From: Paul Louden <paulthenerd_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2011 08:45:06 -0500

Hey guys, so, we're contemplating trying this once more. Many of us
regularly come to the conclusion that the settings are not organized
in the best way possible. We also often never manage to do anything
about it. So we'd like to try again.

We're going to come up with a proper process under which to accomplish
this. Some of the main points of this process are that at the end we
will have a single .diff from our collaboration efforts, which will
then undergo a yes/no vote. Everyone is welcome to contribute, but
we're not discussing the existing layout or minor changes to it.
Rather we're more or less starting from scratch.

We're first going to be dumping the entire list of settings. Every
single one of them. I think we're still not entirely sorted on the
process by which we'll refine this into a new menu structure but we
shouldn't be looking at the old structure as a reference or starting
point. We want to go through the existing settings, as a group, and
come up with a procedure by which we create the new one.

Here is an example process by which we could do this. It's not the
process anyone must follow, but it would allow things to be approached
as a group. We do ask that if you're going to contribute, you
contribute to the whole thing rather than just chiming in at parts.
That means if you think there's a better process, speak up so that we
can refine it before we start, rather than objecting to it later on.
At the beginning of the process we would select a small group (3 or 5)
of volunteers to arbitrate decisions at the each of each phase to
ensure this project moves forward.

The first step, then, would be looking at the whole list of settings
and having people contribute a categorize list. Not a new menu
structure, but just what categories they belong in. For example,
"volume" could be categorized as "sound setting" or "dsp setting" or
something new. These are only top level categories, so don't get into
fine grained detail. The goal would to be to have these top level
categories suggested in one week.

After everyone has contributed top level categories, we look at what
we have, see which ones are unambiguously categorized the same way,
and in cases where there are conflict (X is playback for some, and
Sound for others) we work that out, at this point, before moving on.
We could spend approximately one week on this, possibly too if it
turns contentious.

Next we go into each broad category and attempt a similar thing using
subcategories. Repeat this sort of thing recursively until we've
decided we need no further sub-sub categories. At each stage we can
discuss whether sub-categories are even needed under the previous
level based on the number of items, and whether it will increase
confusion (by not having settings immediately visible) or decrease it
(by helping to shorten the list). This could be given 2-3 weeks.

After everything is categorized, we approach each visible menu with an
eye for order. At this phase we should determine some standard
ordering rules, for example "the enable/disable option should always
come before the parameter options." Note this is just an example, and
while one I feel is a good rule, not one that must be adopted. This as
well should be given one or two weeks.

The overall deadline for the project would be the beginning of the
feature freeze for the next release, so that the new menu layout can
be available with the next Rockbox release.

Again, this whole process is up for comments before we start. If we
get enough people willing to commit to contributing their suggestions
at each phase, we'll take it and go. If you object to the results of
the phase after the phase is over, don't waste time starting
arguments, just vote against it at the end. If the version contributed
to by everyone is voted down, then we can entertain voting on
contributed .diffs, but the real goal here is to use a process by
which we incorporate a little bit of everyone's input into something
that is, if never near perfect, better than what we have now.
Received on 2011-08-23