GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 533826
Rework empathy-accounts UI
Last modified: 2008-07-18 11:42:46 UTC
Hi, I took a little time to improve the empathy-accounts UI. I hope you like it. I think it's better in the following things: - space is better used, instead of an ugly white space down to the left, all the window is used to its maximum - "user flow" is a bit more natural, it now goes straight from top to bottom. I still have some ideas to put into this patch, I'm attaching a draft so I can hear your opinion. Mandatory screenshot included.
Created attachment 111137 [details] how it looks now I must note that everything works fine, except for a crash when you add a new account and then without modifying it, you remove it.
Created attachment 111138 [details] [review] 20080519_bgo_533826_empathy-accounts: proposed patch :)
Created attachment 111140 [details] [review] 20080519_bgo_533826_empathy-accounts.diff: updated, no crashes I only suspect that it /could/ crash if all accounts are removed... but I don't think so. I couldn't try it here, sorry for the lazyness :), I didn't want to loose my configured accounts.
This should probably be discussed with the usability team.
Yeah, I have a lot of accounts and like to be able to quickly enable/disable them. So I don't think this change would be a good improvement for me.
But then you are not the typical usecase :) I am quite sure most people don't have many accounts, and don't spend time disabling then enabling them...
For my personal use cases I prefer the current dialog, but I'm pretty sure basic users don't use that dialog like I do. I don't have a strong opinion for/against that change. I would like to have opinion from more users, maybe someone (me?) could blog on planet.gnome.org to ask more people?
Really, asking the usability team is better than asking the whole planet. I'll write such an email if you want.
I also have a good number of accounts, but I think the standard user won't go beyond 2 or 3. Frederic would you please write the usability guys to hear their opinion?
Hi, "usability guy" here. :-) Even if most people will have three or fewer accounts, I think they should still be able to see all their accounts at a glance. Space is not an issue here, because there are few other controls in the window. And even if someone has only one account, showing it as an option menu is worse than showing it as a list, because they still need to open the menu to tell that there are no other items in it. So, I think the list of accounts should remain a listbox rather than an option menu. There are other ways to make the Accounts window more compact: 1. Remove the repetition of the selected account name and icon. 2. Remove the "Settings" heading. 3. Make the Add and Remove buttons icon-only (though with names still accessible by accessibility aids). 4. For Jabber accounts, put the "Server" and "Port" fields on a single line. (And it's probably not useful for "Port" to have increment/decrement buttons.)
A few comments I hope contribute to the discussion: Old (http://people.collabora.co.uk/~xclaesse/screenshot/empathy-accounts.png): Strengths: able to see at a glance what accounts are enabled and what are not, single click to enable/disable any account, single glance to see what accounts exist Weaknesses: over-designed in the case of a single account, some wasted space when only a few accounts created I think the white space actually adds a structure to the dialogue, and a bit of room to things. It reminds me of many other interfaces I use regularly, so it seems familiar and intuitive at first glance. New: Strengths: no extra space wasted on the dialogue Weaknesses: Uses an interface (add/remove buttons for accounts) that is used elsewhere for cumulative items (e.g. the search criteria builder in Thunderbird) , not independent/distinct as this interface intends. This mismatch makes it feel somewhat awkward. Unable to see what accounts created without clicking/activating a control. Two clicks to enable or disable an account in many cases
Following the discussion I prefer to keep the current dialog. I think there is nothing wrong with that dialog, simple users could argue there is too much space wasted if they have only one or two accounts but other users (like me :) want to be able to see all accounts directly...
Xavier, so this bug can be closed as WONTFIX?
right.