HI all,
I just noticed the new "Do Geometric constructions" tool in the inkscape trunk, and this got me thinking a few things about this new tool (and inkscape usability and UX in general).
First up, this tool provides (among other things) two new ways to create a circle: "a circle by three points", and a "circle by center and radius". These are pretty neat additions, but my first question when I saw this was why is this in a completely separate tool, not as a sub-tool of the circle tool. I understand these are implemented as LPEs, but from a user point of view, if you want to create a circle, wouldn't you expect these options in the circle tool? If they were in the circle tool, there might even be the option to create a circle with the traditional mode of the circle tool, then fine-tune it with one of the other two "editing" modes, rather than it appear to the user to be three completely separate object types that can't be converted back and forth.
Something similar is also in play with the (present in 0.91 "shape" option of the pen tool) the "shape" option only works when creating a new line with the pen tool, while other tools (such as the star/polygon tool) allow changes in the tools control bar to impact the currently selected object.
I know this is kind of out of the blue, but i have been thinking a lot lately about some of the inconsistencies like this in the inkscape interface, and would love to try to help contribute to fixes / be involved with helping with the usability of new tools we create. Has there ever been anyone involved with doing usablity reviews / testing of this sort? (doctormon, i know you did some last year :) ) I know of plenty of UX people that use Inkscape that would probably be keen in contributing in this area.
cheers, ryanlerch