On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 06:06:49PM +0100, Thorsten Wilms wrote:
this started because the status bar messages were unclear and abbreviated.
You'd think people are only beginners once but unfortunately many people stay there, I for example dont use Blender often enough to retain what little I have learnt and I'm effectively a beginner everytime. If you have worked in technical support you find many more users are like this when it comes to their computer. without really trying inkscape has been successful in attracting artistic users who want inkscape for their various kidns of crafts work it will help if things can be kept simple with one right way to do things and not too many assumptions made about inkscape users being experts at technical drawing and wanting many different possibilities to achieve the same end results, as it is the results that matter.
You know, it occurs to me that the status messages and the layer dropdown may cater to different crowds. Being able to read the status messages clearly is something novice users need the most. The layer dropdown is something experienced users are after. Of course, there is some overlap (novice users needing layers will spot the layer dropdown first, and even experienced users will find info in the status bar of use from time to time).
But this makes me wonder if the status bar could benefit from some sort of adaptive ui behavior or perhaps just a configuration setting? For new users, the layer dropdown (among other things) could initially just be scary clutter, so clearing off the status bar in favor of status messages could make the application >look< a lot more approachable. Then, later once they've gotten more comfortable, they could graduate into expert mode and have these extra accessories turned on.
This may also fit in with a more mode-oriented usage model that we've discussed previously in the context of technical drawing vs. artistic drawing needs, which shows up in areas like snapping and so forth. The layer dropdown is not a good example here since both technical and artistic drawers need that, but a better example might be a symbol pallete (very important for tech drawing, but not so much for artists), vs. the color pallete (important for art, less so for tech). A framework that allowed the UI to adapt to different user modes could prove handy for a lot of different purposes. Another example would be a "child-oriented mode" where the UI is simplified to basic drawing options.
Ideally, we would be able to come up with a single design that suits all needs (e.g. moving it into the canvas), and it is very wise to always make that the top goal, since the fewer configuration options, the easier the software will be to test and maintain. In practice, though, as Inkscape's usage grows and fills in more and more niches, the need for usage-mode-specific UI layouts is going to grow.
I still think most users make it to some intermediate level. If you look at hours spent with a software, users that only touch it once in a while don't count.
Well, it depends on how you look at the project's goals. Certainly, our most important audience is users who contribute back to the project, and as such it's true that these users will be spending enough time with the project to get over small usability issues such as UI clutter. (Remember, every Inkscape user was a novice at one time.) However, Inkscape also has the goal of being a member of the larger open source community, and I think this involves embracing some of the more occasional style usages, such as if someone just needs to knock out a quick flyer for their club, or make a gift card for a relative. It would be a great sign of success if Inkscape were the only 2D drawing program required to be on the open source desktop.
Bryce
On 1/30/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
You know, it occurs to me that the status messages and the layer dropdown may cater to different crowds. Being able to read the status messages clearly is something novice users need the most. The layer dropdown is something experienced users are after.
Not at all. Education is only one of the functions of the statusbar tips. Much more important is the informational function: how many objects/nodes selected, of what kinds etc. I for one would feel suddenly blind and disabled without this information, even more than I would without the layers widget.
--- bulia byak <buliabyak@...155...> wrote:
On 1/30/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
You know, it occurs to me that the status messages and the layer dropdown may cater to different crowds. Being able to read the
status
messages clearly is something novice users need the most. The
layer
dropdown is something experienced users are after.
Not at all. Education is only one of the functions of the statusbar tips. Much more important is the informational function: how many objects/nodes selected, of what kinds etc. I for one would feel suddenly blind and disabled without this information, even more than I would without the layers widget.
completely agree. The message bar is easily on a par with the layers dropdown in terms of importance to me and my workflow.
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On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 05:11:33PM -0400, bulia byak wrote:
On 1/30/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
You know, it occurs to me that the status messages and the layer dropdown may cater to different crowds. Being able to read the status messages clearly is something novice users need the most. The layer dropdown is something experienced users are after.
Not at all. Education is only one of the functions of the statusbar tips. Much more important is the informational function: how many objects/nodes selected, of what kinds etc. I for one would feel suddenly blind and disabled without this information, even more than I would without the layers widget.
