Kubuntu Printer Configuration UI
Ah printing. The printer configuration UI in Kubuntu is like a love-hate relationship: you get everything you need — and then more than you ask, until it becomes overwhelming and you say “f**k this” and walk out. OK, maybe it isn’t that bad (especial if you’ve seen system-config-printer), but it was certainly in need of some therapy. At FOSSCamp this past weekend, Jonathan (the mutual friend in my analogy) asked if I (the therapist) would take a look at the configuration UI and work up something better looking with my mojo (working in the analogy is harder than I thought, so I’ll just let it rest).
Once I got back from Boston, I took some time to break down the different options in both the Kubuntu and Ubuntu config interfaces and used some of what I’ve learned from the OpenPrinting project to come up with a simpler interface. I am a huge fan of using KDE Pages to manage information hierarchy. The new interface is also roughly within the KDE4 HIG recommended dialog size of 800×600 max (some Kubuntu configuration dialogs are notoriously large) using a standard 9pt system font . This afternoon, Jonathan and I got a chance to review the wireframes which resulted in some minor changes (mostly audience-related) and the final interface proposal.
Wireframe images of the proposed Kubuntu printer configuration user interface (PDF 42KB):
Hmm. I thought KDE 4 was well past the stage of worrying about dialog sizes.
Every so often, I find a KDE app (mostly the new preferences windows) that don’t resize at all, but I figure that’s just lack of awareness or bad design that’ll get fixed when the new tools are more complete.
It’s worrying to read about maximum dialog sizes in the HIG though. Isn’t this all supposed to be scalable, and reflowable?
Interesting mockups. Still, I admired the KDE 3 screenshots available from printing.kde.org/screenshots
Which of these will the above dialog box replace? All of them or just “Printer management”? One thing that could be potentially confusing is having both “Settings” and “Options” in “My Laser Printer” - there’s not much difference between them. Maybe call them “Printer settings” and “Printing options” instead? Also, will “Options” replace the individual program printing dialogs, or is it a place to set the default printing behavior? I admire your work to make KDE more usable and ergonomic. I hope to hear back from you soon!
Nice job…
Today, I have to print a long PDF document with my shiny new HP laserjet 3052. (Yeah, this is the first job of my printer, it’s realy new, only 2 days old.) and I had to spend much time adjusting the printer settings than I print 500 pages of a book. (it’s the “Samba-3 by example” book that comes from Kubuntu repositories when I install samba-doc package. Now I finished the print job but the print settings dialogs are really confusing. And Now I see your post about redesigning the printer settings application and I get really happy… The printer configuration is the only thing that I miss from my windows days.
@lee
i’m not sure what you mean about reflowable. the design and layout of the dialog isn’t (or shouldn’t) change. the HIG recommends a maximum dialog size (not window size, this applies to things like configuration and popup dialogs) to help control information and data display. there are known issues with information below the “fold” both on the web and in client uis.
@darryl
i agree there isn’t much different between settings and options. i’m not sure if amending “printing” to the labels clarifies it, but i will take a look at it.
@pipitas
the text in the Add New Printer screen can be adjusted/re-written. i don’t have a lot of experience with i18n to know what translates well and what doesn’t.
my class description may be inaccurate, but i don’t think your suggestion is much better. you may know what “load balancing” or “fail over” means, but that is not in the expected realm of knowledge for the target audience. a user interface is supposed to abstract the underlying workings of the code, not be a literal translation.
also, page 2 is a typo, the checkbox should say Print to PDF
as for controlling the status of the printer, i don’t see why you would do that in this interface unless you were an administrator. afaik the administrator isn’t a target user group. not every functionality is provided in the interface for a reason. jonathan and i cut out a lot of the options because they weren’t things we though the target users needed. this is a user interface, not an administrator interface.
The mockups look really nice, but I’m left wondering how it well it is capable of working with lots of printers. Perhaps it is just a corner case, but we can easily have 10-20 printers installed, and I’ve worked in environments with a few hundred. Any thoughts there?
Thanks
@Christian
Keep in mind this is for Kubuntu, not KDE. A Kubuntu system with a hundred installed printers is an extreme edge case which doesn’t apply to the target users. Someone with that many printers probably also cares to tweak options which are not available in this, the old, or the system-config-printer interface. 10 to 20 printers are a more realistic edge case for most interfaces, but still probably manageable.
Hmmm, I like those a lot. One thing I am very aware of is the overwhelming complexity of the printing kcm, there’s just too many options hanging off menu buttons. While these are for Kubuntu, and the 100+ printer scenario above would need addressing for KDE, I don’t see why we can’t make the underlying KDEPrint pages the same and perhaps just have different shells for different target user profiles.
I’ll add a link to this from the KDEPrint wiki for ideas for 4.1 (if we get there, the future of KDEPrint is still an open question).
John.
What’ve you used to create these mocks, btw?
@pipitas
if i had a way to do user testing on every major interface, believe me i would :) unfortunately it is not something easily done (the correct way) and we make do with the other methods we have available.
as for computer classes, i wonder how other environments handle the language. any ideas how MacOS and Windows describe printing classes?
also, afaik the current KDE printer UI doesn’t have an option to change the state of the printer only report it (or if it does, both Jonathan and myself missed it). there are a number of functionality which could exist and we opted not to include it in the interface for one reason or another because it doesn’t fit the user model kubuntu is aiming for.
@berkus
i use axure or visio to create wireframes. kivio needs some improvement before i can use it for real (re: client) work. actually for wireframes, i just need an easy to use primitive drawing tool with snap-to-grid and custom stencil libraries.
So does this mean that the ultimate KDE 4 printer config dialog will be more advanced than this one and eventually include options for admins?
“you get everything you need — and then more than you ask, until it becomes overwhelming and you say “f**k this””
Thanks for defining perfectly why I don’t use KDE. :p
@Spaceboy: that was really uncalled for. If you bothered to read the rest of Celeste’s post, you’d see the hard work being done to fix the klunkiness. Don’t be so harsh.
@seele:
—
“as for computer classes, i wonder how other environments
handle the language. any ideas how MacOS and Windows
describe printing classes?”
It’s not “computer classes”, but “printer classes”. Windows has something similar, and it’s called “printer pools” there. Since Mac OS X uses CUPS as well (now even owns it), I assume that they’ll call it “printer class” too; but I don’t know for sure.
—
“also, afaik the current KDE printer UI doesn’t have an
option to change the state of the printer only report it”
kprinter (the GUI for the user to print a job) indeed doesn’t have this option.
The print administration module in KDE’s control center (which your mockup seems to be aiming as being a replacement for, or isn’t it?) however *does* have the option (I don’t say it is easy to discover, or easy to understand after discovery…):
* Start “kcmshell printers”,
* highlight one real printer (you have at least one installed, have you?),
* and look in the drop-down menu “Printer” for the first two entries.
@Darryl
This isn’t specifically for KDE4, it is for Kubuntu. I haven’t spoken with the KDE print maintainer about adopting this interface for KDE4. AFAIK, KDE4 has a broader audience than Kubuntu, so they options they want to include may differ.
@pipitas
Ah hah, yes, I missed that completely. I will talk to Jonathan about this and update the wireframes. I actually had these options in the UI to begin with (based on what I found in system-config-printer) but took it out when we couldn’t find the same options in the KDE interface.
It’s probably just my opinion, but the vertical bar of buttons on the left is just way too Exploder Bar-like. A motivating factor of my switch from Windows was because I didn’t like their interface gimmicks. There’s nothing more creative with at least the same level of effectiveness?