Breadcrumbs in Kickoff

[Martin Gräßlin]

Hi,

given that I basically told you not to write developers personally, I do not 
understand why you sent the mail to me instead of the mailinglist. I forwared 
your mail to the mailinglist and please send further mails also to the list if 
you are really interested in discussing this.

Please also don't tofu, it makes discussions difficult to read[1].

On Friday 16 December 2011 19:04:48 Xavier Sythe wrote:
> Actually, the breadcrumbs don't really need to be removed.
> I merely see the need to reinstate the back button.
> "I personally do not see any need for the back button any more."
> 
> It's mostly a user experience perspective.
I quite agree it's all about user experience. I think we should not have 
redundant elements in our primary user interface. This is confusing. Also the 
back button does not exist in any other part of the Plasma desktop or any 
other KDE application.
> 
> It's a simple fact that it requires less mouse movement,
If you state "facts" you have to prove them. Where is your usability study 
showing that a movement to the left is better than a movement to the top?
> Would you support removing the back button from Dolphin, in favour of just
> breadcrumbs?
> I doubt that anyone would support that.
I thought about it and I had to open Dolphin to verify that there is a back 
button at all. I doubt I have used the back button during the last few years. 
So yes I would support that.
> 
> I've chatted briefly with the KDE Usability Team, and they actually seemed
> to agree with me.
Sorry to say: but with whom have you talked? Not everybody who says he is in 
the KDE Usability Team is a usability expert but just a user who thinks he 
understands usability. That's quite a difference.

And what do you mean with "seemed"? They either agree or don't agree.
> 
> Well some users might stick to the breadcrumb navigation, the majority of
> users from previous versions of KDE are accustomed to the back button, and
> appreciate its use, both in Kickoff as well as in Dolphin.  Including both
> types of navigation will ensure that nobody complains, and presumably, lead
> to a better overall user experience.
Do you have any facts that this is actually the case? I don't have any 
statistics validating or disvalidating your statement. The only thing I can 
tell you is that there is a vocal minority requesting to add the feature 
back[2]. With less than ten users posting to the bug report, I am sorry to 
tell you that there seems no demand for this feature. (Btw. don't even try to 
rally now that users post to the bug report. If that is going to happen I will 
make sure that the bug gets made read only).

Please understand that we have to develop software which suits most of our 
users. This means that we cannot make all users happy and we are not always 
able to add all the features users want. We have to care about more than just 
adding features.

Kind Regards
Martin Gräßlin

[1] http://www.rfc1855.net/
[2] https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=274489
> 
> Thanks,
> Xavier Sythe
> 
> On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Martin Gräßlin <mgraesslin at kde.org> wrote:
> > On Thursday 08 December 2011 16:01:33 Xavier Sythe wrote:
> > > Nearly two months ago, I contacted him, and asked him to reverse the
> > > controversial commit.
> > > He has yet to reply.
> > 
> > Please understand that not each developer has the time to answer personal
> > requests. You state yourself that it is controversial. Just imagine each
> > user
> > disliking the feature sending a mail to Kevin. That just doesn't scale.
> > 
> > Asking to revert the feature is to be honest non-constructive criticism.
> > Like
> > all other decisions on the default user interface they are done with care.
> > The
> > breadcrumbs add high value to Kickoff. It makes navigation in a folder
> > like
> > structure like the application menu more convenient and much more
> > consistant
> > with other parts of KDE applications, e.g. Dolphin's breadcrumb
> > navigation.
> > 
> > Just because you (and others) dislike the new feature it does not justify
> > to
> > revert the commit. There are also users liking the feature, so how should
> > we
> > suit both groups? Now please don't state that we need an option for that.
> > This
> > is not possible as the code gets too complex and too difficult to
> > maintain.
> > 
> > > When I asked the #KDE IRC channel about this, I was told to contact the
> > > members of this mailing list, to see if I could get the commit reversed.
> > 
> > Reverting the commit is clearly not an option. But what would you say
> > about
> > improving the breadcrumbs in Kickoff? Getting them into a state that you
> > want
> > to use them and not the out-of-place back button?
> > 
> > Have a look at my recent blog post [1] about the work on Kickoff for 4.9.
> > It
> > is easy to give this version a try, it installs alongside the existing
> > Kickoff. I personally do not see any need for the back button any more.
> > 
> > Kind Regards
> > Martin Gräßlin
> > 
> > New Kickoff Maintainer after branch merged into master
> > 
> > [1] http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2011/12/experience-from-porting-
> > kickoff-to-qml/<http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2011/12/experience-f
> > rom-porting-%0Akickoff-to-qml/>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part.
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/plasma-devel/attachments/20111217/10949da0/attachment.sig>