Updated GNOME User Interface Guidelines are now official

https://developer.gnome.org/hig/

by pjmlp • 5 years ago

75 77 5 years ago

developer.gnome.org

frenkel• 5 years ago

Is there a changelog or “what’s new” page somewhere?

smoldesu• 5 years ago

I used the Gnome 3.38 desktop for about a year, and it may have been one of my favorite desktop experiences yet. GTK+ felt robust and mature for my needs, stuff looked pretty and functioned mostly the same way. The guidelines weren't perfect, but years of incremental improvement got it pretty damn close. Gnome 40's "no sacred cows" approach is throwing a lot of that work away, and it ultimately deterred me from staying on rolling-release Gnome. Adding insult to injury, GTK4 support is basically in pre-alpha right now. The widget website and design reference was broken for weeks, and transitioning Gnome 3.38 code to 40 just isn't worth the trouble.

fmoralesc• 5 years ago

GTK3 isn't deprecated (like GTK2 is), and there is no rush to port things to GTK4 yet. In terms of it being 'pre-alpha' (besides the docs, which in my experience before was always lagging behind), everything in the roadmap is basically done: https://wiki.gnome.org/Projects/GTK/Roadmap/GTK4

On the other hand, the changes in Gnome 40 were not as massive as the change from 2 to 3, and to me at least the change felt more incremental than disruptive (of course, the transition period is always a bit rough, some non-essential extensions for gnome-shell didn't work for me after the change, but eventually everything I needed was ported--I even dropped some extensions). I feel that saying that 'a lot of the work from 3 was thrown away' is an overstatement.

chrisseaton• 5 years ago

I really like the app naming guidelines.

https://developer.gnome.org/hig/guidelines/app-naming.html

[Avoid] puns and inside jokes.

turminal• 5 years ago

> [Avoid] puns and inside jokes

Those are only allowed in KDE universe.

Erlangen• 5 years ago

[Avoid] Having a “G” prefix (for example: GMusic).

Those are not allowed in KDE universe. You need "K" prefix instead.

no_time3• 5 years ago

Atleast logos are an exception

https://gitlab.gnome.org/Teams/Circle/-/issues/50

reedlaw4• 5 years ago

I've been using Gnome for years and it's basically the best kept secret among desktop environments. Simple, unobtrusive, and continuously improving without many sudden changes that force one to relearn how to use it. I've tried tiling window managers but they just eat up time configuring to my liking. Compared with Windows and MacOS, I'm delighted with how easy it is to configure and use Gnome right out of the box. The UI is consistent and these guidelines are refreshingly concise.

kevinherron• 5 years ago

and continuously improving without many sudden changes that force one to relearn how to use it.

LOL. Have we used the same GNOME? Their evolution is nothing but removing features and maximizing useless padding.

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 5 years ago

I'd have to agree. GNOME is notorious for this. We used to joke on slashdot over a decade ago about how one day GNOME would just have a single giant "do stuff" button.

Spivak• 5 years ago

What features are you missing? Because I've had to tweak some dconf settings over the years but I've never found myself wanting something I could do before but is now impossible.

reedlaw4• 5 years ago

I'm speaking primarily of GNOME 3 and above. I didn't use earlier versions much.

zozbot234• 5 years ago

Gnome is great for its touch-native support, but on most desktops and laptops where touch just isn't a thing I find Xfce to be more intuitive, and also lighter on system resources.

Phrodo_00• 5 years ago

Gnome (specially gnome-shell) is also very keyboard centric (not as much as tiling WMs obviously), which works really well for normal laptops.

chunkyks2• 5 years ago

No sudden changes? Gnome3 was a pox and broke literally everything.

The entire family of touch friendly interfaces on non touch systems can fall into a black hole, and the world would be better for it.

jeppesen-io5• 5 years ago

The entire family of touch friendly interfaces on non touch systems can fall into a black hole, and the world would be better for it.

There's really no reason for this inflammatory response and starting a flame war

Obviously, others disagree with you. The world would not be better if everyone conformed to your view of what a UI should be

riquito• 5 years ago

No sudden changes? Gnome3 was a pox and broke literally everything.

And it was released 10 years ago... perhaps it's time to move on from old grudges

otabdeveloper42• 5 years ago

Make all your Gnome windows maximized and it's the next best thing to i3, except way more polished and stable.

jeppesen-io5• 5 years ago

It would seem not many here agree with you, but I do. Gnome 38/40 has been a pleasurable daily work env for me

harrygeez• 5 years ago

I'm pleasantly surprised seeing how great Gnome looks and runs on my colleague's System76. If I ever decided to quit MacBooks I would definitely like to try using it full time.

zoomablemind• 5 years ago

...Simple, unobtrusive, and continuously improving without many sudden changes that force one to relearn how to use it.

