RFC: System Settings categorisation overhaul

[Darío Andrés]

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 4:23 PM, Aaron J. Seigo <aseigo at kde.org> wrote:
> On October 3, 2009, Ben Cooksley wrote:
>> Currently in System Settings the categories structure is not very easy
>> to use, and makes finding settings harder than it should be. In order
>> to correct this, a complete re-structure of the modules is required,
>> removing the General / Advanced sorting and giving modules clear
>> names.
>
> a reorganization idea happens every so many months. i push back on them nearly
> every time for the following reasons:
>

In this time I have been helping on KDE (1 year~) I haven't noticed
such change proposals yet. May be they didn't reach the mailing list
or I missed them.

> * the re-orgs are almost never done with usability testing; it's someone's
> best idea of the day
>

I just want to add that Ben did some mail exchanges with kde-usability people.

Also, he used this usability investigations to come up with his first proposal:
http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/Whiteboard/ControlCenter/Sun/StudyReport?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Study+Findings.html
http://live.gnome.org/UsabilityProject/Whiteboard/ControlCenter/Sun/StudyReport

Then we discussed several proposals and we finally used Ben's approach
with some changes.

> * any organization of that many settings as they currently are will have
> failings; it's a scope problem
>

Yes, I see that problem.(we had lot of trouble working on this "categories")

> * users learn the structure of the modules; when we change the structure on
> them all that learning is thrown away and they "get" to start over.
>
> so unless there's some proven benefit to this (yet another) run at
> reorganizing things, please don't. it's a disservice to our users.
>
> i'm not saying it couldn't be better, but let's be sure it gets done better
> instead of trying and running the risk of probably ending up with another not-
> great arrangement.
>

That's why we are discussing it here, to come up with something
better, which should be easy and discoverable.
If it is done properly, it should help us to get something better; and
the "relearning" process should not hurt at all.
(just my 2 cents)

> in the proposal made there are already evident issues with "look" (which
> should be appearance iirc?) and "behaviour"; there's inconsistency such as
> "semantic search" (tech jargon; wtf is "semantic", asks the user) when the UI
> the user sees in the workspace just says "Search Service".
>

Some naming changes were fixed already in the techbase page.

Look -> Appearance, fixed
Semantic Search -> Desktop Search, fixed

Also, in my last mail I have replied to some other naming related issues.

> what is so "personal" about the items in the Personal? other than user
> account, they aren't more "personal" than anything else. it's a dumping ground
> category.
>

> "Plasma" is shown in the UI. that is not what we show the user. we show the
> user "Workspace". the word "Plasma" should never be seen in the generic
> control UI.
>

Agreed.. Martin also talked about how we should define the "kde
workspace" (kwin+plasma+...)

> "Plasma Containments" is two jargon words put together. we should not be using
> jargon _anywhere_ in our UIs that the average user is meant to go through. in
> this case the name should be "Desktop Activities". it's a moot point in thi
> case, though, as this panel doesn't belong there at all (unless it's something
> other than what the name suggests?)
>

Agreed. (I never liked "Plasma Containments", but it was the first
name that come to my mind to describe it, sorry about that)

> Workspace and Application is lumped together under "look" and "behaviour"
> categories; is such a division meaningful? should it be divided into Workspace
> and Application instead, since that's how we're purposefully dividing things
> visually in the user experience? what do the control panels themselves lend
> themselve towards?
>

I like this separation, it would make sense and it will avoid the
look/behavior split.

> what's the difference between "Connections Manager" and "Connection Settings"?
> what "Resources" are being "shared"?
>

"Connections Manager" is just a dummy group for NetworkManager/WiCD ,
as I don't have such KCM I don't know how to group them nor name them
properly.
"Connections Settings" is the former "Network Settings" , proxy and
other connection preferences, timeouts and so on. Ben pointed that it
would make sense to merge this into "Connections Manager"..

"Resource sharing" should be "File sharing"

> is "Multimedia" really hardware?

"Multimedia" includes the Phonon KCM which is about configuring audio
and video output and settings, that kind includes hardware
configurations ("to which speaker should X category sounds be
played..."). but it is not strictly about hardware.. Where would you
put it.. ? could it fit on "Workspace"?

>
> would it make more sense to have Workspace / Applications / System instead of
> Personal / W & A Behaviour / Hardware?
>

Yes, as I said before it would make sense. The problem could appear
when defining which settings is from Applications, which one is from
Workspace and which one could be related to both.

About the last category, are you suggesting to merge "Hardware" +
"System Administration" ?

> and so on ..
>
> i really think this needs to be done with a greater amount of usability input
> and principles applied and with subsequent rounds of testing.
>

Agreed. Should we redirect this to kde-usability ?

> it will also probably mean reworking the content of some control panels.
>

Yes, some "modules" have to be stripped from some KCMs (nasty old code
to touch and mess with....)

Thanks for the feedback!

Regards
Darío

> --
> Aaron J. Seigo
> humru othro a kohnu se
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