Feedback about usability.kde.org re-organization

[Aaron Seigo]

On September 15, 2004 14:12, Celeste Paul wrote:
> Communicate
>
> Any information that has to do with contributing to the project (such as
> the "Helping Out" page under KDE UIG) should be listed under here.

cool  ...

> KDE User Interface Guidelines
>
> I have a consistancy question here.  Is it UIG (User Interface Guidelines)
> or HIG (Human Interface Guidelines)? Both terms are used on the site and we
> should be consistant on what we call it.

for largely political reasons that are external to KDE we are moving to the 
term "Human Interface Guidelines". we may as well start using it on the 
website now, IMO.

> Are all versions of the HIG going to be available or only the current
> up-to-date version?

all revisions will (and are) available via cvs (or webcvs, if that's your cup 
of tea), and "Official Released Versions" will also be available in an 
archive AFAIK. right now, we've only ever had one official release. we're 
looking to fix that, obviously ;-)

but yes, being able to look back at what was and what is can be important for 
purposes of discover as well as for those wanting to conform to KDE3 
standards for KDE3 apps =)

> Usability Reports
>
> There are several "formats" usability reports have been submitted.  The XML
> standard report style, as used with openusability.org and the example under
> the existing "Usability Reports" section on the site and written paper
> report style the KHangMan report and the reports under "User Testing" on
> the site.
>
> Are there any formal user tests that have been done with KDE software?  The
> only reports I have read have been by usability experts and not "users".

what do you mean by "formal user tests"? there was that one done comparing 
KDE3.something to WinXP that was quite good.

> I want to combine "Usability Reports" and "User Testing" under the same
> header.  Any independant reports will be linked and hosted on the site
> (such as the existing reports) and external reports (such as the ones done
> by openusability) will be linked.

yes.. that would be good. the plan is to encourage those who's work proves (or 
improves?) to be of a high caliber to move to openusability.org and work from 
tehre.

> I understand openusability is creating a set of "guidelines" on how to
> write reports and what to look for.  Are these documents completed and
> available to the public?  I would like to link to these when they are
> complete, so people who want to write a report will have a pretty good idea
> of how we want it done.

they are coming; support for the new schema is still in alpha/beta.. in any 
case, Ellen/Jan can comment more authoritatively than i on that matter.

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
Society is Geometric