kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Simon Schumann <simon.schumann@xxxxxx>]

On 10/09/14 11:25, Javier Serrano wrote:
[snip]
> Watching 15 minutes of your video has been a very painful experience.
Yes, utterly painful...
> I could not take in the whole 30 minutes. There are clearly things
> that could be more intuitive. Things which cannot be considered
> controversial. I think those things could be the object of a detailed
> work package to be included in the roadmap. Then there is the
> controversial/religious stuff. How to copy/paste and such. I think
> that part needs more debate, but it looks to me that if one accepts
> the premise that KiCad should be very usable by a new user, the
> *default* behavior for things which are done in a given way in 99% of
> the graphical applications out there should be that de-facto-standard
> way. And users who are expert users should know how to customize KiCad
> in a way that maximizes their productivity. That customization could
> very well include very fast and efficient ways of cutting, pasting,
> moving, rotating, etc. Another option would be to try to make the two
> types of methods co-exist at the same time. It's difficult to discuss
> how possible this is without getting into a lot of detail. BTW, the
> fact that KiCad is undergoing major change in several important areas
> is not helping in the usability/coherence department. Things should be
> better soon even without major efforts.
>
> The good news is that, as you say, the effort to improve in this area
> is not that great. There is some low-hanging fruit. KiCad is already
> very powerful, and the work on usability is probably smaller than
> several of the big work packages people have been taking on lately. I
> think KiCad should have a usability team as it already has people
> concerned with libraries, documentation, etc. Same goes for testing
> BTW. If some people (maybe also from the users list) step up for the
> task and Wayne thinks it's a good idea, I think it could do a lot of
> good to the project. If the idea moves forward, you can count on the
> help of the CERN team in this domain.
>
> Many thanks to you and to all KiCad developers. These are exciting times for us.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Javier
>
> [1] Search for "ergonomics" in
> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~kicad-product-committers/kicad/product/view/head:/Documentation/development/road-map.md
I don't think KiCAD's usability is particularly bad. The problem is that 
by simply
clicking around it is very hard to figure out how stuff works, 
especially since every
EDA-tool works a little different / has a different concept. In my 
opinion KiCAD
needs to throw some guidance at the user (not hidden in a menu), otherwise
people do trial&error and get frustrated very fast..

The project window that opens on startup is pretty empty. So there would be
plenty of space to offer some guidance. I think making a few online 
slideshows
to cover the basics and linking them each with a nice picture in the 
project window
could do the trick. To give you an idea of what I mean, here are a few
sample/concept slides on how to create schematics:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/19005544/kicad/startersguide_mockup_00/02.html
(Sorry for potential eye bleed, I'm wether a web developer nor a 
designer :P )
I think these are the keys to make useful and non boring slides:
 * Pictures (!), show where to click
 * Short texts
 * Embrace some shortcut usage

A few of these like
 * General workflow (tool order, components separated from footprints, etc)
 * Small sample project (basic usage of eeschema, cvpcb, pcbnew)
 * Creating components
 * Creating footprints
offered in the project window should make KiCAD rather easy for beginners.

Cheers
Simon