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<font size="-1"><font face="Tahoma">I just had a quick scan through the
usability report written by the folks at the University of Oulu (get it
here if you haven't seen it:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://tols17.oulu.fi/~tkorhonen/ukkoss3/images/usability_test_blender.pdf">http://tols17.oulu.fi/~tkorhonen/ukkoss3/images/usability_test_blender.pdf</a>)<br>
<br>
They raise a few valid points in their findings and I'm kicking a few
solutions around in my head:<br>
<br>
= Discoverability =<br>
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be to Blender's benefit to have some very
short (~1 minute), professional looking (ie. common layout, format,
etc. between vids), voice overed (possibly localised) videos explaining
one small aspect of Blender to the user at a time (</font></font><font
size="-1"><font face="Tahoma">ala Maya & 3ds Max 2008+)</font></font><font
size="-1"><font face="Tahoma">, these can either be downloaded from
b.org (individually or in a package), viewed online or perhaps even
packaged with a special Learner's/Noob's Edition of Blender. Of course,
the vids can also be published on video sharing sites (youtube, vimeo,
etc.), it won't hurt to teach more people about blender ;)<br>
<br>
Note: There shouldn't be too many of these videos initially, since they
are only meant to teach the basics of Blender to the user, ie. Viewport
Navigation, Window Managing, Translating objects, Editing Mesh Objects,
etc. This isn't the place to be teaching people how to model a human
head with rigging, hair and lip sync, unless someone out there can do
all that under a minute :P<br>
<br>
== Hot Key Discoverability ==<br>
Bracketed hot keys in tooltips (generated from the key map) would
probably be the easiest solution for this.<br>
<br>
OR<br>
<br>
Flash / HTML&Java / whatever file with a keyboard map, showing keys
and their functions, again pulled from the keymap. I'm not quite sure
how this will be done, since I don't even know how the key maps work at
this point :P but I'm sure someone out there will be clued up enough to
figure it out.<br>
<br>
= The Do Composite question =<br>
Do Composite was recently discussed on ML and there were suggestions to
remove it altogether, I suggest that it be renamed to just plain
Composite and be placed with the other rendering togglables (Shadows,
SSS, EnvMap, Radio [which I believe is getting the chop] and
Raytracing) in the misleadingly named, IMO, Shading tab in the Scene
Panel and activated by default.<br>
<br>
Removal probably isn't the best idea, since there are cases where
disabling compositing will be a handy ability.<br>
<br>
I hope this helps the design direction in some way, I know 2.5 isn't
quite at the point where these issues are a priority, but hopefully
some better ideas may be sparked by these suggestions.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
Keith "Wahooney" Boshoff<br>
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