New Human Interface Guidelines for KDE [LWN.net]

KDE developer Nate Graham has announced a new set of KDE Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) for the KDE project. Graham says that the goals for the new HIGs were to reflect how KDE designs software today, make the content 100% actionable, improve navigation, and to improve the guidelines so people feel comfortable contributing:

Like any rewrite, there are bound to be rough edges and omissions compared to the old version. Maybe I missed a piece of useful information in the old HIG that had been buried somewhere but retained some value. Maybe there's low-hanging fruit for improvement. Help out by contributing!

to post comments

Not a fan

Posted Jun 14, 2024 18:59 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

> Condense related buttons into a single one that opens a menu.
> Group related features or controls and put them on separate pages.

Ugh. Hate that.

Not a fan

Posted Jun 14, 2024 20:15 UTC (Fri) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (2 responses)

Sounds like... GNOME HIG?

Not a fan

Posted Jun 14, 2024 20:17 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (1 responses)

Yeah. And it's equally bad to see that in KDE: https://develop.kde.org/hig/simple_by_default/#show-the-m...

Not a fan

Posted Jun 15, 2024 8:10 UTC (Sat) by mhvk (subscriber, #86585) [Link]

I think it is a bit a matter of taste. The text certainly does not seems unreasonable to me, especially if one includes the last "summary" bit
> Determine which functionality is most important to your app and keep it visible by default; don't hide it behind menus, controls that appear on hover, keyboard shortcuts, or gestures. Any actions exclusively available via one of these means must be of low importance, because less experienced users will frequently miss them.

(Happy KDE user here, with okular a particular favourite)

Not a fan

Posted Jun 14, 2024 20:35 UTC (Fri) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link] (1 responses)

These things are always opinionated to some degree, and no design (and no design guidelines) will satisfy everyone. Personally, i'm a fan of structured interfaces - particularly in interfaces i'm using for the first time, or use only rarely.

Even with things i use a lot, busy interfaces make it harder for me to find what i want - although having a control i use frequently hidden behind menus is a pain. The holy grail here, of course, is editable toolbars, so i can surface the actions i use most, and hide the rest - and KDE/Qt has widgets for that, which almost all KDE desktop applications make use of. In that context, following these guidelines for the default toolbar setup is still sensible.

Not a fan

Posted Jun 14, 2024 20:39 UTC (Fri) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

That said, it's worth noting this in the blog post:

The recommendation to use Kirigami is awkward for powerful apps that use features not currently available in Kirigami-based apps, such as dockable sidebars/panes, customizable toolbars, customizable keyboard shortcuts, and more. If you’re a developer, help add these features!

KDE is great

Posted Jun 14, 2024 20:59 UTC (Fri) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (3 responses)

The good thing about KDE is that there is Xfce.

KDE is great

Posted Jun 14, 2024 23:24 UTC (Fri) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (2 responses)

Iit is possible to install xfce without posting OT comments.

KDE is great

Posted Jun 17, 2024 17:57 UTC (Mon) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (1 responses)

My comment was very much on topic.

I used KDE a lot. I wrote a lot of KDE application code. I even once has commit access to the KDE repository and contributed to KDE.

In general I like KDE.

What I don't like is that it breaks in subtle ways all the time. Almost every single update broke something. Then the next update fixes it and breaks something else. I used it until it completely failed to start after an update. Then I switched to Xfce and has no problems from then on.
It's sad, but that's what happened. Twice, because I gave it a second chance after many years.

And then I read this article about human interface guidelines full of absolute nonsense. Let me just pick one example:

>When the user asks to compose a new email, if the clipboard's top item is an email address,
>pre-populate the “To:” field with that address.

I mean, what the hell? That doesn't help anybody with two or more brain cells and it completely confuses newbies. Auto-filling such important fields as To: with random crap from the clipboard just leads to mails being send to the wrong people by accident.

Or this:

>prompt the user to go through a tutorial or new content creation wizard so they can get up to speed quickly.

How on earth is that of any help to anybody?
Clippy was a bad idea in the 90s and it is an incredibly stupid idea today.

Just don't annoy users with useless startup-tips, dialogs, wizards or other complete nonsense interactive help systems (AI anybody?). They don't work and they annoy the users all the time.

There are many many more such things in this document.

KDE is great

Posted Jun 19, 2024 19:50 UTC (Wed) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

> They don't work and they annoy the users all the time.

Disagree.

A good UI tutorial can be helpful the first time. And clippy was a good idea in the 90s, but executed very poorly.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 15, 2024 7:33 UTC (Sat) by khagaroth (guest, #109895) [Link] (11 responses)

They really could have left out the drivel at the very end.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 15, 2024 16:39 UTC (Sat) by flussence (guest, #85566) [Link] (10 responses)

Just so we're not talking cross-purposes, are you referring to this: https://develop.kde.org/hig/accessibility/#inclusiveness

Do you mean to say you're unable to use a computer unless it encourages you to murder and enslave people, or...?

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 7:58 UTC (Sun) by khagaroth (guest, #109895) [Link] (3 responses)

Yes I mean that section. And as for your question, no, only a mentally ill person would think calling a command kill, abort, or, or, or... encourages something. If someone gets anxiety from simple technical terms (context matters, you know), he needs to seek medical attention and not hide in a safespace bubble and pretend world is an utopia with all sunshine and rainbows.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 12:55 UTC (Sun) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link] (1 responses)

You're also in my killfile now.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 13:34 UTC (Sun) by khagaroth (guest, #109895) [Link]

Good. Though the correct terminus technicus in this particular case should be blacklist.

