On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 2:53 PM, Jiew Peng Lim <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think that we need to differentiate between novice, intermediate and
> advanced users of the software. Different people start off at different
> stages; the more adventurous people would most probably read up a lot from
> the manual and start off somewhere between intermediate and advanced.
>
> This goes against all UI principle I have been taught in my ergonomic
courses. It seems a good idea but human interface studies have shown that
these principles tends to "lock" users into being beginners and make the
software highly innefficiant because users never learn the advanced
features and quickly get frustrated.
> My opinion is that software UI should be optimised for novice users, with
> the opportunity for advanced users to customise or tweak the software based
> on their own needs. The reason is that novice users will have to learn the
> software first, and progress upwards in terms of skill level.
>
Again, this fly against all good principle of UI design "design for the
expert, because everybody quickly becomes an expoert"
We might have discoverability problems in DT but designing for newcomers is
bound to be a big failure. Let's not go against all good, universal, design
principles
> Software that are designed for advanced and more technical users will
> impose an impossible learning curve for novice users, in which they may
> never progress up in skill level because they simply cannot, due to the way
> the software was designed. However, advanced users and technical users will
> be able to find their way around the software and hopefully be able to
> customise the software to suit their preferences, regardless of how
> retarded the software was designed. Basically, making the software more
> usable for technical users makes it immensely confusing and difficult to
> use for novice users, or average users.
>
The average user is the advanced user. There are "expert users" but we are
not designing for them either. we are designing our software for people
that know their way and already work with darktable.
They know how to find modules (they might not know every tweak of every
module, but they know how to look for a module) and that is why
discoverability, consistency, and predictability are important. The average
user uses his knowledge of some parts of DT (and if no part match his
knowledge of computer UI in general) to guess where to look for a feature.
we need to be simple and consistent
beginning users have no clue, so they only rely on general software
knowlege.
> The fact that not many people complain about the UI does not necessarily
> mean that nobody sees a problem with it; it could also mean that many users
> have already given up on using the software because it is too difficult to
> use.
>
>
Or that they learn quickly and don't complain because they have becomed
advanced user, which is what we are striving to do.
you seem to not be aware of UI design principles. We are not dumbing down
our UI for a very good reason. It doesn't have to do with photography,
beingknowledgeable in image processing or anything.
It has to do with the science of understanding how a user work, and by user
we mean someone that uses DT. I won't do a complete course on
ergonomics/HCI/cognitive science here, but basically putting wizards
everywhere will make everybody run away from DT because it will be unusable
for advanced users.
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