In all those past decades of Desktop Env evolution, one thing I learned to appreciate is no need to be aware of the actual kind of Environment. Ideal DE should just be transparent to user, just as the underlying OS.

We interact with tools, the environment just lets us find them and helps us organize our stuff.

I get aware of the DE when it somehow gets in my way. For example, I remember from Ubuntu 18 in Gnome Terminal context menu two entries shared the same hot-key (_Preferences and _Paste in this order). Or in File manager, there was no direct way to enter full path. Or in Save As dialog the file name would loose its highlight after switching back from selecting the destination folder.

Sure, other DEs have their share of annoyance, but generally I think that transparency will be upon us... soon.

nsm• 5 years ago

I highly recommend Regolith Linux (which can also just be installed as a package on Ubuntu).

It offers a nicely setup i3 tiling WM, without having to do any configuration, and things like external displays, bluetooth and so on working out of the box, since it relies on various pieces of GNOME to do that.

biryani_chicken• 5 years ago

How do you configure Gnome to show thumbnails in the filepicker? I've never been able to do that.

reedlaw4• 5 years ago

Click on the Show grid/list toggle icon on the top right. When showing icons in a grid I see thumbnails.

marcodiego5• 5 years ago

The file picker shows thumbnails by default.

brnt2• 5 years ago

How is Gnome a secret, when it's the default DE on nearly every distro? KDE gets that title from me.

reedlaw4• 5 years ago

Compared to Windows and MacOS it's a secret. I don't consider Ubuntu's desktop environment as pure GNOME, otherwise why would https://ubuntugnome.org/ exist?

Abishek_Muthian• 5 years ago

I recently switched from KDE to GNOME and I was pleasantly surprised to see the finesse of it. I realized that my misconceptions about GNOME was due to poor integrations in the distros which had it by default.

Installing vanilla GNOME over Arch gave me a new outlook of it, Other comments about it's padding and non-Linux like UI approach might be valid but I'm sure that will enable someone from macOS feel at home as I've used that for a decade as well.

no_time3• 5 years ago

The ultimate litmus test for any GUI is to ask a relative with average computer skills to perform basic tasks in your program.

If he/she asks questions like "why the fuck is the Confirm button up with on the window handle?" Or "Where are the small previews when I'm selecting images?" you have failed. In its current state GTK is not only a footgun, but a footgun factory with the biggest manufacturing throughput in the GUI library world.

And I'm not writing this out of spite. I want GTK to be successful and I do believe some of the underlying tech is great but the actual ui/ux choices it want's to steer you towards are consistently terrible almost to the point of "want to do $THING? Check how gnome apps do it and do the complete opposite."

marcodiego5• 5 years ago

The ultimate litmus test for any GUI is to ask a relative with average computer skills to perform basic tasks in your program.

I strongly disagree! People with "average computer skills" expect that "to perform basic tasks" things must be done EXACTLY the way they are used to. It doesn't matter if the different way is better, faster, more efficient, more intuitive... if it is different they will likely complain.

handrous5• 5 years ago

1) Actually intuitive (this is rare—if you think your novel idea is, it likely isn't),

2) The same way the user's used to or expects,

3) Everything else

GUI approaches, ranked best to worst. Something from #3 should always strongly demonstrate that it's actually in category #1 before displacing something from category #2, or otherwise provide immense value.

UI churn keeping interfaces mostly stuck in #3 is a curse on computing.

[EDIT] Oh, and, an adjacent principal: consistency of placement & behavior beats everything else. Which is another strong point against modifying UIs without very good reason.

no_time3• 5 years ago

To me it seems like GNOME apps/gtk have positioned themselves as the "GUI for the masses" as they follow all the terrible trends from others like massive padding,low content density, phone like controls. But that also means catering to the usage patterns and expectations of this demograpic.

agumonkey• 5 years ago

you're too harsh, you can always find an average user that will freak out on something unexpected

good to think about average users, but IMO there's a balance between altruism and value of change, if that change brings a lot of benefits to the average users

pmontra2• 5 years ago

The average person understands the Windows UI and is lost on a Mac and on any Linux. Maybe not on KDE which 7 years ago looked like Windows quite a lot, don't know now.

lebrad• 5 years ago

I'm excited for the Debian 11 release this weekend, because that means the testing repository unfreeze will allow Gnome 40 to come into play soon

jeppesen-io5• 5 years ago

A lot of good stuff in there. I enjoy Gnome quite a bit and aesthetics and flow are large part of that

dessant• 5 years ago

Did you know that since GNOME 3.36 extensions are automatically updated, and you can't officially turn off the feature? On top of it, I think updates from GNOME Shell Extensions aren't even signed.

