[Kstars-devel] KStars usability

[Jasem Mutlaq]

Hello,

I think one of the goals of KStars is to make it easy to use yet powerful to 
the widest audience possible. Today, I asked my girlfriend to use KStars so 
we can address any usability issues that end-users might encounter and we 
missed.

I thought the 'test' will take 15 minutes, but it lasted an hour. She was 
exposed to Linux/KDE before, but not extensively (mainly Konqi and XMMS).

The conclusion of the test is KStars is quite usable already and the learning 
curve is not very steep. However, she pointed out some issues that may be 
valid:

1. The "toggle" icons somewhat confused her. She didn't know if something was 
"off" or "on", she figured that eventually as she noticed objects being drawn 
and hidden from the skymap. But even at a later time, I asked her to find 
Mars and she did, but only the label was there and not Mars pixmap because 
solar system was off, and she wasn't aware that she turned it off a while 
ago. Therefore, we need a visual indication if an icon is toggled off or on, 
maybe we can make the off state for a certain icon a bit gray? Any ideas?

2. She expected to find the "Find Object..." menu item under View, not Focus.

3. The "Ok" button in Details Dialog needs to be changed to "Close". Just a 
trivial change, but under the advanced tab, she assumed (intuitively) that 
she can select an item and click "Ok" which closed the details dialog. There 
was a "view" button, but she didn't notice it because "Ok" was prevailing. So 
it should be changed to "Close".

4. She used the "Change Location" button in "What's up Tonight" tool. When she 
exited  the tool, she wondered why the location didn't change in KStars main 
window. I'm not sure about this one; for one, maybe a user wants to check 
"rise & set" times for a specific location without changing the universal 
location in KStars, what do you think?

As far as the Tools menu went, she didn't understand most of it (nor was she 
expected to). But I think she would be able to understand them if she can get 
immediate help about that specific tool. Maybe we need to include a "help" 
button at each of those tools (buttom left) and link it directley to the 
corresponding entry in the handbook? Is this possible or we can _only_ open 
the handbook main page?

Clear skies,
Jasem