VDG Monthly Meeting - Oct 31, 2020

[Andy B]

Hi all,

In our last live meeting, we discussed a few ideas and goals around
interaction. This is what we hope the desktop should behave like and what
users can expect from a KDE desktop.

We discussed some of the basic issues of the user experience that we all go
through when using the Plasma desktop. We laid out the challenges that we
have in collecting metrics and the perceived challenge of what the market
is doing. We noted that many of our user experience conventions are not
explicitly written in our Human Interface Guidelines. Some of them are
assumed and, since they are not present in our HIG, it’s harder to guide
developers and other designers through the right expectations. It also
makes it harder for our own review team to help define some of these
expectations.

For that reason, our HIG will undergo a few changes in the coming months to
be more explicit, more deliberate in providing information. We also have
projects looking to unify and condense our massive documentation library.
Our HIG website is part of that. We hope to have a one-page style document
with only essential information for our users. Stay tuned for that. We are
still working out the details.

>From our meeting, we also decided to stick to our main interaction idea
“Simple by Default, Powerful when Needed”. This motto has stuck with our
team for a long time, it was a good idea to review its effectiveness. We
still see many traces in our design that show we have elements that are
powerful first and simple second. However, we remain committed to this
overall idea and the team will work to make this motto more evident in our
desktop.

Given these ideas, we have also actioned specific design changes to make
sure there is stronger visual consistency in the desktop. A few tickets in
bugzilla and invent are geared toward that.

Sorry for the ever late report. Stay tuned for the next meeting.


Andy (anditosan)

Join our Telegram channel: https://t.me/vdgmainroom
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