Evidently you've misread what I wrote. No where did I suggest removing the statusbar tips. What I said was that for novice users the status message is doubly important, so giving additional room for it would be even more important. For more advanced users, the current layout where the statusbar makes room for additional widgets like the layer dropdown would be preferred.
Bryce
On 1/30/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
Not at all. Education is only one of the functions of the statusbar tips. Much more important is the informational function: how many objects/nodes selected, of what kinds etc. I for one would feel suddenly blind and disabled without this information, even more than I would without the layers widget.
Evidently you've misread what I wrote.
I don't think so. You said that these two elements "appeal to different crowds" and I simply argued that it's not the case.
On Wed, Jan 31, 2007 at 11:06:46AM -0500, bulia byak wrote:
On 1/30/07, Bryce Harrington <bryce@...983...> wrote:
Not at all. Education is only one of the functions of the statusbar tips. Much more important is the informational function: how many objects/nodes selected, of what kinds etc. I for one would feel suddenly blind and disabled without this information, even more than I would without the layers widget.
Evidently you've misread what I wrote.
I don't think so. You said that these two elements "appeal to different crowds" and I simply argued that it's not the case.
And then immediately following, I also said:
"Of course, there is some overlap (novice users needing layers will spot the layer dropdown first, and even experienced users will find info in the status bar of use from time to time)."
Nowhere did I say, "Experienced users don't need the status messages, so let's remove that," which seems to be the case you're arguing against.
Bryce
Hi all,
On 2007-January-30 , at 20:59 , Bryce Harrington wrote:
On Tue, Jan 30, 2007 at 06:06:49PM +0100, Thorsten Wilms wrote:
this started because the status bar messages were unclear and abbreviated.
You'd think people are only beginners once but unfortunately many people stay there, I for example dont use Blender often enough to retain what little I have learnt and I'm effectively a beginner everytime. If you have worked in technical support you find many more users are like this when it comes to their computer. without really trying inkscape has been successful in attracting artistic users who want inkscape for their various kidns of crafts work it will help if things can be kept simple with one right way to do things and not too many assumptions made about inkscape users being experts at technical drawing and wanting many different possibilities to achieve the same end results, as it is the results that matter.
[...] But this makes me wonder if the status bar could benefit from some sort of adaptive ui behavior or perhaps just a configuration setting? For new users, the layer dropdown (among other things) could initially just be scary clutter, so clearing off the status bar in favor of status messages could make the application >look< a lot more approachable. Then, later once they've gotten more comfortable, they could graduate into expert mode and have these extra accessories turned on.
This may also fit in with a more mode-oriented usage model that we've discussed previously in the context of technical drawing vs. artistic drawing needs, which shows up in areas like snapping and so forth. The layer dropdown is not a good example here since both technical and artistic drawers need that, but a better example might be a symbol pallete (very important for tech drawing, but not so much for artists), vs. the color pallete (important for art, less so for tech). A framework that allowed the UI to adapt to different user modes could prove handy for a lot of different purposes. Another example would be a "child-oriented mode" where the UI is simplified to basic drawing options.
