[KDE Usability] Description of "contrast" in color scheme

[Matthew Woehlke-3]

I would like to fix https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163922.
However, I am trying to get away from the term "3D effects", as it makes
assumptions about the intended look of styles.

I would like to change the label to "Shading Contrast", and the tooltip
to "Contrast used for frames and '3D effects'". (The current label and
tooltip are "Contrast" and "Contrast used for 3D objects", respectively.)

Sound okay? Better ideas?

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[Peter Gostelow]

On Thursday 20 August 2009 21:13, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> I would like to fix https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163922.
> However, I am trying to get away from the term "3D effects", as it makes
> assumptions about the intended look of styles.
>
> I would like to change the label to "Shading Contrast", and the tooltip
> to "Contrast used for frames and '3D effects'". (The current label and
> tooltip are "Contrast" and "Contrast used for 3D objects", respectively.)
>
> Sound okay? Better ideas?

used for frames and 3D shadows

used for 3D shadow effects

used for shadow effects

3D shadowing colour

shadow effect

generated colour for shadow effects

Regards,

Peter
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[Matthew Woehlke-3]

Peter wrote:

> On Thursday 20 August 2009 21:13, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>> I would like to fix https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163922.
>> However, I am trying to get away from the term "3D effects", as it makes
>> assumptions about the intended look of styles.
>>
>> I would like to change the label to "Shading Contrast", and the tooltip
>> to "Contrast used for frames and '3D effects'". (The current label and
>> tooltip are "Contrast" and "Contrast used for 3D objects", respectively.)
>>
>> Sound okay? Better ideas?
>
> used for frames and 3D shadows
>
> used for 3D shadow effects
>
> used for shadow effects
>
> 3D shadowing colour
>
> shadow effect

"Used for frames and lighting ('3D') effects"?

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[Peter Gostelow]

On Friday 21 August 2009 15:49, Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> Peter wrote:
> > On Thursday 20 August 2009 21:13, Matthew Woehlke wrote:

> "Used for frames and lighting ('3D') effects"?

"Used for frames and lighting effects"

+1

Regards,

Peter
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[macias]

On Thursday 20 August 2009 23:13:23 Matthew Woehlke wrote:

> I would like to change the label to "Shading Contrast",

My suggestion is to split the label:

                    Frames and 3d effects
Contrast: --------------#-------------------------- [40]%

(there is no editbox currently, I know).

> and the
> tooltip to "Contrast used for frames and '3D effects'".

removing it completely :-) When tooltip is needed it is needed, ok,
but in _this_ case it is more like an excuse.

Cheers,
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[Matthew Woehlke-3]

Maciej Pilichowski wrote:

> On Thursday 20 August 2009 23:13:23 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>
>> I would like to change the label to "Shading Contrast",
>
> My suggestion is to split the label:
>
>                     Frames and 3d effects
> Contrast: --------------#-------------------------- [40]%
>
> (there is no editbox currently, I know).
>
>> and the
>> tooltip to "Contrast used for frames and '3D effects'".
>
> removing it completely :-) When tooltip is needed it is needed, ok,
> but in _this_ case it is more like an excuse.

The edit box, unfortunately, should I think be 0-10, not percentages,
since that is what the underlying implementation is. It would take a
bunch of code to translate, but more importantly I don't want the
question "why can't I set it to 45%?". (Plus... what is "100%"?)

Actually I am not even sure I want any edit box, since "0" would seem to
be "none" and that isn't necessarily the case. I'd rather keep it abstract.

How would you feel about this?:

       Shading (Frames and "3D" lighting effects)

Contrast   ----------#-------------------------------


TBH I'd still feel better with the parenthetical part in a tooltip.
"Shading" (which is really what this control is about) is more
complicated than easily explained in just a word or two.

Plus, think of the childr^H^H^Htranslations! ;-)

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[macias]

On Friday 21 August 2009 18:31:23 Matthew Woehlke wrote:

> The edit box, unfortunately, should I think be 0-10, not
> percentages, since that is what the underlying implementation is.
> It would take a bunch of code to translate, but more importantly I
> don't want the question "why can't I set it to 45%?". (Plus... what
> is "100%"?)

That was just a rough idea, my point is, currently the contrast is set
to... some point on that horizontal line. That's bad -- it does not
show value, scale, grid, whatever, nothing. Just a knob and the line.

> Actually I am not even sure I want any edit box, since "0" would
> seem to be "none" and that isn't necessarily the case. I'd rather
> keep it abstract.

This way users cannot even communicate:
Joe: how do you set your contrast?
Anne: well, here I have the knob set near "c".

:-)

Ok, ok, it was off-topic, sorry :-) Back to labels!

> How would you feel about this?:
>
>        Shading (Frames and "3D" lighting effects)
>
> Contrast   ----------#-------------------------------

100% explanatory, I like it.

> TBH I'd still feel better with the parenthetical part in a tooltip.

