Hi everyone,
One of the areas where Squeak is currently lacking is Usability. Both the language and the environment can offer amazing possibilities in term of productivity, ease of use, tinkering, discovering and learning. But my feeling is that a large part of this potential is hindered and blocked by inconsistant tools, more-complex-than-necessary interfaces, conflicting metaphors.
So, as a mean to solve some of Squeak's usability problems, I propose the creation of a Usability Team.
The Usability Team should:
- analyze the usability of the current Squeak releases, identifying the usability problems and proposing solutions for that problems either as fixes or as suggestions. - as a byproduct of the analysis and solving process, create some Squeak Interface Guidelines which would help the Squeak developers create better tools. - work in close contact with the other teams and the Squeak developers' community.
Please note that this is not (yet) a formal team proposal. It is more than a call for everyone who is interested in this topic to come out and join this project. I can act as an interim team leader while the team is forming, but I have no problem in stepping down if someone else wants the job.
So, if you are interested in this topic, and want to give your two cents, please reply to this message. As soon as I have feedback from at least a couple of person, I'll ask the coordinators to create a usability mailing list, so that we can start draft a formal team proposal.
Giovanni
Hi Giovanni,
Unfortunately I am too busy to help the community but nevertheless I wanted to say that I also think that an Usability team is a must, and I hope that many people will join your effort.
BTW, From past mails I know that Tim Rowledge is not only interested but very knowledgeable on this area and his help on this I know that it would very valuable.
Regards, HernĂ¡n
Giovanni Corriga wrote:
Hi everyone,
One of the areas where Squeak is currently lacking is Usability. Both the language and the environment can offer amazing possibilities in term of productivity, ease of use, tinkering, discovering and learning. But my feeling is that a large part of this potential is hindered and blocked by inconsistant tools, more-complex-than-necessary interfaces, conflicting metaphors.
So, as a mean to solve some of Squeak's usability problems, I propose the creation of a Usability Team.
The Usability Team should:
- analyze the usability of the current Squeak releases, identifying the
usability problems and proposing solutions for that problems either as fixes or as suggestions.
- as a byproduct of the analysis and solving process, create some Squeak
Interface Guidelines which would help the Squeak developers create better tools.
- work in close contact with the other teams and the Squeak developers'
community.
Please note that this is not (yet) a formal team proposal. It is more than a call for everyone who is interested in this topic to come out and join this project. I can act as an interim team leader while the team is forming, but I have no problem in stepping down if someone else wants the job.
So, if you are interested in this topic, and want to give your two cents, please reply to this message. As soon as I have feedback from at least a couple of person, I'll ask the coordinators to create a usability mailing list, so that we can start draft a formal team proposal.
Giovanni
Hernan Tylim htylim@yahoo.com.ar wrote:
Hi Giovanni,
Unfortunately I am too busy to help the community but nevertheless I wanted to say that I also think that an Usability team is a must, and I hope that many people will join your effort.
BTW, From past mails I know that Tim Rowledge is not only interested but very knowledgeable on this area and his help on this I know that it would very valuable.
It's true; I am in posession of some knowledge[1] in the area and well endowed with opinions. I don't have huge amounts of available time to help with implementation but I can certainly review and critique.
tim [1] I'm aware that a litle knowledge can be a dangerous thing, but I can at least claim to have been pointed out (in public) as knowing about UIs by no less than Raskin. Which just means that my dangerous knowledge is a tad less dangerous than most. Maybe.
-- Tim Rowledge, tim@sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim Strange OpCodes: PMT: Punch Magnetic Tape
Giovanni Corriga wrote:
Hi everyone,
One of the areas where Squeak is currently lacking is Usability. Both the language and the environment can offer amazing possibilities in term of productivity, ease of use, tinkering, discovering and learning. But my feeling is that a large part of this potential is hindered and blocked by inconsistant tools, more-complex-than-necessary interfaces, conflicting metaphors.
