PMC Usability Meeting 20100219
Date: 2010-02-19
Time: 2PM GMT
Venue: irc #adempiere-team
Support Spreadsheet: Adempiere PMC Usability
Chat times in GMT-5
(09:00:49) CarlosRuiz: kai7: AYT?
(09:01:39) kai7: Hi Carlos
(09:01:44) kai7: Jepp, I am here
(09:02:28) CarlosRuiz: great
(09:03:05) CarlosRuiz: ok - so, let's start the meeting :-)
(09:03:14) kai7: One seond please. :-)
(09:03:18) kai7: seond=second
(09:03:26) CarlosRuiz: ok - ping me when ready
(09:04:57) kai7: So CarlosRuiz
(09:05:02) kai7: Let's start
(09:05:32) CarlosRuiz: ok
(09:05:58) kai7: It seems that usability is not the top topic. :-)
(09:06:04) CarlosRuiz: so, I would propose this agenda:
(09:06:04) CarlosRuiz: - define a periodic meeting
(09:06:04) CarlosRuiz: - review the scope defined in PMC Structure
(09:06:04) CarlosRuiz: - review a potential list of initial tasks to work on
(09:06:04) CarlosRuiz: - review a possible initial wishlist
(09:06:20) kai7: OK
(09:06:21) CarlosRuiz: usability and documentation are largely unattended in most OS projects
(09:06:44) kai7: I am sure it is. ;-)
(09:06:56) CarlosRuiz: let's try to change that :-)
(09:07:02) kai7: OK, start with 1 - meeting
(09:07:27) kai7: What would you say, is a good frequency?
(09:07:34) CarlosRuiz: ok - just to set up a periodic meeting with the purpose of reviewing the advance of the tasks and create new
(09:07:42) CarlosRuiz: maybe bi-weekly
(09:07:44) red1 [~red1@249.102.49.60.klj04-home.tm.net.my] entered the channel.
(09:08:33) kai7: It means every two weeks?
(09:08:49) CarlosRuiz: yep
(09:09:12) kai7: OK, I guess we could try it.
(09:09:22) CarlosRuiz: which weekday and time is better for you?
(09:09:44) kai7: Actually Friday is good.
(09:10:35) kai7: What time?
(09:10:50) CarlosRuiz: 13 GMT?
(09:11:51) kai7: Could we push it to 14 GMT?
(09:12:07) CarlosRuiz: ok - starting next friday?
(09:12:17) CarlosRuiz: or the next of the next?
(09:12:43) kai7: Next friday is fine, so it's alternating to the ADeV board meetings. :-)
(09:12:56) CarlosRuiz: ok - setting up .... just one minute
(09:14:45) CarlosRuiz: ready / invitation sent
(09:14:50) kai7: Great
(09:15:22) CarlosRuiz: indeed Jairah already published the calendar in adempiere.org!
(09:15:22) CarlosRuiz: http://adempiere.org/home/activities_events
(09:15:24) CarlosRuiz: :-)
(09:15:49) CarlosRuiz: ok - second point
(09:16:02) kai7: Just reading it again...
(09:16:55) CarlosRuiz: according to
(09:16:55) CarlosRuiz: http://www.adempiere.com/index.php/PMC_Structure#Usability
(09:16:55) CarlosRuiz: "This group is in charge to define usability guidelines for ADempiere User Interface, and review contributions from the point of view of usability, for example position of fields, tabs, bloating of windows, shortcuts, keyboard usability, etc."
(09:16:55) CarlosRuiz: do we need to change or add something?
(09:17:17) kai7: Just thinking about the defining of "usability guidelines"
(09:17:40) kai7: For whom should the guidelines be written?
(09:18:03) CarlosRuiz: once established the idea is that developers follow the guidelines when designing the UI
(09:18:15) kai7: OK
(09:19:04) CarlosRuiz: ok, I sent you an invitation for a google spreadsheet, did you receive it?
