[ggo-discussion] Re: usability: X O ! , edit focus and players
- From: Matthew Rohn <mdrohn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ggo-discussion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 02 May 2003 13:04:32 -0400
At 05:11 PM 05/02/2003 +0200, you wrote:
>I am unsure currently how to solve this. Although my goal is to offer a
>client that is easy to use, I dont want to dumb it down completely, because
>another goal is to offer a client with many features. PandaEgg is in my
>eyes the one extreme, dumbed down but lacks support for any feature that is
>beyond simple observe and playing. And I dont like that client.
>
>A better manual might help, but from my experience (not only with gGo)
>people wont read it anyways. Reading the gGo FAQ is too much for some guys
>as well, looking at the mail I recieve.
A few thoughts--
Regarding the three button system (!OX), if you are unfamiliar with IGS,
you can't know what they do unless you hover on them and see the
tooltips. I like the current implementation however because the tooltips
are there, and the ! and X help teach the user how IGS shows a player's
flags. Given that IGS is inherently a text server and thus is pretty geeky
by nature, it's appropriate to aim at a higher level of user attentiveness,
shall we say.
But that's not to say you should ignore those who lack the time or desire
to figure such things out. Maybe the answer here is to implement two GUI
modes, "newbie" and "advanced user".
Regarding the FAQ, don't give up on it, many many people do read them. It
is a bit buried in the Help system though. Perhaps you can give it its own
listing in the game's Help menu, above "manual", and move the revision
listing to the bottom of the FAQ so it doesn't scare people ;). And given
that so many seem to be asking "how do I play", that seems like a good
question to add.
And now a tiny suggestion for the GUI:
This is nothing major but it has always bothered me a little that you can
highlight text in the main window, kibitz panel, etc. but there is no mouse
shortcut for copy, as is fairly standard for most programs. You can copy
highlighted text with the appropriate OS hotkey (at least in windows) but
it's kind of awkward.
Thanks for listening, and for your diligent responses to your users.
Matthew Rohn
mdrohn@xxxxxxxxxxx
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