Introduction:About this Document
From KDE-HIG_Wiki
This document attempts to specify the usage behavior, interaction models and look-and-feel for KDE applications. The goal is to provide some rules-of-thumb for developers to create their application interfaces in order to provide a consistent usage behavior and look-and-feel across KDE applications. These guidelines are meant to help developers to design and write applications that are easy to use and consistent with the K Desktop Environment.
Who Should Read This Document
Anyone interested in software development or usability could benefit from these guidelines. They are, however, written specifically for KDE and contain many guidelines and implementation suggestions which may apply to only KDE software.
Developers
Developers and designers of applications should follow the usability guidelines to maximize the user satisfaction and integration of their application. This document lists what developers should use and what they should avoid based on usability research and feedback from sample groups. Developers can choose to simply use the guidelines provided, or read the rationale and examples that shows the reasoning behind them. Most important for developers are the implementation examples that can be used in the application directly.
Usability Specialists
Usability specialists who are interested in contributing a project can use these guidelines to assist them in their reports. It is important that usability specialists are familiar with these guidelines. Guideline violations are usability issues and should be included in their report.
Usability specialists can use this document to learn KDE's recommended:
- Interface specifications
- Space and layout requirements
- Application behavior expectations
- <todo>add more things the document provides</todo>
