[Qt-creator] Lost in 4.2

Thu Dec 1 20:24:37 CET 2016

Jason,

I do not work for the Qt Company, nor I do QtC programming. So my position
is my own.

We might differ in opinions on who drives which changes & why. But I'm sure
we can agree on the truth that we can cooperate in several ways to move QtC
stuff as we think it should be, some of them are: code & patches,
documented usability studies, proposals on formal UI/UX guidelines and even
PSD/SVG/AI or animations illustrating how & why this or that should work,
or how it make for a better workflow.

I tried coding, but (as I reported in my first answer), QtC's lack of
documentation made it harder for me last time I tried. But Im still open
(any mentors?)

I insist, "flat" is really hard to do right.

Cheers!

Ariel

On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 1:09 PM, Jason H <jhihn at gmx.com> wrote:

> I reject your position entirely.
> 1. We do not need to conceed change for the sake of change. Change should
> only happen when there is an improvement.
> 2. Metro has flopped. Even MS can't move the market. It's wrong to assume
> that they dictate UI, or UX culture. Culture is a societial construct. We
> all participate in it, and no one of us owns it.
> 3. Accepting "that's just the way it is" does nothing to improve th
> situation, and I an apalled at your resignation to it. There's a great
> quote "Well-behaved women seldom make history". The status quo is never an
> improvement or news worthy.
> 4. I'm not saying things were better. As I've stated gloss was getting out
> of hand and information density was too high. But that doesn't mean that we
> shouldn't have to sacrifice up buttons of the most important actions to the
> design gods, and hide that functionality behind a right click.
> 5. As as 35 year vetern of computer UIs, I've seen changes over time,  and
> it is natural for big changes to be resisted. But I don't really care about
> flat, skeumorphic, gloss, material, metro, I care that the UI is
> /intiutive/. The primary use cases should be obvious and easy to perform.
> While the kit/build "buttons" at the top pf the Projects editor were
> getting out of control, the clean up is very welcome. But the two things
> that I want to do when I'm in this view are change the build/run settings
> (which survives, thank goodness) or add a kit. No where is there a button
> for adding a kit. There is no way to tell there is a context menu
> availible. Also, having the context menu availibl e when over project
> settings is bad design. Basic UX is that when I'm right clicking on
> something I get a context menu for that something. But the contect menu
> doesn't apply to what I'm clicking on, it applies to the whole frame. Very
> simply, the context menu shuold be removed and two buttons added
> under "Build & Run" which are "Import build" and "Add Kit". You added a
> non-obvious required click between me and the function I want.
> 6. Furthermore, you could have extended the "tree" (I still don't see a
> tree) to also include the build configuration (Release, Debug) under the
> Build or Run items for that kit. Why did the tree terminate where it did?
> You added another 2 clicks for me. I could have just clicked on "Release"
> in the tree, but now I have to click on Build, then click the drop-down
> (+1) , then click again to select the one I want (+1).
>
> Does anyone do usability studies any more? I can't be the only one that is
> appauled by this [industry wide] regression of UX. I remember when click
> depth (counts) was a thing.
>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 01, 2016 at 1:15 PM
> *From:* "Ariel Molina" <ariel at edis.mx>
> *To:* "Mike Jackson" <imikejackson at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* qt-creator <qt-creator at qt-project.org>, "Jason H" <jhihn at gmx.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Qt-creator] Lost in 4.2
> Mike,
>
> It's romatic to look at good old times, and I understand your frustation,
> but things are just that way now. You need the market force of Apple,
> Google or Microsoft to set a trend (just like skeu-then-flat, paper and
> metro).
>
> Better to adapt, there are more than one way to do things right,
>
> Cheer up!
>
> Ariel
>
> On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 11:21 AM, Mike Jackson <imikejackson at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> "Fashion" is the issue. Just because somebody made something fashionable
>> does not mean it is correct or easy to use. The younger generation have
>> never had it easier because they have only known to just tap/click
>> everywhere until something happens. Let's introduce them to how things are
>> supposed to work. Go against fashion and with ease of use. We can cite UI
>> design rule after rule where those rules in the past were based on
>> meticulous human-computer interaction research. The new generation of UI/UX
>> designers seemed to have just tossed out all that research for no good
>> reason.
>>
>> Example: Information density in icons. We now have access to "retina"
>> class displays capable of displaying a LOT of information in an icon. Icon
>> designers have been waiting 30 years for this to occur. And what happens?
>> All the fashionable designs use an "outline" icon. Really? Those designers
>> make the user work harder to attain the same information that a properly
>> designed icon could store.
>>
>> Basic Color use: Why does everything have to be the same color? (I am
>> looking at you Apple and your monochrome Finder). Some where after OS X
>> 10.6.8 Apple decided that actually having nicely colored icons in the
>> Finder was somehow "bad" so now every folder is the same shade of blue.
>> That makes it really hard for users to distinguish between the "Downloads",
>> "Home", "Pictures" or some other important folder that we pinned to the
>> side of the Finder.
>>
>> Postbox (An Email Application) recently released a newer version. They
>> used outline icons and low contrast typography all over the UI. There is
>> even a point where I have a white outlined folder on a nearly white
>> background. This just should NOT happen.
>>
>> Moral of the story. Don't be fashionable. Be correct. Be easy. Back up
>> your designs with actual user research.
>>
>> --
>> Mike Jackson  [mike.jackson at bluequartz.net]
>>
>>
>> Ariel Molina wrote:
>>>
>>> Thing is that what's "easy" is hard to define, it tends to come and go
>>> as fashion goes. For example, current trend (from several years now) is
>>> that youngsters find "flat" easy and skeumorphic ugly simply because
>>> they are used to see things like that. So the UI team have to balance
>>> three things: ease for hardcore veterans, be appealing and "modern" for
>>> the new wave, and being easy to use. So they try hard, and I wish them
>>> the best.
>>
>>
>
> --
> Ariel Molina R.
>
> Oficina: +52 (222) 3723196
> Movil: +521 2226 758874
> http://edis.mx
>

-- 
Ariel Molina R.

http://edis.mx
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