[yast-devel] yast style guide
Hi everybody, after some discussion and work I would like to present a first draft of a YaST style guide to you: http://en.opensuse.org/Image:Ysg.pdf The intention of the style guide is NOT to dictate every pixel in every module but to make some basic actions and behaviors consistent which increases usability. The work was mostly done by Lukas (locilka) and me. Nonetheless this is just a draft and I would like to see it as a base for further discussion. First of all because two people cannot represent the large variety of opinions you all have and what all of you consider as acceptable. A style guide which is not supported by you, the developers, is IMHO useless (and we already have one useless style guide :-)) So: * Do you think the extent of the current draft is sufficient? * Which issues are missing? * Which ones should be removed? * Are there any contentwise issues you object/agree upon? I am looking forward to you comments! Cu, Martin -- Martin Schmidkunz User Experience Specialist martin.schmidkunz@novell.com +49 (0) 911 740 53-346 ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Novell, Inc. SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 Your Linux is ready http://www.novell.com/linux -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:51:27PM +0100, Martin Schmidkunz wrote:
Hi everybody,
after some discussion and work I would like to present a first draft of a YaST style guide to you:
I am looking forward to you comments!
- On page 6 is stated that a dialog with several screens requires "Step XX of XX:" in the heading. Suppose the number of screens is not fixed but depends on the user input in on of the screens. What to display in that case? - The dialog on page 10 has the help button on the right but the one on page 20 has it on the left. - The dialog on page 21 has it's buttons mixed up. It also shows a permanent help text. - The widget on page 18 is not available in YaST. ciao Arvin -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 03:11:50PM +0100, Arvin Schnell wrote:
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:51:27PM +0100, Martin Schmidkunz wrote:
Hi everybody,
after some discussion and work I would like to present a first draft of a YaST style guide to you:
I am looking forward to you comments!
- On page 6 is stated that a dialog with several screens requires "Step XX of XX:" in the heading.
Suppose the number of screens is not fixed but depends on the user input in on of the screens. What to display in that case?
The issue is even more complicated: Dialog "A" could be the last dialog but depending on input in dialog "A" a further dialog "B" can be displayed. So it's not possible to display the appropriate button "Next" vs. "OK". Or should the button label change depending on a e.g. radio button? Please comment. ciao Arvin -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:51:27PM +0100, Martin Schmidkunz wrote:
Hi everybody,
after some discussion and work I would like to present a first draft of a YaST style guide to you:
I am looking forward to you comments!
- A mistake: On page 6 it reads that the back button leads to the overview. I suppose that's only the case for the first screen of the mini-workflow. - And a question: Suppose we have two steps in a mini-workflow, "A" and "B". Via "A" you enter "B" and make some changes there, e.g. write some text in a input-field. For some reason you want to go back to "A" and then with next again to "B". Should the input already done in "B" still be there? I think yes. But for the workflow during installation this is not the case. cu Arvin -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:51:27PM +0100, Martin Schmidkunz wrote:
Hi everybody,
after some discussion and work I would like to present a first draft of a YaST style guide to you: http://en.opensuse.org/Image:Ysg.pdf
I am looking forward to you comments!
- On page 20 the comboboxs miss labels. So they are not reachable via keyboard-short-cut. And it's undefined whether a label for a combobox should have a colon or not. (That's actually the thing I wanted to find in the styleguide.) - The combobox in the picture on page 5 seems broken. The label is the value. Or is it a menubutton? But why use a label and a menubutton? I would recomment to make the picture of the styleguide with real libyui code and also provide the code. ciao Arvin -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Hi Arvin! Thanks for your feedback!
- On page 20 the comboboxs miss labels. So they are not reachable via keyboard-short-cut.
OK, corrected.
And it's undefined whether a label for a combobox should have a colon or not. (That's actually the thing I wanted to find in the styleguide.)
Rebeccas text style guide did not allow punctuation either. I do not have any preference in this topic, but as most of the modules don't not use colons currently I suggest not to use them.
- The combobox in the picture on page 5 seems broken. The label is the value. Or is it a menubutton? But why use a label and a menubutton?
This was a solution which came out of Bugzilla #279959 I do not know what widget Jiri used here.
I would recomment to make the picture of the styleguide with real libyui code and also provide the code.
Yes, this is a good idea. I just wanted to have the text first and when we all agreed on one version then there will also be some code shown :-) Cu, Martin -- Martin Schmidkunz User Experience Specialist martin.schmidkunz@novell.com +49 (0) 911 740 53-346 ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Novell, Inc. SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 Your Linux is ready http://www.novell.com/linux -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
On 25/03/2008, Martin Schmidkunz <mschmidkunz@suse.de> wrote:
Hi everybody,
after some discussion and work I would like to present a first draft of a YaST style guide to you: http://en.opensuse.org/Image:Ysg.pdf
The intention of the style guide is NOT to dictate every pixel in every module but to make some basic actions and behaviors consistent which increases usability.
The styleguide does highlight one of my pet peeves with YaST modules - The overviews. Illustration of the problem with the example in the styleguide: http://bw.uwcs.co.uk/b/styleguide_overview.png How overviews can look using a listview instead of a table: http://bw.uwcs.co.uk/b/listbox_overview.png All the overviews at the moment are in my opinion overusing table widgets, to display lists of items. These lists are nearly always of very small numbers of items. Using table widgets here makes the dialogues appear crowded by a) encouraging putting too much information horizontally, b) Crowding all information into top left hand corner. KDE and GNOME are both increasingly using listviews rather than tables in situations like the YaST overview dialogues. The listviews offer a) bigger hit target for each item in the list. b) Forces designer to not overload each item with information (If more information needs to be displayed it can be displayed in a second row in a less bold font). At the moment some modules have almost all the information from the detailed information box also duplicated in each row of the table. My question is, will the styleguide force people to continue to design ugly user interfaces because "I am only following the styleguide", rather than improving things. I can see the benefit of using consistent interfaces everywhere, but not when it forces people to use consistently bad interfaces everywhere. -- Benjamin Weber -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
Hi Benji, hi all,
All the overviews at the moment are in my opinion overusing table widgets, to display lists of items.
Your arguments are valid for users using a desktop PC with a GUI. On the other hand the YaST design needs to fit the needs of ncurses users as well as environments with bigger infrastructure. Cu, Martin -- Martin Schmidkunz User Experience Specialist martin.schmidkunz@novell.com +49 (0) 911 740 53-346 ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Novell, Inc. SUSE® Linux Enterprise 10 Your Linux is ready http://www.novell.com/linux -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: yast-devel+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: yast-devel+help@opensuse.org
participants (3)
-
Arvin Schnell -
Benji Weber -
Martin Schmidkunz