[Kde-games-devel] KGameDifficulty

[Ian Wadham]

On Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:24 am, Mauricio Piacentini wrote:
> > - Not every input can be put in the status
> > - The  widget must be clear, and show to the user "you can change it".
>
> OK, I think I agree with you here. And the comboBox used in
> KGameDifficulty really follows this advice, as it is very clear that the
> user can change it currently. It still a destructive operation imo which
> is not very common in statusbars, but we have the dialog box that asks
> for confirmation, which is nice and necessary in this context.
>
The clarity depends on the current contents of the box and whether the
user can recognise a combo box and knows that it can change, imho.

If the contents are "Easy" or "Hard", an English speaker can guess they
have something to do with skill level.  But what if they say "Normal",
"Medium" or "High".  Also how well does the Easy/Hard meaning (as
difficulty) carry over into other languages?  Maybe a label is needed?

Combo boxes are recognised by having a small grey square and a little
black triangle.  Is it a bird?  Is it a plane?  No, it's a down-arrow?  Some
people I know can never get used to them, especially my wife.  Fortunately,
on the web, empty combo boxes usually have a prompt inside them, but
that is not possible in our context.

> There is also the very strange (message)
> displayed in Kpat ("I just won the game, now it is your turn.") Huh?
> This is actually kind of funny, but when my mother saw it, she could not
> understand it at all. The game was just launched, what did that mean? :)
> But I think this is something we can cover in this games-specific
> guidelines, do you agree?
>
:-) ... I had trouble with that one too.  On my screen it says, "I just won
the game!  Good luck to you.".  At first I found it offensive.  In Australia
and the UK and I think the USA, "Good luck!" is an expression of
goodwill, whereas "Good luck to you!" is usually used in a sarcastic
manner.  Tenant to landlord, "Well if you think I'm going to put up with
this leaking roof any longer, good luck to you!  See you in court!".

I think what the message is really trying to say is "You can get this one
out.  Good luck!" or, later in the game, "You can still get this one out ...".
Mind you, to "get this one out" is meaningful in Australia and the UK
when speaking of Patience games, but might not be meaningful of
Solitaire games in the USA.

What this message illustrates are some rules of message-writing
I have always tried to use, ever since striking a compiler that had
just one diagnostic message for every source-code error:
"Category impossible in context".

 a. Use language that the user will understand.  In KDE, that would be
     simple US English, free of technical terms other than those the
     target user-group can be expected to know.  In an application that
     steers a yacht, for example, it would be OK and desirable to use
     "port tack" and "starboard tack", because they are sailors' tech-speak.

b. Try to present the information from the user's point of view.  In KPat,
     I imagine the program runs its solver from time to time.  If it succeeds,
     it says "I just won the game".  What the user might want to know is
     what that means to him/her.  As far as he/she knows, the computer
     is not even playing this game, so how could it win?

c. If possible, without being irritating, suggest to the user what action
    he/she could take, especially after an error message.

In KDE, this is a difficult area, because US English is not the first
language for most of us (myself included, I'm originally from the UK).
So if anybody would like some help in phrasing messages, doco, etc,
I would be happy to help all I can and will try to write good US English
for you - even if it hurts :-)  Then we can all get better translations, too.

All the best, Ian W.