So, as a mean to solve some of Squeak's usability problems, I propose the creation of a Usability Team.
The Usability Team should:
- analyze the usability of the current Squeak releases, identifying the
usability problems and proposing solutions for that problems either as fixes or as suggestions.
- as a byproduct of the analysis and solving process, create some Squeak
Interface Guidelines which would help the Squeak developers create better tools.
- work in close contact with the other teams and the Squeak developers'
community.
Please note that this is not (yet) a formal team proposal. It is more than a call for everyone who is interested in this topic to come out and join this project. I can act as an interim team leader while the team is forming, but I have no problem in stepping down if someone else wants the job.
So, if you are interested in this topic, and want to give your two cents, please reply to this message. As soon as I have feedback from at least a couple of person, I'll ask the coordinators to create a usability mailing list, so that we can start draft a formal team proposal.
Giovanni
I think that this is a good idea for the environment ('course, gotta explain the details of what "environment" encompasses.) What do you mean about the usability of the language? Do you mean Smalltalk? Or human language? UI?
You mentioned conflicting metaphors in your post. Can you give examples?
Interface Guidelines would be helpful indeed, as long as they are worded as recommendations and not "Thou Must ..." How about code snippets on how recommendations are implemented.
Great idea to look at usability of the current state of Squeak. For instance, from a user perspective, "projects" are integrated into the environment. How has that been received by users? How well does it really work for users? What are alternatives?
In general, this sounds like a good idea and well worth the time. It looks like a book.
brad
Il giorno mer, 23-02-2005 alle 11:24 -0800, Brad Fuller ha scritto:
Giovanni Corriga wrote:
Hi everyone,
One of the areas where Squeak is currently lacking is Usability. Both the language and the environment can offer amazing possibilities in term of productivity, ease of use, tinkering, discovering and learning. But my feeling is that a large part of this potential is hindered and blocked by inconsistant tools, more-complex-than-necessary interfaces, conflicting metaphors.
So, as a mean to solve some of Squeak's usability problems, I propose the creation of a Usability Team.
The Usability Team should:
- analyze the usability of the current Squeak releases, identifying the
usability problems and proposing solutions for that problems either as fixes or as suggestions.
- as a byproduct of the analysis and solving process, create some Squeak
Interface Guidelines which would help the Squeak developers create better tools.
- work in close contact with the other teams and the Squeak developers'
community.
Please note that this is not (yet) a formal team proposal. It is more than a call for everyone who is interested in this topic to come out and join this project. I can act as an interim team leader while the team is forming, but I have no problem in stepping down if someone else wants the job.
So, if you are interested in this topic, and want to give your two cents, please reply to this message. As soon as I have feedback from at least a couple of person, I'll ask the coordinators to create a usability mailing list, so that we can start draft a formal team proposal.
Giovanni
I think that this is a good idea for the environment ('course, gotta explain the details of what "environment" encompasses.) What do you mean about the usability of the language? Do you mean Smalltalk? Or human language? UI?
By "environment" I mean everything which gets shown on the user's screen: from browsers to windows to flaps to the eToys tools.
You mentioned conflicting metaphors in your post. Can you give examples?
Well, as an example, the eToys use extensively the drag'n'drop features, while the devel tools don't use drag'n'drop.
Interface Guidelines would be helpful indeed, as long as they are worded as recommendations and not "Thou Must ..." How about code snippets on how recommendations are implemented.
Sure, that's a good idea. But maybe some of the snippets could be integrated in the UI framework, instead of being reported in the IG.
Great idea to look at usability of the current state of Squeak. For instance, from a user perspective, "projects" are integrated into the environment. How has that been received by users? How well does it really work for users? What are alternatives?
Projects issues is actually one of the examples i thought up when thinking of Squeak's usability. I don't usually use projects, preferring clean images for every application I write: a single-purpose image. But for something geared towards eToys, or for multi-purpose images, project can be a good tool.
Giovanni
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