(09:19:25) kai7: Even the appliation dictonary doesn't leave much room for "designing" (right now) ;-)
(09:20:04) kai7: Yes, in spanish. :-)
(09:20:08) CarlosRuiz: hehehe
(09:20:19) kai7: OK, I am in
(09:20:31) CarlosRuiz: ok, the idea is to create some tasks, and probably a wishlist of usability things we want to improve
(09:21:16) CarlosRuiz: we try to work on the tasks - and on the meetings we check the advance and if new tasks appear of anything we want to chat about usability
(09:21:19) kai7: BTW: I just talk to Mark and Norbert
(09:21:42) kai7: They told me, that they did a lot of usability imporvements
(09:22:01) kai7: When their current project is through the will start to contribute it.
(09:22:12) CarlosRuiz: sounds great - so we can check them and propose to integrate them
(09:22:21) kai7: But I could get a presentations before...
(09:23:08) kai7: This is actually now the hard part.
(09:23:10) CarlosRuiz: I guess neither you neither I are usability experts - so a possible task is to research about that
(09:23:47) kai7: On which interface should we focus?
(09:23:58) kai7: (ZK or Swing or both?)
(09:24:23) CarlosRuiz: hopefully both
(09:25:01) CarlosRuiz: are you checking the tasks I'm adding?
(09:25:06) kai7: Yes
(09:25:15) CarlosRuiz: ok, I would move better to the wishlist
(09:25:34) kai7: I guess I wouldn't sperate them now.
(09:25:44) kai7: It's too soon for this.
(09:25:58) CarlosRuiz: I mean - tasks are things we're going to work on
(09:26:08) CarlosRuiz: wishlist is to annotate ideas to improve usability
(09:26:28) CarlosRuiz: hopefully the wishlist can become development tasks or be part of the roadmap in future
(09:26:45) kai7: OK
(09:27:27) kai7: Another task could be to look out for inprovements in development
(09:27:28) CarlosRuiz: feel free to add to the list :-)
(09:28:17) kai7: Isn't someone developing a window designer?
(09:28:26) CarlosRuiz: I don't think so
(09:28:38) kai7: Hm, Norbert mentionted someting.
(09:28:43) kai7: I will ask...
(09:28:45) CarlosRuiz: we can add it to the wishlist
(09:29:00) kai7: Yes
(09:29:28) kai7: Regarding the installers...
(09:29:35) kai7: I guess I could pick it up again
(09:30:06) kai7: I already made some improvments in the Windows installer and I just created my first .deb-package
(09:30:38) CarlosRuiz: sounds great - I had that in my learning pendings :-)
(09:31:00) kai7: Was not to difficult.
(09:31:38) kai7: The auto-updater is for you a "usability" topic?
(09:31:46) CarlosRuiz: Do you think is worthy to review the icons on the toolbar - there are some that are not so obvious
(09:31:50) kai7: Isn't it core functionality. ;-)
(09:31:58) kai7: Good idea
(09:32:12) CarlosRuiz: sounds like a task instead of wishlist
(09:32:42) CarlosRuiz: the auto-updater - I think is usability - it can be done now manually
(09:32:49) kai7: Depends how you look to it:
(09:32:58) CarlosRuiz: but some mechanism to ease the process will help the users a lot
(09:32:58) kai7: Whishlist: Getting better icons
(09:33:23) kai7: Yes, we could leave it here for now. ;-)
(09:33:31) CarlosRuiz: ok :-) changed
(09:34:12) CarlosRuiz: we can ask also for brainstorm on forum on this topic - specifically on usability improvements
(09:34:25) CarlosRuiz: ah - the user login window has part of usability issues
(09:34:52) kai7: Yes, forum post is good.
(09:35:09) kai7: We could also collect the inprovments in development
(09:35:22) CarlosRuiz: can you do the forum post when have some free time?
(09:36:04) kai7: Yes, I could do it.
(09:36:30) CarlosRuiz: ok, but first let me publish the meeting minutes and the spreadsheets :-) so you can mention them in the post
(09:36:45) CarlosRuiz: I'll let you know via pmc mail list when published
(09:36:52) kai7: OK
(09:37:28) kai7: This is a good task for the next week. :-)
(09:37:51) CarlosRuiz: do you think is worthy to allow font, size and color configuration for fields?
