[Kde-games-devel] KGameDifficulty

[Johann Ollivier Lapeyre]

2007/7/27, Ian Wadham <ianw2 at optusnet.com.au>:
>
> 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.
>
>
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