
> > be educational on a basic design principle gets everyone so upset. At the
> > same time, it is also a very basic error that I would not hesitate to
> > point out if it were a client application and would expect them to fix
> > it.
> >
> > --
> > Celeste Lyn Paul
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> thanks Celeste for bringing this up. I haven't read all the upset
> comments on your blog, but I for one am grateful that you brought it
> up. I don't really agree with you, that one version of system settings
> makes the association of content and header easier than the other; I
> think both 3.x and 4.x do "okayish" in that regard. But I completely
> agree with you on the importance of the mentioned principles of
> perception for designing user interfaces.
>
> Two ideas came to my mind upon reading your review, both aren't close
> to being solutions, but may help others to come up with something
> nice. First, reducing the length of the horizontal rule to the width
> of the content, might help making the association between content and
> header easier. Or second, increasing the header font size to 60 or 70
> pt, giving it a super low contrast colour and putting it behind the
> content will probably also work, nicely exploiting those principles of
> perception. But as I said, both are pointers at best.

Again, I wasn't saying that the 3.5 design was the best design, it was simply 
better than the 4.1 design for the reasons specified.  Just because A is better 
than B doesnt mean that C can't be better than A and B.

The point of the article was to be educational and get people to think harder 
about design decisions. Even now in discussing alternatives, people are 
applying the simple design principles I tried to explain. Considering the slew 
of alternate designs which resulted, I would say that it was successful in 
doing that.  

-- 
Celeste Lyn Paul, M.S.
Senior Interaction Architect
User-Centered Design, Inc.
www.user-centereddesign.com
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