I put it in those words -- UI should be self-explanatory, if it is not
possible, use tooltip (but not sooner). If still not possible, write
help (but not sooner).

Here it has no purpose to exist, because it is possible to provide
clear UI.

In what sense? I like tooltips for toolbar buttons, they are useful
per definition. But in system as whole, all those flying object

Cheers,
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[Matthew Woehlke-3]

Maciej Pilichowski wrote:

> On Friday 21 August 2009 18:31:23 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>
>> The edit box, unfortunately, should I think be 0-10, not
>> percentages, since that is what the underlying implementation is.
>> It would take a bunch of code to translate, but more importantly I
>> don't want the question "why can't I set it to 45%?". (Plus... what
>> is "100%"?)
>
> That was just a rough idea, my point is, currently the contrast is set
> to... some point on that horizontal line. That's bad -- it does not
> show value, scale, grid, whatever, nothing. Just a knob and the line.

Well... yes. I could add "minimum" and "maximum" labels easily enough,
but I don't see that the number has any inherent meaning to the user.
What does "4" mean? What does "0" mean when it *doesn't* mean "none"?
Aren't arbitrary meaningless numbers /also/ bad usability?

>> How would you feel about this?:
>>
>>        Shading (Frames and "3D" lighting effects)
>>
>> Contrast   ----------#-------------------------------
>
> 100% explanatory, I like it.
>
>> TBH I'd still feel better with the parenthetical part in a tooltip.
>
> I put it in those words -- UI should be self-explanatory, if it is not
> possible, use tooltip (but not sooner). If still not possible, write
> help (but not sooner).
>
> Here it has no purpose to exist, because it is possible to provide
> clear UI.
>
> In what sense? I like tooltips for toolbar buttons, they are useful
> per definition. But in system as whole, all those flying object

So... if the groupbox said "shading" and had "Frames and '3D' lighting
effects" in a tooltip, would that be okay? I am seriously concerned
about putting all of it as the group title when it gets translated into,
say, German (or any language with really long words)...

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[macias]

On Friday 21 August 2009 22:59:09 Matthew Woehlke wrote:

> What does "4" mean?

Good question (out of context)!

> Aren't arbitrary meaningless numbers /also/ bad
> usability?

Are they are really meaningless, or they seem meaningless for average
user? The same could be said, what does it mean red is 255?

If we cannot come up with nice scale
low, medium, high, extreme
or if there are too many values, I think numbers are the way.

> So... if the groupbox said "shading" and had "Frames and '3D'
> lighting effects" in a tooltip, would that be okay? I am seriously
> concerned about putting all of it as the group title when it gets
> translated into, say, German (or any language with really long
> words)...

Such approach simply means, we are punishing English speaking users
because KDE is translated into German. Does it make sense?

If the German translation is too long it should be put in tooltip
(now, there is a reason), for English it can be duplicated, but the
label should not be cut off and put into tooltip decreasing usability
because of possible translation.

We can of course think how to shorten the sentence:
Shading (Frames and "3D" lighting effects)
-->
Shading (Frames and "3D" effects)

plus contrast slider of course.

Cheers,

PS. Nice comparison of one sentence in various languages:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=29570
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[Matthew Woehlke-3]

Maciej Pilichowski wrote:

> On Friday 21 August 2009 22:59:09 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>> So... if the groupbox said "shading" and had "Frames and '3D'
>> lighting effects" in a tooltip, would that be okay? I am seriously
>> concerned about putting all of it as the group title when it gets
>> translated into, say, German (or any language with really long
>> words)...
>
> Such approach simply means, we are punishing English speaking users
> because KDE is translated into German. Does it make sense?
>
> If the German translation is too long it should be put in tooltip
> (now, there is a reason), for English it can be duplicated, but the
> label should not be cut off and put into tooltip decreasing usability
> because of possible translation.

I don't think that's possible, or not, at least without retaining the
tooltip in "C" locale. (I'm not sure what happens if you give the
tooltip translation as an empty string in languages where you 'don't
need it', if you get no tooltip, or an empty tooltip.)

Anyway since we're now talking about i18n, I'm adding that list...

--
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--
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was worried they were going to say 'you don't have enough LSD in your
system to do Unix programming'. -- Paul Tomblin  (from cluefire.net)

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[macias]

On Monday 24 August 2009 18:54:13 Matthew Woehlke wrote:

> I don't think that's possible, or not, at least without retaining
> the tooltip in "C" locale. (I'm not sure what happens if you give
> the tooltip translation as an empty string in languages where you
> 'don't need it', if you get no tooltip, or an empty tooltip.)

Well, if it works already (empty tooltip -> no tooltip shown), then
there is no problem.

But I guess there is another problem -- do we have any way to mark
part of the text as optional (because the optional part will be shown
as tooltip)? Well, it is not mandatory, but without it, it would be
up to translators to find too long labels and cut them.

> Anyway since we're now talking about i18n, I'm adding that list...

