Review of the Edit Profile Dialog based on the KDE 4 HIG Authors: Robert Knight < robertknight@gmail.com > Last Updated: 07-05-2007 Summary: A basic review of the edit profile dialog checking conformance with the KDE 4 HIG ========================================= Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Visual vertical lines 3. Inline editing 4. Dialog depth ========================================= 1. Introduction This is a basic review of the Edit Profile Dialog, checking compliance against the KDE 4 HIG guidelines posted here and documenting problems found. http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines/index.php/Design_and_Layout:Layout:Dialogs 2. Visual vertical lines The guidelines suggest that there should be "one or two major vertical axis" to guide the user's attention, that is there should be a vertical axis which widgets do not cross ( except for section titles ), but should be on one side or the other. The "General" and "Advanced" tabs do not comply with this. In the General tab, each section ( main , Tab Titles , Window & Tab Bar Options ) has its own visual line. This is quite difficult to handle in Qt Designer at present and a problem for most KDE applications. Particularly checkboxes and radio buttons since the label and check/radio box are part of the same widget, but they may belong on different sides of the vertical line. 2.1 Inline editing The tab title format section has a separate dialog to help editing these formats. The guidelines suggest the use of inline editing where possible. 2.2 Dialog depth The guidelines suggest not nesting dialogs more than two levels deep. If the user opens the dialog via Settings -> Edit Current Profile, then there are no dialogs more than two levels deep. If they go through the Manage Profiles dialog first ( Settings -> Manage Profiles ) then the Color Scheme Editor / Key Bindings Editor dialogs are three levels deep. 3. Modality The "Manage Profiles" and "Edit Profile" dialogs are generally used in a modal fashion. This is not necessary.