Difference between revisions of "Slicer3:EditorUsabilitySessions"

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=== Slicer application interface ===
 
=== Slicer application interface ===
  
'''Registry settings:'''
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'''General:'''
 
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* In Slicer2 workflow, “apply” is currently being used as a “preview” and “undo” is used to back out of an unsatisfactory operation. In Slicer3, instead of “apply” and “undo”, we should consistently implement “preview”, and “apply”. Though these may be implement the same operations programmatically, the concept of preview has less implicit stress for the user, who won’t worry that their original data may become unrecoverable.
* Ability to have several modules “open” at the same time, or the ability to switch back and forth between modules with minimal clicking and importantly to have the state in each of those modules be persistent.
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* Visual cue: Should we assign a reserved color or visual appearance for ‘Editor preview’ so that in complicated visualizations, it will be clear which regions are being affected by the operation in preview?
* Registry: Ability to personalize and save settings: default load/save file format (NRRD or DICOM), viewing configuration, Interpolation off/on, outline_labelmap off/on, size of viewing window (Charlie)
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* Provide multiple undo and redo as well.
* Feature or Registry: Much editing work is done in the Slice view mode, with interpolation off and in the 4-up view configuration with the 3D view being used as an additional slice viewer. Might be good to set these preferences and have them be remembered at future sessions.
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* Inside editor module, users agree that having the hidden slice controller (which reappears on mouse-over) is very useful. However, sometimes while scrolling thru slices using the slice controller’s scale, the mouse travels off the controller bringing focus back to the slice window by mistake, and resulting in unintended drawing in that slice. This is very frustrating and requires time to clean up. We need to consider a workaround that
* Feature or Registry: Would be useful to have a quick way to change the annotation mode in the slice planes from RAS to IJK or XY (or to set a preference that Slicer remembers).  
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* Editing is done in all orientations, but the original acquisition plane is used, when possible, to make challenging decisions. Feature request: Might be good to visually indicate which of the slice viewers is displaying slices in the plane of acquisition.
 
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* Nobody we spoke to is using the Draw2 module, though having a simple spline tool in addition to points, lines and polygons to draw regions would be nice.
 
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* Within the editor, it would be nice to have a single location in which a user can: ask for a statistics/metrics report (including intensity min, max, mean, std.dev., and volume) for a single region or for all defined regions, and to have the option to save this information out to a text-file. Currently, MeasureVol module will give volume measurements for all labels (user can’t select a single one) and writes a text file; and Editor->Details Drawmode has the intensity statistics, no volume measurements, and no ability to write the text file.
'''File browser:'''
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* Existing hot-keys: Strong recommendation not to remap. Very efficient keyboard operations are used by everyone we spoke with: left hand using index and ring fingers on right and left arrows to move between slices, middle finger on up arrow to apply a point, and on shift key to view in all slice planes simultaneously; right hand moves the mouse to specify point location. Remapping the up and down arrows to also move between slices would strongly impact what has become very natural and efficient keyboard drawing.
* Possibility to select multiple volumes in the load file browser (for example select the 10 volumes at the same time, then click "apply") (Laura)
 
* Ability to apply a file filter (rimage*.hdr) in the file browser to specify multiple files to load at once.
 
* Ability to use rectangle-mouse multiple volumes in the load file browser.
 
* Can registry keep track of the size of the load file browser? In directories that contain a lot of data, it’s convenient to have this widget be very large.
 
* Have Slicer3 remember often-visited directories to minimize typing in the file browser (currently many users work with very long directory paths and filenames, and employ incredible tricks to avoid typing these in repeatedly.)
 
* Ability to change working directory faster (history of working directories?) (Usman)
 
 
 
'''Viewing:'''
 
* Slider in each slice controller: directions for slider are confusing: which way is L, which is R? It would be good if they were labeled on the widget (for example in sagittal: L and R) (Doug)
 
* Slice controller that goes in each panel in the 4x512 view: change from one that shows up when you mouseover (as in slicer26) to one that you click to activate/dismiss or even to a floating toolbar. Request: more information from users for motivation for this request: do you sometimes mouse over by mistake and find the mouse-over controller pop-up to be annoying?
 
* The pop-up Menu for adjusting Window, Level, Threshold is useful – it would be nice to have a toggle for interpolation on here as well, and the histogram + palette menu.
 
* Present an easy-access toggle (icon+hot-key or hot-key alone) for the the annotations (“A”, “P”, etc.) in the 3D view (Charlie)
 
* 3D view thingy: change directions without losing zoom. (Charlie)
 
* Crosshair functionality: highlight the active voxel in the 3 views (Doug)
 
* In addition to the quick camera positions offerend in the 3D view configuration panel (look from A, P, S, I, R, L) would be good to be able to set, name and select view bookmarks (Usman)
 
* Scene saving: when saving a scene, some datafiles are are described by absolute pathnames, and some by relative pathnames in the full-prefix field in the MRML file. Support one convention so users can make a consistent strategy for moving data files.
 
* Save as "dicom" might be useful. (Charlie) (comment: this has to be discussed … )
 
* Shift + click: the feature where you hold the shift key and click in one view at a pixel and the other two views adapt their position is really nice. Unfortunately at the moment slicer2.6 has a bug (but it appears to be fixed in slicer2.7): As soon as one starts drawing on the view that has been adapted it snaps back to the original view. (Charlie and Moto)
 

Revision as of 05:57, 10 January 2007

Home < Slicer3:EditorUsabilitySessions

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User feedback for design of the Editor Module

Slicer application interface

General:

  • In Slicer2 workflow, “apply” is currently being used as a “preview” and “undo” is used to back out of an unsatisfactory operation. In Slicer3, instead of “apply” and “undo”, we should consistently implement “preview”, and “apply”. Though these may be implement the same operations programmatically, the concept of preview has less implicit stress for the user, who won’t worry that their original data may become unrecoverable.
  • Visual cue: Should we assign a reserved color or visual appearance for ‘Editor preview’ so that in complicated visualizations, it will be clear which regions are being affected by the operation in preview?
  • Provide multiple undo and redo as well.
  • Inside editor module, users agree that having the hidden slice controller (which reappears on mouse-over) is very useful. However, sometimes while scrolling thru slices using the slice controller’s scale, the mouse travels off the controller bringing focus back to the slice window by mistake, and resulting in unintended drawing in that slice. This is very frustrating and requires time to clean up. We need to consider a workaround that
  • Editing is done in all orientations, but the original acquisition plane is used, when possible, to make challenging decisions. Feature request: Might be good to visually indicate which of the slice viewers is displaying slices in the plane of acquisition.
  • Nobody we spoke to is using the Draw2 module, though having a simple spline tool in addition to points, lines and polygons to draw regions would be nice.
  • Within the editor, it would be nice to have a single location in which a user can: ask for a statistics/metrics report (including intensity min, max, mean, std.dev., and volume) for a single region or for all defined regions, and to have the option to save this information out to a text-file. Currently, MeasureVol module will give volume measurements for all labels (user can’t select a single one) and writes a text file; and Editor->Details Drawmode has the intensity statistics, no volume measurements, and no ability to write the text file.
  • Existing hot-keys: Strong recommendation not to remap. Very efficient keyboard operations are used by everyone we spoke with: left hand using index and ring fingers on right and left arrows to move between slices, middle finger on up arrow to apply a point, and on shift key to view in all slice planes simultaneously; right hand moves the mouse to specify point location. Remapping the up and down arrows to also move between slices would strongly impact what has become very natural and efficient keyboard drawing.