On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Nathan Hurst wrote:
Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 10:03:06 +1100 From: Nathan Hurst <njh@...5...> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@...44...> Cc: inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Re: 'dialogs' menu (screenshot inside)
Alan Horkan wrote:
...be far better if you used the ellipse icon that doesn't have a segment sliced out of it (because the ellipse tool in inkscape cannot draw shapes like that yet).
Bollocks. Do the tutorial.
I was only half joking when I said users dont read manuals.
Users only read manuals as a last resort. Most users hate being forced to read the manual. Users despise being told to RTFM (which is exactly what you just did albeit in a slightly amusing way) and are fairly likely to give up and use something else.
Programmers learn to read manuals because if the manual is any good (like FreeBSD man pages) it saves them trouble in the long run but even then it is a gamble that you will be able to find the information you want in the manual. The Inkscape tutorial is not searchable, nor does it have a hyperlinked table of contents (yet) so even if you have read it but cannot quite recall what it said it would take a while to check the details, not much time but time users would rather not have to spend.
Insisting that users of a Graphical Application must read the manuals is simply wrong. Even with a Command Line Application if they were smart enough to make their application consistant with most of the GNU tools and provide a short and sweet usage message then it will mean that most users wont be forced to read the manual.
Clever use of status messages and tooltips (and in rare cases error messages) should ensure that the manual is a useful extra resource not a necessity.
I think the 'Pac-man' shaped icon is misleading and shouldn't be used as the default icon for the ellipse tool. With Icon theming it is very easy for us to agree to disagree on this and have what we want for our own personal theme but I would urge to the developers to ask the gnome usability list (usabilty at gnome dot org) before accepting the 'pac-man' icon as the default.
- Alan