Now I finally feel like participating in this thread... Stefan Hundhammer wrote: > We identified a number of problems with that old control center: > > (1) There are too many icons in there - way more that can easily be navigated. > > (2) The groups don't always match users' expectations. > (E.g., is firewall more related to security or to network?) > I think that the best solution to these three problems are a tree structure. People (here and in the card sort study) have expressed confusion over why a network device is not hardware. Easy fix, you can keep network devices as a node, just move it under hardware. The other categories under hardware would be things like I/O, Multimedia (maybe), Wireless Devices, and Hardware Info; although it is now unclear what the difference between a "modem" and "bluetooth" that makes one a "network device" and one not. I think the card study really helps a lot to figure out where in a tree structure all the items should go, and with a fairly deep tree, node duplication does not add nearly as much clutter as a flat or 2-level tree (current structure), so not everything has to go in one place and one place only.
So at the root, you probably will have something like four, maybe five nodes (Software, Hardware, System, Security/Users, Misc/Information). Consider the consolidation of nodes, and some key duplications in certain areas, and you will probably end up with a similar number of leaf nodes as we have right now, but in a structure that quickly moves you from wide categories to specific modules. > (3) It's hard for newbies to figure out what does what. > > (3a) Sometimes it's hard to figure out the difference between modules. > An approach for newbies can spawn almost directly from the tree structure. I've heard mention of "wizards" before. Have a button or category or something that says "I'm a Beginner...", and from the outset, tell the beginning user that some of these system settings can "break" their system if they are not set right, and that they should not set anything unless/until they know what the setting is/does. Then you can proceed in a tutorial mode; ask "Do you want to..." and give the user a list of say five to ten of the most commonly used tasks (probably stuff like software management, date and time, graphics or mouse settings) and one more that says "something else". If they select the common ones, great, the common case is fast! If they want something else, the "wizard" can proceed (probably in the same tree structure as they would be organized in the YCC) to ask questions like "Do you want to add/remove/configure your software or applications? Would you like to set systems settings like date/time, power settings?" Examples are good for newbies I think because sometimes a category like "System" doesn't tell a newbie what it's going to do, but an expert can probably figure out the types of things that are going to be in that category (or already knows whats there). > (4) It's often enough hard for expert to find things. > A tree structure, if kept organized, helps here too. As someone noted earlier in the thread, "design constraints" would also help. If you give a (rough) limit of how many leaf nodes can be children of a single node, then when there are too many children you must find common threads between different modules and use those to group the modules. I think this evolves into a structure that the expert can navigate with the greatest of ease. After all, at it's basis, Linux/UNIX is all about files and folders. Everything is a file, and these files get grouped together with folders, and if an expert Linux user doesn't understand the file/folder paradigm, perhaps he is no expert. > (5) It's not exactly pretty. > Seeing what's coming out of you guys/gals at Novell, I don't think anyone has to worry about this one. Besides, as long as its not ugly enough to scare off those accustomed to "Windows by Disney" and the new "Windows by Pixar", appearance is secondary. :) --Jason -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
