[Kstars-devel] KStars usability

[Jason Harris]

Hi,

Excellent!  I think one of our big strengths is our beautiful, intuitive 
interface, and I really want to maximize this however we can.  So, please 
thank her for the valuable input :)

> 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?
>
Hmm...these toggle buttons are supposed to look "pressed" when they are on 
already.  Maybe it's your widget style?  It's definitely less obvious with 
some styles.  I don't think we should grey out inactive buttons because that 
implies that they are not pressable.  We could perhaps darken the icons when 
off...

> 2. She expected to find the "Find Object..." menu item under View, not
> Focus.
>
Yeah, that's an idea.  But everything under Focus deals with recentering the 
view, which is why Find Object is there.  I think instead of moving it to 
View, we should rename the Focus menu, but I can't think of a better name for 
it (Pointing? Center on? Look toward?  these are all worse than Focus, IMO)

> 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".
>
Good.  I just changed it.

> 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?
>
That's what I assumed.  Perhaps we can have a popup window that asks if the 
new location should be applied globally (or a less-intrusive checkbox?)

> 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?
>
Maybe also tooltips on the menu items themselves?  Is that possible?
Help buttons linked directly to the appropriate Handbook chapter is a great 
idea.  I know it's possible; KMail's Configure Filters tool has such a 
button.

thanks!
Jason
-- 
KStars:  A K Desktop Planetarium
http://edu.kde.org/kstars