[Blindmath] Some suggestions for Richard Baldwin's SVG drawing tool

[Michael Whapples]

Hello,
I have just tried using Richard Baldwin's SVG drawing tool. This is quite useful. I have a few comments/suggestions to make.

The first is whether it would be possible to also have an option for metric units? I was having to create a diagram from some measurements I had in metric and it would have been so much easier if I could have just entered values in metric.

Also, it seems simple enough to use, however particularly on the save, the action based approach was slightly unusual and caught me out. I am very much used to most software having save only prompt for file name when you first save and should you want to save under a different file name then you use "save as". I guess this is really a familiarity issue, once I remembered this tool needed me to confirm the save it worked fine.

May be also related to the action based approach, sometimes things seemed to require more action from me than felt needed. I guess one point might be when I select set attributes, why cannot the list of elements be created then, why do I need to press another button?

I quite like the way of marking elements when editing them, however how might one deselect something if they made a mistake and how can one tell if an item is selected or not? May be the answer is in the instructions but you know what it can be like when you have to read documentation... I possibly say really well designed software shouldn't need people to read documentation as it should be obvious what to do (either because the software is so clear or it just follows a convention on how to get the specific help you need).

I have to say I did feel a little uncertain on editing some of the diagram, may be its to do with the options available for editing and may be some of its to do with not quite knowing what is there (IE. no way to view the current diagram). I guess that latter point, users of the voice would say that is what the voice is for.

Michael Whapples


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