[Panel-devel] The ALI: do we really need or want it?

Alejandro Exojo suy at kurly.org
Sun Jan 8 23:38:18 CET 2006


El Sábado, 7 de Enero de 2006 18:39, Janne Ojaniemi escribió:
(...)
> People look at suggestions through the eyes of a power-user. And they
> notice that this suggestion might make editing the content more difficult
> (it doesn't really), and when doing so, they forget the fact that most
> users don't care about editing their content, they just want to use the
> content. I'm a power-user, but it has been several years since I last
> edited a HTML-file. I have lots and lots of music, but I haven't edited my
> music practically never.

There is a simple rule of design that says "easy things should be easy to do, 
and complex ones, should at least be possible". Your approach sounds 
interesting for the easy cases, but I really don't see that the complex ones 
are possible.

> Right now, KDE (and other desktops as well) work so that the user has to
> first know what each application does. He's then expected to start the
> correct application, and he then uses that application to access the
> content. My suggestion removes the need to start the application, since the
> user simply accesses the content. How would I listen to my music right now
> in KDE? First, I start Amarok, then I navigate to my music inside Amarok,
> and start to play it back. With my suggestion. the first step for me would
> be to select the music I want to listen, and the playback starts
> automatically. No need to select & start an app, no need to use that app to
> select music. I simply select the music I want to listen, and I'm done with
> it. The number of steps is reduced, the time it takes to start the playback
> is reduced, and everyone is happy :).

But there is a serious problem in this approach: how do you present to the 
user his content? Browse emails is done in a _very_ different way than is 
done for music files, or photographs, or documents.

You also forget to mention that the user might want to choose which 
application to use to open which content. All this stuff just make me think 
in konqueror. With it you can browse your content (yes, in a different way, I 
know), and just click on the file to open it with a default application, or 
choose which one with the right click menu.

Anyway, I'm not following more this thread, because I understand this is kind 
of off-topic here, and I don't have any expertise in usability.

-- 
Alex (a.k.a. suy) - GPG ID 0x0B8B0BC2
http://barnacity.net/ - Jabber ID: suy at bulmalug.net


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