(09:38:13) kai7: Yes, definetly
(09:38:22) kai7: At least color
(09:38:47) kai7: We are doing it for some windows (hard coded :-( ) and it's valuable
(09:39:25) CarlosRuiz: I think we also have an issue with usability on payment window
(09:39:41) CarlosRuiz: that window conduct many processes
(09:39:53) CarlosRuiz: one field filled wrongly and you're making a totally different proces
(09:40:12) kai7: Yes
(09:40:22) CarlosRuiz: I was thinking if we can improve that in some way - make the payment window easy to use for end user
(09:40:29) kai7: The next window which is critical is the bank statment
(09:40:51) CarlosRuiz: yes - lots of fields there, and is not clear which ones to fill
(09:41:14) kai7: And once complete you have no chance to correct one line.
(09:41:31) kai7: And voiding result in a restet of the accounting facts
(09:41:47) kai7: restet=reset
(09:41:59) CarlosRuiz: is that another usability improvement? I have heard a lot requests to allow reopening documents when possible (with permissions of course)
(09:42:12) CarlosRuiz: under certain conditions we can allow the reopening of documents
(09:42:21) kai7: Not only
(09:42:37) CarlosRuiz: ?
(09:42:43) kai7: The problem is always: If you have accounting facts you actually can't allow to reopen it
(09:42:58) CarlosRuiz: you could if the period is not closed
(09:43:12) kai7: But not after at least the German regulations
(09:43:19) CarlosRuiz: ah - certainly
(09:43:25) CarlosRuiz: that must be configurable
(09:43:31) CarlosRuiz: some documents can be allowed, others don't
(09:43:32) kai7: If you have book something you are only allowed to cancel it not to delete.
(09:43:43) kai7: Yes
(09:43:53) CarlosRuiz: I mean - for example if a document just post commitment accounting (like orders)
(09:44:12) kai7: For the statment for instance we builded a function to cancel one line (creating a resvered statment with this line)
(09:44:29) kai7: This imporves the usability a lot
(09:44:47) CarlosRuiz: yes - same for the cash journal - but I guess cash is going to be deprecated
(09:44:58) kai7: Why?
(09:45:29) CarlosRuiz: do you use cash journal?
(09:45:39) kai7: Yes
(09:46:35) CarlosRuiz: ah, I thought nobody used that :-) but I guess you have made improvements
(09:46:35) CarlosRuiz: cash journal cannot be printed, hard to reverse one line, cannot be paid/received partially, etc
(09:46:48) CarlosRuiz: we migrated all our customers to use payment window instead of cash journal
(09:46:58) kai7: That right and we don't use it very much.
(09:47:20) kai7: But if you receive cash you need someting like this ;-)
(09:47:49) CarlosRuiz: wondering what else can be considered as usability
(09:48:05) CarlosRuiz: the online documentation
(09:48:13) kai7: Yes, big point
(09:48:22) CarlosRuiz: there are lots of elements, processes added recently to dictionary without proper comments
(09:48:47) kai7: I guess the whole system could be improved
(09:49:51) CarlosRuiz: we talked in Berlin about an easy-installer
(09:49:58) CarlosRuiz: more like an easy company creator
(09:50:20) CarlosRuiz: where user can choose document formats for example
(09:50:43) kai7: Yes, antoher important point
(09:50:50) CarlosRuiz: how can we call that?
(09:50:54) CarlosRuiz: easy company configurator?
(09:51:30) kai7: Easy client setup?
(09:52:23) CarlosRuiz: ok - I'm sure during the week there will be more things that come to our minds - feel free to add them to the spreadsheet - I'll do the same
(09:52:33) kai7: OK
(09:53:02) CarlosRuiz: meanwhile if you find interesting links about usability patterns on applications or anything related / please pass it to me via pmc maillist [Usability] topic
(09:53:08) CarlosRuiz: I'll do the same if I find something worthy
(09:53:21) kai7: OK 2nd
(09:53:33) CarlosRuiz: that's to achieve the first task :-) Research about usability patterns for applications
(09:53:59) CarlosRuiz: with such research we can move to the tasks 2 and 3
(09:54:13) kai7: Yes
(09:54:30) kai7: I guess one task at one time is enough for the begining. :-)(
(09:54:42) CarlosRuiz: yep :-)
(09:55:03) kai7: So are we through for today?
(09:55:15) CarlosRuiz: yes, I think so, thanks a lot for attending
(09:56:09) kai7: No problem.
(09:56:20) kai7: Thank you for organisting the meetins so well.
(09:56:29) CarlosRuiz: you're welcome
