[857] in Athena User Interface
Re: Sawfish capplet usability
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dryfoo@MIT.EDU)
Tue Aug 14 23:56:19 2001
From: dryfoo@MIT.EDU
Message-Id: <200108150356.XAA01442@benny-carter.mit.edu>
To: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
cc: aui@MIT.EDU
cc: active_mini@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 03 Aug 2001 03:02:03 EDT."
<200108030702.DAA19396@Press-Your-Luck.mit.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Aug 2001 23:56:17 -0400
Please please! If you make any of these changes (especially the
terminology ones) PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I'm trying to put at least a few
pages into the intro minicourse about Sawfish (and Gnome) and as you say
the terminology isn't the clearest. If you come to new conclusions, let
us know and we'll incorporate them in what we're teaching people.
Thanks,
-- Gary L. Dryfoos, <dryfoo@mit.edu>
Consultant, I/S Training & Publications
N42-240, 617.253-0184
} From: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
}
} So I was doing a bit of research on Sawfish both to answer Bill and
} Heather's questions, and so I could file accumulated bug reports on
} Sawfish. I came across bug #4365 (bugzilla.eazel.com) "Need HI expert
} to look at configuration capplet/tool". (Capplets are the top-level
} items in Control Center.) So, I went through and filed a bunch of
} suggestions which I logged as dependencies of this bug. I'm sharing
} them here to avoid duplication of effort.
}
}
} [8455] Terminology in configuration tool
}
} - "Matched Windows" is not the most intuitively obvious title for new
} users. Perhaps "Special Cases" or "Application-Specific" or
} "Customize Apps" would be clearer.
}
} - "Shortcuts" is not the most intuitively obvious title for new
} users. Perhaps "Bindings" or "Keyboard/Mouse" or "Key/Mouse
} Bindings" would be clearer.
}
} - "Meta" is not the most intuitively obvious title for new users.
} Perhaps "Advanced Options" would be clearer.
}
} - In the "Appearance" section, "Default frame style" is probably not
} the most intuitively obvious label for new users. Perhaps "Default
} window decoration style" would be clearer. Actually, replacing the
} term "frame" with something more familiar, like "decorations" in
} all user-visible locations might be advisable.
}
}
} [8456] Configuration tool should give immediate feedback
}
} - In the "Appearance" section when running in Control Center, when
} you select a new theme under "Default frame style", the
} corresponding tab for that theme does not immediately appear at the
} top of the window. It does appear after you hit OK to close the
} capplet, and then go back into it again. Users trying out new
} themes would most likely not know that they are further
} configurable. Also, tabs which are no longer needed do not go away
} when a different theme is chosen.
}
} - Changes to the "show variable names of each customization option"
} in the Miscellaneous section option do not take effect when the
} users pushes "Try" when running in Control Center.
}
} - In the "Meta" section when running in Control Center, there is a
} pull-down menu titled "Buttons shown in configurator". This has no
} effect in this environment and is somewhat confusing. It should be
} removed from this display, or at the least only displayed to
} "Expert" users.
}
}
} [8457] Clarity in configuration tool
}
} - The Context pulldown menu in the Shortcuts section is easy for new
} users to miss. Perhaps a selectable list of some sort would reduce
} confusion.
}
} - The "Grab" feature under Control Center -> Sawfish -> Shortcuts ->
} Edit is unable to capture double, triple, etc. clicks. It is not
} intuitively obvious that manually entering "Button1-Click2" is the
} right thing to do.
}
}
} [8458] Navigation in configuration tool
}
} - In the Shortcuts section, when viewing as a "Novice" user, none of
} the options displayed seem particularly useful in isolation, and
} should probably be removed. In particular, the "Context:"
} pull-down menu is empty and appears to be malfunctioning.
}
} - The "Miscellaneous" tab in the Miscellaneous section has way too
} many options when viewed as an "Expert" user. (It causes my
} gnomecc window to be resized to nearly the entire screen height.)
} It should be split into multiple tabs, perhaps arranged around the
} following themes: Windowshading, Stacking, Root Window Menu, Other.
}
} - The "show variable names of each customization option" should be
} moved from the Miscellaneous section to the Meta section.
}
} - The following options should be moved from the Expert level to
} Intermediate, for consistency:
} - The full list of contexts in the Shortcuts section
} - "Number of milliseconds before removing tooltips" in
} Miscellaneous -> Tooltips
}
}
} [8459] "Default frame style" menu hard to manipulate
}
} - In the "Appearance" section when running in Control Center, you
} cannot select a new theme by clicking on the down arrow next to the
} "Default frame style" field, releasing, and then clicking on your
} theme of choice. Instead, you must click on the down arrow, hold
} down the button, and drag the mouse to the desired theme.
}
}
} [8460] Font color is difficult or impossible to change
}
} - In most themes, there is no way to change the color of text
} displayed in titles. New users looking at the Appearance page
} would probably expect to be able to do this from the "Browse"
} button on the main screen, rather than from the theme-specific
} customization page, where the option actually exists for the smaker
} theme. Sun also commented on this task in their usability test.
} See:
} http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/ut1_report/customization_tasks.htm
| l
}
} In general, I would expect this simple and very user-visible
} parameter to be easy to change. I realize this may be a difficult
} chance, since the option to change the font color currently appears
} to be left up to the theme creator. Perhaps this could continue to
} be the case, but with a general facility to allow the user to
} override the theme's choice.
}
}
} ===============================================================
} Christopher Beland - http://web.mit.edu/beland/www/contact.html
} MIT STS/Course 6 (EECS) - MIT Athena User Interface Project
} The Talk of MIT ** http://web.mit.edu/beland/talk/talk.html
} ===============================================================
