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diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.md b/CONTRIBUTING.md index 20106912..a417caf5 100644 --- a/CONTRIBUTING.md +++ b/CONTRIBUTING.md @@ -74,6 +74,34 @@ reports: When you're done with your changes, send us a pull request on Github. Feel free to include a change to the CREDITS file with your patch. +Vimium design goals +------------------- + +When improving Vimium it's helpful to know what design goals we're optimizing for. + +The core goal is to make it easy to navigate the web using just the keyboard. When people first start using +Vimium, it provides an incredibly powerful workflow improvement and it makes them feel awesome. And it turns +out that Vimium is applicable to a huge, broad population of people, not just users of Vim, which is great. + +A secondary goal is to make Vimium approachable, or in other words, to minimize the barriers which will +prevent a new user from feeling awesome. Many of Vimium's users haven't used Vim before (about 1 in 5 app +store reviews say this), and most people have strong web browsing habits forged from years of browsing that +they rely on. Given that, it's a great experience when Vimium feels like a natural addition to Chrome which +augments but doesn't break their current browsing habits. + +In some ways, making software approachable is even harder than just enabling the core use case. But in this +area, Vimium really shines. It's approachable today because: + +1. It's simple to understand (even if you're not very familiar with Vim). The Vimium video shows you all you + need to know to start using Vimium and feel awesome. +2. The core feature set works in almost all cases on all sites, so Vimium feels reliable. +3. Requires no configuration or doc-reading before it's useful. Just watch the video or hit `?`. +4. Doesn't drastically change the way Chrome looks or behaves. You can transition into using Vimium piecemeal; + you don't need to jump in whole-hog from the start. +5. The core feature set isn't overwhelming. This is easy to degrade as we evolve Vimium, so it requires active + effort to maintain this feel. +6. Developers find the code is relatively simple and easy to jump into, so we have an active dev community. + ## What makes for a good feature request/contribution to Vimium? Good features: |