Giovanni Corriga wrote:

>Hi everyone,
>
>One of the areas where Squeak is currently lacking is Usability. Both
>the language and the environment can offer amazing possibilities in term
>of productivity, ease of use, tinkering, discovering and learning. But
>my feeling is that a large part of this potential is hindered and
>blocked by inconsistant tools, more-complex-than-necessary interfaces,
>conflicting metaphors.
>
>So, as a mean to solve some of Squeak's usability problems, I propose
>the creation of a Usability Team.
>
>The Usability Team should:
>
>- analyze the usability of the current Squeak releases, identifying the
>usability problems and proposing solutions for that problems either as
>fixes or as suggestions.
>- as a byproduct of the analysis and solving process, create some Squeak
>Interface Guidelines which would help the Squeak developers create
>better tools.
>- work in close contact with the other teams and the Squeak developers'
>community.
>
>Please note that this is not (yet) a formal team proposal. It is more
>than a call for everyone who is interested in this topic to come out and
>join this project.
>I can act as an interim team leader while the team is forming, but I
>have no problem in stepping down if someone else wants the job.
>
>So, if you are interested in this topic, and want to give your two
>cents, please reply to this message. As soon as I have feedback from at
>least a couple of person, I'll ask the coordinators to create a
>usability mailing list, so that we can start draft a formal team
>proposal.
>
>	Giovanni
>
I think that this is a good idea for the environment ('course, gotta 
explain the details of what "environment" encompasses.) What do you mean 
about the usability of the language? Do you mean Smalltalk? Or human 
language? UI?

You mentioned conflicting metaphors in your post. Can you give examples?

Interface Guidelines would be helpful indeed, as long as they are worded 
as recommendations and not "Thou Must ..." How about code snippets on 
how recommendations are implemented.

Great idea to look at usability of the current state of Squeak. For 
instance,  from a user perspective, "projects" are integrated into the 
environment. How has that been received by users? How well does it 
really work for users? What are alternatives?

In general, this sounds like a good idea and well worth the time. It 
looks like a book.

brad