Use of language

Posted Jun 16, 2024 13:42 UTC (Sun) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

So, I'm trained as an engineer, but I learned many years ago that the language we use matters; for better or worse, that has a lot to do with why LWN is the way it is. You, too, must feel that way, or you would not choose to use such insulting language when dealing with others. Please do not do that here.

I am turning on moderation for this comment stream, and that moderation will be selective; I honestly do not see this going anywhere useful.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 11:27 UTC (Sun) by Phantom_Hoover (subscriber, #167627) [Link]

That’s a very unfair and disingenuous way to describe the common and reasonable opinion that UI functions called ‘execute’ and ‘illegal’ are not actually offensive or harmful.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 11:37 UTC (Sun) by jhe (guest, #164815) [Link] (4 responses)

The thing with the word replacements illustrates the problem with it pretty well: Changing how we speak does not change the physical situation. Saying "close" instead of "kill" does not make murder less gruesome. But its a change with high visibility that you can advocate for. And everyone reading your writings will have to see it.

Or take the list about the assumptions you should not make. You shall not assume that the user has a specific level of technical skill. This, technically, also means you cannot rely on the fact that the user knows how to use a keyboard, mouse or touchscreen. This is obviously not what was meant. Or "Level of education". Half a billion people (above 15 years) still cant read. The list is way to strict to allow any UI.

This looks like some form of "Look at us, we are doing the good, righteous things!" without the ability to deliver on it. It surely should raise some red flags.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 12:55 UTC (Sun) by halla (subscriber, #14185) [Link]

Thank you. You made it to my killfile.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 13:01 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> This looks like some form of "Look at us, we are doing the good, righteous things!" without the ability to deliver on it. It surely should raise some red flags.

Conversely, seeing folks arguing against "doing the good, righteous things" also raises plenty of red flags.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 16, 2024 13:28 UTC (Sun) by jhe (guest, #164815) [Link] (1 responses)

There is no shame in calling out hypocrisy. If you write Inclusivity on into your guidelines and then have no actionable content to deliver on it, you are a hypocrite. You have done nothing for Inclusivity at all.

Real Inclusivity work can look like the "Falsehoods programmers believe about XXX" posts, who do a great job on teaching people to not make some of the problematic assumptions.

DEI or die

Posted Jun 17, 2024 13:55 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

One falsehood here is that "kill" is even a better choice of word for the "I'm done with an application" action than "close". While in English, both mean roughly the same thing with respect to graphical programs (though "minimize to taskbar" makes them very different behaviors to someone that understands "not all processes have windows"), translations to other languages can vary wildly between "kill" and "close" and can lead one down the wrong connotation path when understanding in one's own language. English is rife with overlapping meanings that differ in shades where other languages have distinct words for things (and vice versa). Why would we have to keep seeing "free (as in freedom)" if we had better separation like French's "liberté" and "gratis"? Choosing better words, even given historical usage of poor terms, is a good thing. Just as there is translation between languages, there can be translation between times as well.

Similar with terms like "blacklist" when "denylist" or "ignorelist" are far more applicable in different circumstances (same with "allowlist" or "trustlist" for "whitelist").

Let's hope that a good on screen keyboard is on the drawing board too

Posted Jun 15, 2024 8:34 UTC (Sat) by callegar (guest, #16148) [Link] (5 responses)

Personally, one of the worst human-interface problem I see with plasma is the complete breakage of everything when you do not have a physical keyboard.

Let's hope that a good on screen keyboard is on the drawing board too

Posted Jun 15, 2024 9:42 UTC (Sat) by beckmi (subscriber, #87001) [Link] (2 responses)

Personally, one of the worst human-interface problems I see today is that everything becomes difficult if you don't have a mouse ...

Let's hope that a good on screen keyboard is on the drawing board too

Posted Jun 15, 2024 13:56 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

And what about the interfaces that assume you're all fingers and thumbs !!!

(For non-native speakers, that's slang for someone who's hopeless and forever fumbling things - exactly what I am when forced to use such an interface ...)

Cheers,
Wol

Let's hope that a good on screen keyboard is on the drawing board too

Posted Jun 16, 2024 22:34 UTC (Sun) by mads (subscriber, #55377) [Link]

For instance, it's impossible to add a bluetooth device without a mouse (through KDE settings), so you're out of luck if you have only a bluetooth mouse. There some focus-related bug that makes it impossible to do the adding with a keyboard alone in the settings GUI (adding it through konsole with only a keyboard and bluetoothctl works of course, but that is beside the point).

Let's hope that a good on screen keyboard is on the drawing board too

Posted Jun 16, 2024 6:43 UTC (Sun) by mhvk (subscriber, #86585) [Link]

It would indeed be very nice if there were a good on-screen keyboard. Both malit and QtVirtualKeyboard do not work properly - hard to invoke right, and missing the ability to send things like ESC. I wish I had the skills to contribute fixes...

Let's hope that a good on screen keyboard is on the drawing board too

Posted Jun 16, 2024 10:03 UTC (Sun) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link]

There is plasma-mobile for that case.

Its fine as they are.

Posted Jun 15, 2024 18:58 UTC (Sat) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link]

The hig is fine as they are now.