GTK Font Dialog Heuristic Evaluation

15 October 2009
Máirín Duffy <duffy at redhat dot com>
Alberto Ruiz

Existing Dialog

The ability to type custom text into the text preview field is not easily discoverable.
If I am interested in an Italic or Bold font, I must explicitly select Italic or Bold for every single font I preview. This makes it impossible to rapidly scroll through a list of bold (for example) fonts in order to find an appropriate one. The font 'style' attribute is not 'sticky' between fonts, yet the size attribute is, so it's inconsistent as well.
The default preview text is not a realistic usage of the font, so it's not a good example of how the font would look in practice.
The font 'Family' list scrolls horizontally.
There isn't a way to know what a font is going to look like without investing a click. The only hint you have is the font's name.
The dialog feels cramped. My first instinct upon opening it is to drag it out to be a little bit larger.
Size selection is a little bit awkward. Bogus input into the size text box renders a size '0' font.
When the size of the font is increased, the preview grows from the left. It' s a little strange-looking - it might look better to grow from the center.
It's hard to jump from a 'good close look' at what a font looks like to seeing it in the most common size treatments (10 pt - 16 pt are most common by my guesstimation) It requires a long, awkward scrolling action.
The list of fonts is flat, and fonts that have similar styles or intended usages, language/character set support, variable vs fixed width are all mixed in together without any organization.
Sometimes multiple fonts render the same preview, and I wonder which is the 'real' name of the font I'm seeing in the preview.

New Prototype

The ability to type custom text into the text preview field is not easily discoverable.
The font names and preview text are too small to read comfortably.
The font names are not in any discernable order.
Text preview goes all the way down to 0. Why would I ever want a 0 point font? I would think 4 or maybe 6 pt would be a reasonable lower bound - these sizes leave enough visible on the screen that it doesn't look like the preview disappeared.
The upper cap of 90 is okay in the size control, but maybe 96 is better since it's a standard point size. However, the units for the font size are not labeled so I'm not sure what unit the measurement is in.
It's difficult to make fine adjustments to the font point size. I had a very hard time setting it to be 4 exactly (it kept going between 3 and 5.)
Search box / drop down doesn't do anything.
Similar to in the current dialog, it's hard to jump between a large preview of the font to get a feel for the font's character/shape vs. getting a more commonly-size (10pt-16pt) preview of how it would look in practice.
The cancel button looks like a button only on hover. It looks a little odd to me.
I have fonts that have more styles than bold, italic, and bold italic. This dialog won't address them. (Light, Heavy, etc)
The list of fonts is flat, and fonts that have similar styles or intended usages, language/character set support, variable vs fixed width are all mixed in together without any organization.