Cheers,
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[Albert Astals Cid-2]

A Dilluns, 24 d'agost de 2009, Maciej Pilichowski va escriure:
> On Monday 24 August 2009 18:54:13 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> > I don't think that's possible, or not, at least without retaining
> > the tooltip in "C" locale.

"C" locale? What does locale have to do with translation? You mean no
translation language set?

> > (I'm not sure what happens if you give
> > the tooltip translation as an empty string in languages where you
> > 'don't need it', if you get no tooltip, or an empty tooltip.)
>
> Well, if it works already (empty tooltip -> no tooltip shown), then
> there is no problem.

It's easy to test, why don't you do it?

> But I guess there is another problem -- do we have any way to mark
> part of the text as optional (because the optional part will be shown
> as tooltip)? Well, it is not mandatory, but without it, it would be
> up to translators to find too long labels and cut them.

You can not have a string translated to "nothing" if that's what you are
asking.

Albert

>
> > Anyway since we're now talking about i18n, I'm adding that list...
>
> Cheers,

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[Matthew Woehlke-3]

Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> A Dilluns, 24 d'agost de 2009, Maciej Pilichowski va escriure:
>> On Monday 24 August 2009 18:54:13 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
>>> I don't think that's possible, or not, at least without retaining
>>> the tooltip in "C" locale.
>
> "C" locale? What does locale have to do with translation? You mean no
> translation language set?

I meant "untranslated", I suppose that is the same as "no translation
language set"... or "as it appears in the source" if you prefer.

(Doesn't LC_ALL=C turn i18n into a no-op?)

>> But I guess there is another problem -- do we have any way to mark
>> part of the text as optional (because the optional part will be shown
>> as tooltip)? Well, it is not mandatory, but without it, it would be
>> up to translators to find too long labels and cut them.
>
> You can not have a string translated to "nothing" if that's what you are
> asking.

Ooh, that won't work then.

My preference is still for short caption with tooltip...

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[macias]

On Monday 24 August 2009 20:03:14 Albert Astals Cid wrote:

> > Well, if it works already (empty tooltip -> no tooltip shown),
> > then there is no problem.
>
> It's easy to test, why don't you do it?

Good question. So it works (or I did something wrong), no tooltip.

> > But I guess there is another problem -- do we have any way to
> > mark part of the text as optional (because the optional part will
> > be shown as tooltip)? Well, it is not mandatory, but without it,
> > it would be up to translators to find too long labels and cut
> > them.
>
> You can not have a string translated to "nothing" if that's what
> you are asking.

No. I am asking about something like this:

text=hello {world}
polish translation=witaj

In this imaginary example translator omitted optional part in
translation.

However such optional marking is not required (from tech.POV) to
provide text which is translated into very long text and then
shortened by translator.

Cheers,
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[macias]

On Monday 24 August 2009 20:29:54 Matthew Woehlke wrote:

> > You can not have a string translated to "nothing" if that's what
> > you are asking.
>
> Ooh, that won't work then.

No, it won't be optimal, but it would work. For English speaker label
will be 100% informative, and they will get doubled tooltip. Not
perfect, but they are not punished in regard of label. For German (?)
speaker, label will be 40% informative, and the rest will be in
tooltip.

Of course it would be much better to have only label in cases if
label=tooltip.

> My preference is still for short caption with tooltip...

Exploring is in your veins :-)

Ok, I know you know, but just in case -- principle of the least
surprise:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment

Cheers,
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[Albert Astals Cid-2]

A Dilluns, 24 d'agost de 2009, Maciej Pilichowski va escriure:

> On Monday 24 August 2009 20:03:14 Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> > > Well, if it works already (empty tooltip -> no tooltip shown),
> > > then there is no problem.
> >
> > It's easy to test, why don't you do it?
>
> Good question. So it works (or I did something wrong), no tooltip.
>
> > > But I guess there is another problem -- do we have any way to
> > > mark part of the text as optional (because the optional part will
> > > be shown as tooltip)? Well, it is not mandatory, but without it,
> > > it would be up to translators to find too long labels and cut
> > > them.
> >
> > You can not have a string translated to "nothing" if that's what
> > you are asking.
>
> No. I am asking about something like this:
>
> text=hello {world}
> polish translation=witaj
>
> In this imaginary example translator omitted optional part in
> translation.
>
> However such optional marking is not required (from tech.POV) to
> provide text which is translated into very long text and then
> shortened by translator.

Of course that's possible, but why one would want to make a more
incomplete/imprecise translation?

Albert

>
> Cheers,

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[macias]

On Monday 24 August 2009 21:13:15 Albert Astals Cid wrote:

> Of course that's possible, but why one would want to make a more
> incomplete/imprecise translation?

Because it does not fit the screen. But I think that it is better to
decide up to translator -- she/he knows the language after all and
such tips may do more harm than good.

Besides, in such case, I would opt to wait and see if this is really
problem (i.e. if translators need such tips).

Cheers,
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