visual directions for kde

[Aaron J. Seigo]

hi all...

i'm really, really, really tired of having to discuss and argue every tiny
change in every UI everywhere. i've spent more time discussing the relative
merits of individual frames that i care to admit. currently i'm in the middle
of trying the communal approach for a qframe in konqueror and lines between
toolbars and i'm just about at my physical limits over it today.

i feel that in large part this is because very tom, dick and harry developer
and user feels their idea for the visual and usability directions for kde are
equally weighty and useful. i happen to disagree with that sentiment as it
only leads us in N different directions giving us no real consistency except
in those cases where a group of people have taken the bull by the horns and
told everyone else to, essentially, fuck off. results speak for themselves =)

to improve the situation we _really_ need a stated visual and usability goal.
this is different than the HIG that is being developed, as that is an
implementation tool towards that goal. kde4 is getting to the point in
development where we are going to start tripping over this problem again as
we start re-working interface elements.

would the usability people and artists on these two lists be interested and
able to draft up a set of general goals that we can then put in front of the
project in general for adoption (or rejection, or remodeling) that we can use
as guidelines while making these decisions in a time frame that doesn't
involve months?

having the HIG in hand will help further, but even then having the overarching 
visual design goals and usability approach defined would be very useful.

thank you for your time and consideration...

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

Full time KDE developer sponsored by Trolltech (http://www.trolltech.com)
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