RE: [mylar-dev] Re: What is the "!" column in the Task List for?

["Mik Kersten" <beatmik@xxxxxxx>]

I want to chime in on targeting UIs to experts.  I think that it is usually
a bad idea.  First, for any sufficiently large tool no user is an expert in
all parts of the tool.  The following book excerpt on the Windows UI design
has a nice summary of this:
http://www.theserverside.net/tt/books/addisonwesley/OldNewThing/chen_ch01.pd
f  

Second, in my experience streamlining a UI makes it both obvious for
beginners and makes it require fewer clicks for experts.  This is really
tricky because it requires understanding how experts use the UI and how
novices fumble with it or misuse it.  It's particularly tricky in our case
because of the flexibility that needs to be inherent in task management, and
because of the many different workflows in people's programming and use of
task repositories.  But it's doable, as exemplified with Eugene's hiding of
the expert-only implementation details of the web connector with his
foldable regexp editing and previewing sections.

What helped us most to this point is all of the bug reports coming in from
new users and all the UI discussions around them.  The initial user study
monitor data was also extremely helpful because included usage information
from people who do not file bug reports.  A shortcoming of the bug reports
is that the squeakiest wheels get the oil.  Which is good in terms of
meritocracy, and in terms of having the people who care about the tool shape
the tool.  Similar to how those users who submit UI streamlining patches,
like Willian, having an even more significant role in shaping the tool.  But
the more we all understand how a cross-section of the community uses and
misuses our UI the better.  So I'm excited great to see Meghan's recent
contributions in the area of the monitor.  Once that's solidified we should
be able to ship it as an optional feature in order to continue collecting
anonymous usage data that can inform our future UI decisions.

Meghan: I figure that the best way to solve the problem of making the icons
and other UI conventions clear is to do what other graphic designs do and
provide a legend: 

152820: create visual design legend
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=152820

Mik
 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mylar-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mylar-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx]
> On Behalf Of Meghan Allen
> Sent: Friday, November 03, 2006 4:03 PM
> To: Mylar developer discussions
> Subject: Re: [mylar-dev] Re: What is the "!" column in the Task List for?
> 
> Hi Eugene and everyone,
> 
> As a newbie Mylar developer and user, I wanted to respond to this comment
> 
> >   Lately I see some UI
> > suggestions from the newcomers and those (when implemented) can severely
> > break UI experience of the old Mylar users (some of them like me are
> > using it over a year).
> 
> I do agree that it is frustrating when aspects of a UI change once you
> have become an expert user, but I think we need to make sure we
> consider the needs of newer users as well.  For example, the icons and
> columns on the Task List view are still a bit of a mystery to me and I
> think it would be useful to have tooltips on them.
> 
> Everyone who is developing for Mylar is "eating our own dogfood" (I
> think), and I think that this creates the risk that the Mylar UI will
> be designed for the expert user (i.e. the Mylar developers).  just
> something to think about, especially since I think we're always trying
> to grow the user base...