Hello, I often see how my mother copes with computer (Windows), and there are two (complex) features of all desktop applications I would like to have, because they could prevent many frustrations (and fear of users that something will get broken):
1. Application should have a built-in revision control system, so that even if you overwrite old file (and accept the dialog), it will be saved somewhere (maybe for some limited period, say a week). I have seen so many times that she worked all night on something and then by mistake overwrote her work with a blank file or something like that. This is a logical extension of recycle bin. It could be extended even more, so that what you entered/changed in various dialogs and settings would never be completely lost. 2. Application (and other desktop components) should persistently log all (except very trivial) actions you did. Countless times my mother said "oops, what I just did?" - so she would find answer in the log. Or she had some problem, but is not able to give enough information like what exactly she did or what was the popup error message, so you would just look into the log and see. I imagine log would go in help menu or something (it could be flat text file, but the point is to have log in user interface), and there should be also a global log, that would list when you ran what application (and other general desktop things), and maybe it could also aggregate all application logs. Logs should remember some small inputs it got from user (like filename or selection). Maybe undoable actions could be reverted directly from the log. Also, it would be great if you could copy something from the log as an example, which would then be easily available as guidance to remind user how to do something (according to the remind vs. recognize principle). In the more distant future, there could be even some system which would exactly point out the relevant widgets (like menu items to click to) to the user. And another thing for the future - more unusual patterns of actions should be remembered in log much longer than more common patterns. There are security considerations, but in general I think it would greatly improve usage of computer for normal users. I am not quite sure if this is the correct place to ask, but what do you think? Regards, Jan Samohyl PS. Please answer directly to me, not only to mailing list. _______________________________________________ Appeal mailing list [email protected] https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/appeal
