User interface

[Zuu]

It was suggested last meeting that we should do some work on the user interface in parallel with the UI.

First of I think the Gnome HIG (Human Interface Guidlines) are quite good eaven if we don't have to obey them to 100% there are several good tips, and rules that we could use.

For now this section is probably in extra interest:
http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup ... #id2557587 (It is about what to start with and so.)


I suggest that we follow the advice in the "Before You Start" section, and make some use case scenarios. Perhaps also we should make a list of excepted usergroups.

What do you think?

[PJayTycy]

I think it's a good idea, but, we might get discussions about what the game should be without a design doc to compare them to.

For example, things like "George wants to find opponents for a multiplayer game" might soon go off-topic into a discussion about wheter we will have an integrated match-making service etc...

[Arathorn]

Is there anyone with any experience in making GUI's here?
This is one of the most important and maybe hardest part of the design.

[eis_os]

Make it consistent, keep it simple, group stuff together.

Keep shortcuts consistent:
Sample:
You are in mode building something, d means demolish then don't start useing d as depot for building rails.

Use short names if possible, don't start name the same thing with different names.

But ohh well, you didn't want my opinion ...

[Arathorn]

Of course we want everyone's opinion.

[jfs]

I've had a short course in HCI design, but nothing really advanced. But it's rather simple anyway. The most important rule is, as Oskar already mentioned, to keep things simple. Think in use-cases. Develop for an end-user who doesn't know anything about the internals or development process, nor want to know anything about it. And have sensible defaults, that don't require every user to wade through endless configuration windows (or worse, config files) to get something vaguely usable. It should Just Work (TM).

[Zuu]

Is there anyone with any experience in making GUI's here?

Talking about my self:

• I've written on a window manager in DirectX (and later SDL) way to long time (1 year or so).
• I've desigened some dialogs in VB a few years ago. And Currently I am writing an GTK application, where I try to follow the Gnome HIG, and make a good UI.
• I've subscribed to Gnomes usability email list since a half month ago or so.
• I think I am fairly good on interface design, or at least I think it is on of my stronger sides in software development. But I havn't taken any courses or so in usability. (But I have read a book about usability for the web)

[Zuu]

I think it's a good idea, but, we might get discussions about what the game should be without a design doc to compare them to.

For example, things like "George wants to find opponents for a multiplayer game" might soon go off-topic into a discussion about wheter we will have an integrated match-making service etc...

Do you think it will be useless to start to list some usercases (on the wiki) before the DD is done?

[PJayTycy]

I think it's a good idea, but, we might get discussions about what the game should be without a design doc to compare them to.

Do you think it will be useless to start to list some usercases (on the wiki) before the DD is done?

No, my remark was more a general question : what do we do when discussions come up now (ie: after the official deadline for them) ?

Setting up usecases is good, and we should have plenty. Creating them is not really difficult, the important thing is to order them by importance. The tasks which (we currently think) will be done the most should be the most important ones and have easy acces in the UI.