User:Petr.bug/Usability

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Revision as of 22:35, 8 December 2007 by Petr.bug (talk | contribs) (created)
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These is my first impression on using FlightGear. I have played Microsoft Flight Simulator years ago. It is obvious that much work has been done in FlightGear but is it still user unfriendly: user has to discover many aviation-unrelated things - I would like it to make it better.

I volunteer! I have a lot of C++ experience. I will implement these (and others) usability improvements. I only want to know if or what my suggestions will be merged to repository because I do not want to spend my time by doing something what would not benefit others. It is OK you accept only well written code, my colleagues like my code so do not be afraid it being issue.

Here it goes.


What toes user need to take off? - How to unlock brakes? - How to increase throttle? - How to control rudder/ailerons? (Now I know it is in Help menu, but user does not.)

How do i know the simulator is paused?

When started take of tutorial, and start climbing, label says "You are too high". It should say "You are too high (1273 ft), decrease throttle and descend to 1000 ft."

Instrument panel displays "BRAKE" even if brakes are released. It may better be BREAKS OFF".

Missing tooltips. Hovering over instrument panel controls does not provide feedback. It should highlight the area of the control (e.g. separate altimeter up/altimeter down) and tooltip (e.g. "Decrease heading" or "Heading: Decrease to 119 (now 120)", "Throttle: Drag up/down to increase/decrease (now 90%)"). Parts of instruments that would not react to clicking should not highlight themselves, although tooltip is good (e.g. "Altitude: 3782 ft (at 114 mmHg)" - what novice can read altimeter?)

When user clicks right button (and forgets that he did so or presses it by accident) there is no indication on how to cancel the mode. (Idea: "Ailerons+rudder control mode. Right click again to switch to lookout and then normal mode.")

What about easier way for looking around the craft? I imagine by mouse-dragging the landscape (also by dragging aircraft frame). Double-click on instrument panel would switch it to 2D mode. Double-click to scenery would move view directly to front, idea: double-click again would return to view before moving to front.

The stick is difficult to see in the default aircraft (I do not know how to discover its name) dark background.

The timezone is detected incorrectly as UTC-8. My computer has actually UTC+1. The UTC time is correct. Or is the time local to the airport?

Click on menu File (only other top-level) and click on it again. Menus do not close after being clicked second time.

Menu items that do require user input to complete a task lack ellipsis.

Menu "Adjust View Distance" lacks Cancel or Restore Defaults button.

ATC Options: "AI Carrier": What is AI? Consider "Aircraft Carrier" since carrier is different communication related word (voice - audio signal is modulated on carrier frequency). Air traffic density "1" is high or low?

CPU usage when paused or minimized is 100%. This would be a hard one.