Bug 147149

Summary:	Feature Requests: Easier Interface, More Interactive Quizes and Smooth Boundaries
Product:	[Applications] kgeography	Reporter:	Keith Hughitt <keith.hughitt>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Albert Astals Cid <aacid>
Status:	REOPENED ---
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	aristsakas
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	0.4.2
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Ubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	A sketch of an idea for possible alternative interface for Kgeography

Description Keith Hughitt 2007-06-24 00:23:28 UTC

Version: 0.4.2 (using KDE KDE 3.5.7)
Installed from: Ubuntu Packages
OS: Linux

Here are a few ideas on things that I think it would be nice to have in Kgeography:

1) Easier Interface

Right now the interface is very unintuitive in my opinion. For instance, to quiz yourself on the geography of Africa, one has to click "File" -> "Open map"-> "Africa" -> "Click Division in map"

Sure it's no problem once you know how to do it, or if you are the adventurous type.. but for my 11 year old niece or my mother, I'm pretty sure they would be clueless. It would be helpful to make it more clear how to do different things, although at the same time you don't want to overwhelm the user by making too many different things available right away. Perhaps a wizard interface, or show only the most popular options from the start?

2) More Interact Quizzes

Right now the style of the quizzes are not very exciting. It would be neat for instance if the quizzes had some visual or audio effect on correct / incorrect answers, and perhaps showed (optionally), all of the correctly guesses states,etc. (I'm thinking something along the lines of http://www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html for example).

3) Smooth boundaries

This is being rather picky but, would it be possible to make maps a little prettier by using smooth lines for boundaries instead of the jagged edges the the maps currently have? It may seem petty and functionally irrelevant (the later of which it is certainly), but it can make all the difference when it comes to the enjoyment experience. Especially for younger folk- kids and teenagers can be very critical of things they think look "old" or "out-dated." The maps the Kgeography currently has reminds me somewhat of computing in the early 90s.

I don't mean to be critical of the work people have done, and I really appreciate all of the time people have devoted to this wonderful application!

Keep up the good work!

Comment 1 Albert Astals Cid 2007-06-24 23:07:14 UTC

Hi Keith, thanks for the comments, first a suggestion for the future, please open one report per wish, that way it's much easier to follow the track of each them.

1) I'm not a big fan of wizards, also wizards are usually for things you only do once "create account wizard", "configure spam filter wizard", etc. Probably the only confusing thing is "Open map" beign under the file menu, if it was over the rest of the butttons, maybe it would be enough?

2) No flash here, but probably a duplicate of wish 132702?

3) Due to how kgeography works internally it is not trivial to smooth lines without rewriting much of the code and maybe even data, so basically it's not on my plan.

Comment 2 Keith Hughitt 2007-06-25 00:14:00 UTC

Created attachment 20944 [details]
A sketch of an idea for possible alternative interface for Kgeography

Comment 3 Keith Hughitt 2007-06-25 00:16:04 UTC

Hi Albert,

Sorry for combining things into a single post- I will be sure to write separate reports in the future.

1) Having the "Open Map" or "Choose Continent / Country" button along with the others would be nice. Do you think there is any other way to say "Click Division in Map"? It's not clear to me before playing what exactly that button does.

One idea would be to have two sets of buttons, each with there own headers on the left side. One would be for games related to guessing *country* names, the other for *state* names. That way, under the header you could just have a button  "Quiz on State Locations" or "Click the Correct Country", etc. I'm not too good at describing with words. I've attached a rough sketch of what I had was thinking.

2) I did read that request. Sound is one component, but a visual animation as well would be neat- especially for younger players.

3) I didn't realize the maps were generated by code. I assumed that the maps were loaded from image files. In any case it's no big deal.

I wish there was some way I could contribute more. Thanks for your quick response.

Take care,
Keith

Comment 4 Albert Astals Cid 2007-06-27 00:27:35 UTC

1) On KDE 4 that quiz is under a "Test Yourself:" label with the name "Location of Regions"

1 bis) I don't understand your sketch :-S What would you use country and state for?

2) Lol, did not realize it was you, i'll try to get some flash to see the animation

3) Well, they are not generated by code, but the color of the division is what determines which division it is. The only way to get smoothing is doing a mixture of colors to make the eye believe the line is smoother, but then you have colors that are not "assigned" to any division.