[Bf-taskforce25] Proposal: Ordering Criteria for Default UI

[Brecht Van Lommel]

Hi John,

On Thu, 2009-06-25 at 21:30 -0500, John E. Herreño V. wrote:
> So what's the proposal:
>         Identify the minimal set of parameters that let the user get
>         enough general control of the feature (in my case it's just
>         shading, but I think it's possible to find some other cases
>         with the same behavior).
>         Organize the default UI putting those parameters first on the
>         list on the corresponding panel. That way, the overall
>         behavior can be controlled quite fastly and only the
>         power-user will dare to "deepen" into the panel, using the
>         more advanced/fine-grained parameters.

I think this is generally a good guideline to follow, ordering things by
importance. Other things to keep into account are also to keep related
buttons together, and showing the hierarchy in the settings. In addition
there's aesthetics, avoiding gaps, symmetry, etc.  There's a difficult
trade-off here.

In fact I think this is already taken into account often, even if
subconsciously, but there's definitely room for improvement.

> To avoid getting this message even longer than what it already is I
> will just show a snapshot of the SSS panel reorganized applying the
> ideas I just wrote about:
> http://nucleo-digital.com/tmp/Parameter_Ordering.png . Working with
> only the first two rows it's quite easy to get nice results without
> having to worry about so many parameters.

This illustrates a bit how it's a matter of interpretation too. I think
the SSS panel in 2.4x is better than this mockup and the one in 2.5.

It keeps the scale and radius settings together, because they are
closely related, scale is just a multiplier for the radius. Preset is at
the top, IOR is a bit lower because it is a bit of a difficult
parameter. Error is at the bottom. Col/tex front/back are at the right
because are there to tweak the influence in a non-physical way.

> I've added a fake "SSS presets" widget, because I think the presets
> are a key part to accomplish my goal: easying the workflow. BTW, I'm
> proposing/asking for the SSS presets to be put there in 2.5x :)

Yes, SSS presets will be added back.

> If the idea gains some adepts I will ellaborate more on other aspects
> and take the time to analyze more features and try to apply the
> criteria.

OK, guidelines could be good to have for reference, though the best way
to have influence is to get actively involved doing panel layouts for
2.5 :).

Brecht.