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/-/issues/2514

tadfisher• 5 years ago

It doesn't update when I use Nix to manage extensions, so maybe that's a saving grace here.

Granted, nothing updates unless I update it via Nix, so perhaps that's not entirely desirable to everyone.

a13692099932• 5 years ago

nothing updates unless I update it

That how computers (or really, things-that-exist in general) are supposed to work.

lvxferre2• 5 years ago

I'm reading the design principles right now. A lot of them are sane and reasonable; my issue is with what's missing.

Resist the pull to try and make an app that suits all people in all situations. Focus on one situation, one type of experience.

A kitchen sink is bad. An incomplete program is even worse. So, even if focusing on one situation and one target audience, make sure that your program is reasonably complete.

Don’t overwhelm people with too many elements at once. Use progressive disclosure and navigation structures to provide a guided experience.

Tracking complexity is more important than the "raw" number of elements being shown. That's why consistency is so important. Refer also to what I said about "incomplete programs", it applies to the UI.

Guiding user experience is good, but remember that your user is not a moron, and does not want to be treated as one. There's a difference between pointing the right direction and pulling someone by a dog choker.

Poorly used progressive disclosure makes every non-trivial task a chore, so make sure you're doing it right.

Frequently used actions should be close at hand, with less important actions being further away.

Ultimately who decides which actions are "more" or "less" important is not you, but the user; you can at most estimate it, for your typical user, in typical user cases. So make sure even the less important actions are close enough.

If something can be done automatically, do it automatically.
Try to anticipate and prevent mistakes.

Don't be an assumer. Don't code your program to be an assumer either. Nothing is more aggravating than a program incorrectly automating something, based on assumptions. Or preventing the user from doing something sane in context, that the developer didn't take into account.

hyperman12• 5 years ago

'The inmates are running the asylum' has a discussion about an element I think they are missing: personas.

The book discussed how 'user' is elastic: The average user is defined so vague that you can stretch the definition in every way you want. Enter personas. Each is a description of an invented but recognizable person, including name, lifestyle, background, ... A bit of an advanced cliché. Then you can say how well your program fits for that persona.

For gnome, you could have Ginny the grandmother who prefers everything easy and with a cat background. You have Eddy the console addicted linux expert. You have Danny the 9 to 5 bigco developer who just wants to get his work done and go home, and some higher up forced GNOME on him.

When these personas are reasonably well known, the development team as a whole can discuss UI changes in their terms. We're going to remove all but one shutdown option? Ginny will like it, Eddy's gonna hate us. But Eddy knows all hotkeys, maybe hide the more advanced option under the ALT button? You can even exclude personas: Gnome is developed for Ginny, Eddy should go away and use KDE.

lvxferre2• 5 years ago

That's a good approach. If you back it up with a study of your target audience, and creates the personae in a way that it represents it well, you could even take decisions like "We could annoy Ginny for the sake of Eddy and Frank, it'll make the software better for most people... but we're better off throwing her a bone too."

I don't think GNOME devs have such an insight. They claim to be right too often, too soon; I don't trust people like this to take smart decisions.

hulitu2• 5 years ago

Well, Eddy will not install Gnome for Ginny when he thinks that Gnome is crap. We will just install KDE.

Zababa• 5 years ago

Are we getting thumbnails in the filepicker? https://jayfax.neocities.org/mediocrity/gnome-has-no-thumbna...

Outside of that little joke (although it's a real problem), it's nice to have something like this. It will help developers to make coherent interfaces and the GNOME ecosystem will get better with this. I personally like GNOME, I use it mainly through Pop!_OS as I really don't like snaps.

butz• 5 years ago

Is it just me, or has GTK4 ditched subpixel font rendering? Extensions v40.0 fonts look blurry as compared to other applications.

baybal2• 5 years ago

Yes, exactly. Panga 40 has no support for hinting because "everybody" (of fulltime GNOME devs of course) have retina screens.

Updated GNOME User Interface Guidelines are now official

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