[Kde-games-devel] Usability review and advice for kdegames

[Nicolas Roffet]

Hi Mauricio, hi Dmitry,


Le mercredi 25 juillet 2007, Mauricio Piacentini a écrit :
> Dmitry Suzdalev wrote:
> >>  - Could we have the message on the corner?
> >
> > Personally I'd like to show "GAME OVER" in center :)
> > Well, even if I place it in the corner it still may hover some mines -
> > only the corner ones :).
>
> I like it in the center as well for game over... Maybe you can make it
> 90% or 85% opaque, like the KBlocks one? This can be enough to let the
> user see the underlying field solution, perhaps...

Good idea!


> >>  - Could it be possible to click on it to hide it instantly (before the
> >> end of
> >> the timer)?
> >
> > I guess no. KGamePopupItem is specifically designed not to hide while
> > it has the mouse above it - that is so user can hover the item and
> > read whole message without having it disappear.
> > You think that should be changed?

I think, this is not a problem. This is even a nice feature. :) I don't want 
to remove it.

But, why could not the pop-up also disappear instantly IF the player CLICKS on 
it?
As a user, I would try to click on the pop-up message to hide it, after having 
read the message. And today, nothing happends if I click on the message... 
(Of course, if I wait a bit, it will disappear by itself, but that's not the 
point. This is good and should not be changed.)

If the mouse is by chance over the pop-up, the message will not disappear. But 
if the user don't know he has to move the mouse but want to close the pop-up, 
I'd bet he'll also try to click on the pop-up... -> So it would be nice if in 
this case, the message disappears. 
That's my wish. Not more. Am I clear? Do you have reasons against it? I don't 
see any... yet!

(For your information, the former class KInformationLabel of kdelibs did this. 
See "Behavior" section in 
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:5QRdaHRZsD8J:api.kde.org/4.0-api/kdelibs-apidocs/kdeui/html/classKInformationLabel.html+KInformationLabel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&gl=fr )


> I am not sure this is needed, but if you want to add this capability you
> could maybe do like the Firefox information bar... Add a small element
> at the right that can be clicked to close it. Maybe this element can
> appear only when the mouse is hovered over the KGamePopupItem?
>
> A rough idea is at
>
> http://www.tabuleiro.com/mauricio/usabilityreview/usability10.png
>
> Of course, the label needs to be a bit wider in this case to accomodate
> the close widget. I am not sure if this is needed, however. 

I think this is also a good idea. A bit more complicated, but why not? It 
looks nice. :)


> Maybe the 
> best thing is to reduce the time of the messages to at most 2-3 seconds
> before they automatically disappear, 

We should think about this... The main question is: Is it a problem if the 
pop-up remains displayed because the mouse is over it and the user doesn't 
know this and doesn't move the mouse and just waits...? Maybe it's not a 
problem and we don't need to do anything...
( -> But what about if he clicks on the message instead of wainting?... ,-) )


> and make it a bit transparent in 
> cases like this.

For KMines, yes, I think we need this anyway. Because the player wants quickly 
to see where the mines are located.

-- 
Nicolas
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