I have been thinking about exactly this for a while but did not know how to suggest it. I think that application profiles/modes could be a good answer to some usability issues. They already exists in other (quite different for sure) software: in text editors for example you don't want your editor to behave the same depending on which language you work in (C, Java, TeX...). I don't know if many users here know TextMate, a text editor on Mac OS X, but everything in this editor is about switching profiles when you switch to a different file: in addition to a basic invariable set (copy, paste, tab management etc) there is a specific set of commands associated with each language, with its specific set of keyboard shortcuts. And this editor is very popular in part because of this flexibility. I think Emacs behaves this way too. Inkscape could benefit from a similar approach, but it surely needs a lot of thinking first. My humble opinion is that beginner vs. advanced profiles won't work because one can be quite advanced in some areas (eg node editing) and beginning in others (eg. color management). Furthermore, a beginner and an advanced users essentially have the same goals, it's just that the beginner does not know how to achieve them and restraining them in a limited or a less accessible functionality mode won't help them. In addition, as someone already mentioned: how can one know when he is ready to switch to advanced mode? On the contrary, CAD/technical, diagramming, GIS, artistic, child modes could be very efficient in exposing only the "right" features to the user or exposing the same features differently. Indeed, depending on which kind of work you do, your _goal_ is different and the application can help you achieve it. For example, in CAD you probably want a grid in cm, which always snaps, you probably want your tools to retain a specific style (eg. black outline, no fill), you may find a "placement" tool handy (eg. a window in which you can specify coordinates and size of a new object and then add it), you may want to position your guides numerically too and so on. In diagramming mode you want the connector tool to be central, you want objects to have magnets on their border too, you want some automatic layout feature. It is likely you do not need the calligraphy tool but may want some additional shapes or a symbol palette as Bryce mentioned. In artistic mode you may not need the rulers, a symbol palette, the connector tool or the coordinate inspector on the bottom right. You want the colors to be easily accessible and conspicuous (larger status bar?). And so on and so forth. As you may have noticed, there are not many things I mention here which do not already exist in Inkscape. Application profiles is just about exposing them or not, or exposing them differently, not having to crawl down to the preferences each time you change your use of Inskcape. On a longer term, if Inkscape acquires some bitmap editing functionality, a "bitmap" mode will be necessary (eg. Xara has kind of this: bitmap editing is done in a different window with different tools) and it would just fit within the pre-existing modes.
Ideally, we would be able to come up with a single design that suits all needs (e.g. moving it into the canvas), and it is very wise to always make that the top goal, since the fewer configuration options, the easier the software will be to test and maintain. In practice, though, as Inkscape's usage grows and fills in more and more niches, the need for usage-mode-specific UI layouts is going to grow.
And I think this is true for many applications, not only for Inkscape (I whish Thunderbird could hide my mail when I read news and hide my news when I read mail, I wish there was a video encoding tool in which options change depending on wether you encode from DVD or a live stream, wether you want high or low quality, I wish there was only one music handling application in Gnome which plays mp3s, cds and encodes/converts music but in which the UI adapts to these needs etc.)
I hope this will help. What about starting a wiki page for ideas collection and UI mockups?
JiHO --- http://jo.irisson.free.fr/
JiHO said:
On the contrary, CAD/technical, diagramming, GIS, artistic, child modes could be very efficient in exposing only the "right" features to the user or exposing the same features differently. Indeed, depending on which kind of work you do, your _goal_ is different and the application can help you achieve it.
Well written post! I agree whole-heartedly. I am one of the users who come this application for its CAD-like abilities. While I have tried freehand drawing, I am poor at this and I know it, and consequently never look for these sorts of features.
However I also really enjoy OmniGraffle for doing UML, context diagrams, trees, etc. Having that sort of graphic-centric mode really is very conceptually different but would be great to have in Inkscape.
I can certainly believe that done correctly this is a non-trivial coding problem, but nonetheless worthwhile looking at from my perspective. And as the father of a 4 year old, a child mode would be amazing!
-Andrew
On 1/31/07, jiho <jo.irisson@...155...> wrote:
Inkscape could benefit from a similar approach, but it surely needs a lot of thinking first. My humble opinion is that beginner vs. advanced profiles won't work because one can be quite advanced in some areas (eg node editing) and beginning in others (eg. color management). Furthermore, a beginner and an advanced users essentially have the same goals, it's just that the beginner does not know how to achieve them and restraining them in a limited or a less accessible functionality mode won't help them. In addition, as someone already mentioned: how can one know when he is ready to switch to advanced mode?
Exactly my thoughts.
On the contrary, CAD/technical, diagramming, GIS, artistic, child modes could be very efficient in exposing only the "right" features to the user or exposing the same features differently. Indeed, depending on which kind of work you do, your _goal_ is different and the application can help you achieve it.
Agreed. And as a first step towards this, let's make it easier for the user to make such "profiles" for himself. We really need a "Save as template" command which should be very easy to program based on the "Save a copy". All it has to do is just go to the templates directory in the save dialog, to save the user from wading there on his own (which is confusing and different on different platforms). Any takers?
participants (5)
-
Andrew Mellinger -
Bryce Harrington -
bulia byak -
jiho -
John Cliff