Hi all,
Thanks for comments and keeping discussion alive. I had problems
subscribing to dev website list, so I'll try to catch up now.
Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
:murb:[maarten brouwers] wrote:
FYI, the User Experience project is also quite interested in this topic, now.
Hmmm, just to make sure, the User Experience project, isn't that
limited to the actual product?
That's what I thought. But Matthias M-P is part of the project, and
he expressed to me the idea that UX should not narrow its interests
or withhold its expertise.
I agree. Problems like these are multidisciplinary in nature, and so far
I had a 'feeling' that people from UX really have something to say (and
do so with arguments). Thats always welcome.
I would prefer to keep it limited that way, since things related to style are already discussed quite a lot in marketing, art, and
website. User Experience should imho stay more focussed with how
things should work for the end user, that may be partly look, but
style is the polishing, which has its effect on usability
(aesthetics is part of the definition), but can be discussed quite
well separately from the other experience problems, which deal more with how to interact. Since managing problems over different
projects is quite difficult already, I wouldn't promote involving
yet another project in it... but that is just my humble opinion.
If the UX project and its members wishes to contribute to the
discussion, they are welcome to. I am sure you are more than capable
of evaluating any contribution.
'Style guides' is probably wrong name because it surely isn't just about
'style'. Actually I used that name only because I wanted to avoid
confusion since it was used around OpenOffice web.
Better name would be 'Visual Identity Manual (Guides)'. Because these
deal(should deal) with communicating identity(values) through visual
language — first goal is to figure out right values, and then find out
right structure/system. 'Styles' could then be easily build and changed
on-top, following 'trends' more frequently.
All that is very complex (from marketing, psychology(s), user
experience, art and other), so again, all should be welcomed.
Furhtermore regarding the style guides, there are two: [1]
http://www.openoffice.org/styles/ [2]
http://www.openoffice.org/nonav/issues/showattachment.cgi/29949/OpenOffice.org%20Style%20Manual%20(Version%200.9).pdf
The first one is related to the website, the other one is related
to visual identity.
The website's style guide is mainly interesting for those who
maintain pages, and to maintain consistency. Note that some of the
colours in [1] do not really match the current visual 'identity' of
OOo (one might question whether we have actually one but...)
For visual design look at [2]. That's the best one available imho.
Cool. Then let's promote that one to users. Kay's redaction of my old
style guide, is still useful, of course.
There is actually one more (dealing with UI), and it is one which I
think is quite successful in explaining what it wants to say:
http://ui.openoffice.org/VisualDesign/OOo_brand.html
(webmaster, pls note that first link 'The *brand* of OpenOffice.org'
doesn't work?!)
Best regards,
Damir
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
