hello everyone, first of all thanx for your great effort! I have been using libre office for many years and it has improved a lot since then.
I have been working on user interfaces in the past and I just thought you might appreciate a few thoughts that could potentially help improve the libre office UI. In fact, I have done a little comparison of libre office calc and numbers (osx). Based on that, here are a few suggestions: divide options into managable groups. do not show all options at the same time. instead organize them in sections work with tabs avoid strong color contrasts. the human eye isn’t made for it. avoid black on white background, use grey shades instead (dark grey on light grey is highly recommended) avoid bold text in strong colors such as black and red avoid colors in general, unless used to highlight something. this helps the user to focus on the important matters. only use colors to highlight the current state of a text/cell (e.g. the checkbox „Tausendertrennzeichen“ should be in color if it is active for the marked cell, otherwise it should be grey) do use colors for color options, obviously. combine related buttons in groups (see e.g. the button group „Ausrichtung“) this way the UI is less clustered and easier to comprehend. hide unnecessary design elements. as we all know, good design is as little design as possible. only show indicators when they are actually needed (see the two screenshots with color option below) avoid additional external formating menus with ever more options. instead work with tabs and control buttons within the sidebar framework (see last screenshot below) avoid scrollbars if they seem necessary, then this is a sign that there is already too much information if a scrollbar is needed, hide it until the user actually starts scrolling hope this is of any help. If you have any questions go ahaid. In any case, thanx again for your effort! best wishes, roland comparison of formating panels: numbers vs. libre office While libre office shows all options in one place, numbers breakes them down into logical and more comprenhensible sections. color option: mouse over color option: -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
