[dot] HIG Hunting Season Now Open

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1178743323/

From: Ellen Reitmayr <ellen at kde.org>
Dept: make-kde-more-usable
Date: Wednesday 09/May/2007, @13:42

HIG Hunting Season Now Open
===========================

   In the scope of the KDE 4 Usability Review Cycle that started on May
9, the KDE Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Working Group hereby
announces the HIG Hunting Season to be open. Read on for more details.

     The HIG Hunting Season is an experiment to include the community
into the search for obvious infringements of the KDE Human Interface
Guidelines. As those are not fully finished yet, the HCI working group
is currently preparing HIG checklists that help to uncover small
potatoes that disturb a seamless use experience, such as inconsistencies
among applications, incomplete keyboard access, missing feedback, or
overloaded configuration dialogs, toolbars or menus. In short: We are
asking the community to report user interface and interaction issues
that can be stated like bugs.

     Applications can be analysed through these checklists by anyone who
is testing KDE 4 - users, technical writers, translators, artists,
accessibility evangelists, developers, usability people - anyone!
Infringements are reported in the bug tracking system and tagged with
the attribute "HIG", so it is easy for developers to search and fix them
during the usability review cycle.

     Today's Checklist: Configuration Dialogs

 Today's checklist is about Configuration Dialogs
[http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines/index.php/Checklist_Configuration_Dialogs]
- we plan to announce more lists every three or four days, for example
toolbars, menus, context menus, color settings, keyboard access,
feedback dialogs, and more.

     The procedure for reviewers is pretty simple:
 You pick an application which is already in trunk, but not yet reviewed
by another person. See this wiki page
[http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=hig_hunting_season] for
reference. You open a checklist - today's focus is Configuration Dialogs
[http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines/index.php/Checklist_Configuration_Dialogs]
- and go through the checklist items. For each infringement you find,
post a bug. In the title, write "HIG" and the number of the checklist
item which is not met (e.g. CL1/1.1). On the wiki page of the checklist
[http://wiki.kde.org/tiki-index.php?page=Checklist+1%3A+Configuration+Dialogs],
add a section for the application you reviewed and link all bugs you
have created.

     For developers, this will probably mean a lot of work. However,
many of the HIG bugs can be fixed easily by referring to the checklist,
others will be harder. Regarding configuration dialogs, bugs that
concern the dialog navigation or size of dialogs can be fixed easily,
problems concerning the categorization or grouping require further
analysis. Please write an email to kde-usability-devel
[https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-usability-devel] for HCI
support.

     Note that this is an experiment, and we hope that many members of
the community will contribute to make KDE 4 a consistent and compelling
user experience!