[Kde-games-devel] KScoreDialog usability related question

[Dmitry Suzdalev]

Hi fellows!

While we are discussing usability related things (I mean Paolo's thread), let 
me share some of my thoughts about KScoreDialog and our highscore system in 
general.

Well, yestertday I suddenly found what confuses me in KScoreDialog (before 
that I had only slight "feeling" that something is wrong, yesterday it formed 
into writable sentence in my mind :))

It's all about popups. When I (as a game player) finish a level and I suddenly 
see some dialog (KScoreDialog) appear, it confuses me. Moreover, I need to 
enter my name, and press OK, or just hit Cancel. What if I just want to 
continue playing, without taking all these actions?

In KAtomic this gets even worse - each level has it's own highscore and I see 
highscore dialog popping up after every level. Rude. The option is not to 
show this dialog after every level, but then the other question arises - how 
and when should the game ask the player for name to put in the Higscore 
table?

This may not be a problem of KScoreDialog itself, in the end it is the 
particular game which implements its showing. But I'm writing this because I 
think we should agree on some general rules of KScoreDialog usage.

Personally I'd like it not to be shown automatically, but rather there should 
be some kind of "You have a new highscore" message somewhere in the game. And 
if the user wants to see his/her highscore he should do it explicitly by 
invoking "View Highscores" action. But the question about when and how he/she 
should enter the name remains.

Perhaps someone has better idea(s)?
Or my thoughts just sound wrong to you? :)
Well, perhaps it is only me, who is slightly annoyed by KScoreDialog 
popups :).

What do usablility people think about this? Would be interesting to know :)

Cheers,
Dmitry.