Hi André, all,
thank you very much for this mail, giving a bit more background
information on the necessity to raise public knowledge for the ODF file
formats.
IMHO this is not mainly a UX theme, but rather a topic for the Marketing
Project. Therefore I'd like to continue this thread on the marketing dev
list.
It started with a GullFOSS blog by Lutz Hoeger:
http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/unified_odf_icons
where Lutz described why the OOo document icons are being replaced by
application independent icons containing a rectangle reading "ODF".
We discuss these icons and possible drawbacks for the users on
[email protected]:
http://ux.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?listName=discuss&from=2283560&to=2283560&count=29&by=thread&first=1&windowSize=1000
But the main question is: How can OOo help to raise ODF awareness in public?
Introducing common icons for all the ODF applications is really a great
idea, if supported not only by OOo and StarOffice, but by all other ODF
applications too. And IMHO there must be a common marketing strategy
among all the supporting applications.
Do you think, this could work?
What else can we do to enforce ODF position against Microsoft's OOXML?
Please comment on André's mail, therefore I include it here in full length.
Best regards
Bernhard
André Schnabel schrieb:
Hi all,
I know we already have a thread on this - which holds very valuable and
constructive feedback about the icons.
Anyway - I'd like to open a new thread to tell some thoughts, why ODF
icons are really useful, but the way we are going to introduce this
icons is (imho) the wrong way.
I fortunately had the chance to talk face to face with Lutz on the
topic. This was really interesting (I forgot to get my dishes although I
was hungry and Lutz surely made his family wait quite a while). I used
some time to think about the issue - and just want to share my thoughts
(If I'm going the wrong direction, Lutz might correct me).
ODF is very important for OOo. The *Open* *Document* File format (to
spell the full words) is one of the key selling points, as it ensures
user's control on her files and contents, it ensures interoperability
and vendor independence. All these points belong to the virtues of open
source software.
OpenOffice.org is one of (if not the) leading applications supporting
ODF. So you may ask,why we should focus on ODF with our icons and not
OOo? Quite easy: because OOo cannot cover all the aspects of document
usage. While OOo is a classic "fat" and complex client application, user
need also Web apps to view and edit files (like Google Docs), fast and
lightweight desktop applications (like KOffice) and integrated solutions
(like Lotus Notes / Symphony). It should be obvious that all these
different types of applications should tell the same story "share your
contents with our common Open Document File format". Having a common
icon set would be extremely desirable.
In addition, this common story needs to be spread quite urgently. We
(OOo and the family of ODF applications) are already loosing the battle.
Although even Microsoft admits, that "ODF has clearly won" - reality is
telling a different story. Rob Weir once used Google search to compare
the usage of ODF vs. OOXML. I tried this some days ago - and I must
admit "ODF has clearly lost". Despite all the good reasons and all the
success stories for ODF, the amount of OOXML documents on the web is
twice as high as for ODF documents. All this, even though here is just
only one fat classic office suite around to support these files.
This will even change next year: with Office 2010 we will see people
browsing, presenting and (later) editing their OOXML documents directly
on the web (Using Microsoft Office). We already see people using OOXML
in integrated collaboration suites (namely Microsoft Office) or browsing
the documents off-line in lightweight viewer applications (Microsoft
Office viewers).
You see - Microsoft Office can cover all those needs - OpenOffice.org
will hardly ever do the same. We can only compete as a family of
applications supporting ODF. And we can only do so, if we raise
ODF-awareness.
So far, it is absolutely correct to introduce ODF mime type icons and
use OpenOffice.org to promote this icons.
But ... I think, we are on the wrong track, if we are going o introduce
the icons in OOo 3.2. Why?
What does it help, if OOo introduces new icons, but never ever spoke
with other members of the "ODF application family" if they would join?
Even the best icon set in OOo does not improve ODF-awareness, if Google
Docs uses different icons. Lotus symphony might use another one, KOffice
/ KDE the third set. These all might be high quality icons, but there is
no common *identity*. What we currently do is what Microsoft normally
does - introduce something , because you are "the biggest player in the
game" and wait for others to follow. But as we are not as big as
Microsoft, it is (imho) extremely unlikely that other teams will follow.
What needs to be done is to come to a common "family" agreement first.
Means - IBM should agree to include the icons in Symphony,
OpenDesktop.org should have the chance to accept the icon sets as
desktop icons - apache and google should be contacted, if the icon
desgin was ok for them to use on the web ... This is indeed time
consuming and a hard job (and cannot be done within some weeks). But If
we don't do this, we would gain nothing form "just changed icons", as
these icons would not stand for "interoperability".
Anyway - these are just my thoughts, everyone is free to share or not ;)
André
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