Hi Paolo, Am Montag, 31. Januar 2011, 23:20:18 schrieb Paulo José: > Hi Björn! > > On 30-01-2011 13:47, Björn Balazs wrote: > > First of all: Thank you - great work! > > Your mocks point us to the unsolved fundations I wanted to work on > > today, but unfortunately won't come to. But I will spend a couple of > > hours in a train tomorrow, so I am optimistic I get to some results > > then. > > > > The fundations we need to understand, before we can actually find a > > really good interface solution is a clustering of the different types > > of fields. You have done the clustering by "New" and "Existing". I am > > not 100% convinced this is the best clustering, because it is too > > general. > > Well, basically I understand there are 2 general actions related to > fields from the user point of view: create and use them. It's my first > thinking when needing a reference or other "meta" information about the > document that I'm working.
I agree. This is the very basic differentiation. I followed that in the mindmap. But I alos think this is not the most relevant differentiation for about 99% of the use-cases. Because you can only create References, Bookmarks (and I guess variables and stuff I do not yet understand). Nearly no users - except from power users - will use this features. So this functionallity needs to be there but should step a little to the back. > When you need to create a field, there are different ways to achieve > this depending of the type field. When you need to use a field, you > *know* that it already exist, so its an automatic choice to avoid the > first option "set a new field". And for any type of field you wanna to > insert, it's the same workflow: you must 1. find the field, 2. choose > how display the field information. It is problematic that there are soooo many fields. This makes it hard to find the field you want. This is way I tried to do some categorizastion of the fields. > > I would like to find someting between perhaps 5 to 10 (ideal would be 7 > > - > > remember the limitations in the human short term memory) categories, the > > user can decide in the first step. > > Well, the limitation of 7 rememberable of the human short term memory is > a controversial issue... It seems to depend of context and other > circumstantial factors. It it one of the foundations of cognitive psychologiy. If you should have any information that I do not have, please give it to me! You can of course use methods of chunking to extend this information, but the number of 7+-2 simply is the capacity of your short term memory. No discussions I know of :) (Ok, can be less, e.g. when you drunk a lot of alcohol - but not talking about any clinical aspects) > If it is possible to limit the choice to a minor > amount of possibilities, keeping it clear, why not do it? :/ Even more > if you think in the future additions of new fields... Keeping the first > step easy helps to make the next steps clearer. If you take too few categories, the tree gets very deep. This is not good either. > > Each presenting again 5 to 10 fields that in the > > next step can be configured (would give us room for up to 100 different > > types of fields we can add to LibO, so making this a sustainable > > solution for whatever kind of fields will be added in the future). > > > > My main problem here is, that I do not understand all types of fields > > available - which would be very helpful if trying to find a decent > > clustering... > > Yeah, this is a problem to me too. But I try to think in a field just > how an information. I suggest to rethink the whole dialogue. And we can only find the best solution if we understand what users do in here and what they use the fields for. I think the following is true, but I am not sure that is all: > The user knows what wants and knows the computer has > or can be have this information. The point is how to say to the > computer: 1. which information you want, 2. what to do with this > information. > > 1. Which information you want? > - I want a information the computer already knows or I want [can to use] > a new information > 2. What to do with this information? > - I want to show it in this or other way. > > From this point of view ("Which?" & "What?") is possible that the > approach of Create/Use ("What?") and then choose the field type > ("Which?") seems to be reversed, but if you perceive that some > information can't be create in a dialog (like a paragraph per example), > reversing them is a most efficient way to present these questions. see above. > > Additionally we should introduce some comfort functionallity like a > > filter mechanism, recently used or perhaps even favorite fields for > > quick retrival of the wanted fields. > > For sure its a great idea. Filtering by type or pattern matching, > auto-complete the search, recently used shortcuts already in the first > step (saving the last inputs for all steps), and grouping references are > good ways to go! :D But we will need a big support from the developers > and would be great have their help to know all the current possibilities. We will need this anyway - and Cederic actually initiated working on this topic. Hopefully he is not scared about the scope the whole discussion takes :) - Cederic: are you? > > Summing it up: Version 2 is much better than version 1, but still leaves > > room for further improvement. > > I'd like to hear more opinions about it. I still think having a simple > choice in the first step is better. :/ But of couse, my thinking is very > much based in the *bad* only way I've imagined to display the Step 1 in > the version 2. I hope we can find a better way. > > > Ok, more - including some mocks and a suggestion for a clustering - > > hopefully tomorrow. > > We are doing big steps to the right direction. Its good when the doubts > come up in the beginning! I think so too. Looking forward to your input - and hopefully I will be able to add some more content to the mindmap. > See you, Björn! :) You too! Best, Björn -- Voluntary Open Source Usability: http://www.OpenUsability.org Commercial Open Source Usability: http://www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@libreoffice.org List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/www/design/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived for eternity ***