Revision as of 15:22, 20 July 2008

KDE4 HIG Questions and Requests

Developer, please use this page to add questions and requests about the KDE4 Human Interface Guidelines (HIG)

• Please list questions about the KDE4 HIG here
• Also include your name/IRC nick/email if you want to be contacted for follow up questions
• Be as specific as possible and include a screenshot if applicable. This email on the kde-usability mailing list is a good example of a HIG question/request.

• Which buttons have icons and when should we use/not use icons on buttons?
• The growth policy: are widgets supposed to grow and take all the available (horizontal) space, even in case of widgets that don't have a size policy for expanding?
• Description of alignment rule. See: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-core-devel&m=121639074230037&w=2 and
• Should the horizontal alignment of the layout be left- or center-? (eg: sample screenshot)
• Some musing about Standard Shortcuts
• Remove or Delete for a button label?
• Order of Add Copy Remove/Delete in forms
• Options or Settings for a label?
• Reorder buttons (Move up down top bottom), icons, icons with text, or buttons with text labels?
• Listviews: http://ktown.kde.org/~fredrik/listviews/
• Visual style of notes/instructions in System Setting modules (Screenshot)
• when should tooltips be used? when is it too annoying and should be replaced by a "whats this?" function?
• Will the HIG specify a standard format and functions for the status bar?--JRT 03:02, 17 June 2008 (CEST)
• Will the HIG specify a minimum set of Zoom & View functions and specify which of these should be on the status bar and which should be in the Menu &/| Toolbars?--JRT 03:02, 17 June 2008 (CEST)
• I suggest adding a guideline to the checkboxes section saying that checkbox labels should always be "positively" formulated such as "enable ...". Never "disable ..." or even "Hide ..." (use "Show ..." instead. This contradicts what is currently in Check Box). If the user has to activate a checkbox to disactivate something this is like a double negation and induces unnecessary cognitive load. Also see: http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-usability&m=121651903819214&w=2