My wife Janie, who (among other things) is a GUI designer, may have some free time over the next few months, and I'm trying to persuade her to attempt a ground-up redesign of Freenet's UI. She has built UIs in GWT before (to critical acclaim within her company), and I think this would be a good route for Freenet too.
I think our current problem is that despite our best efforts, the current UI is built "from the code forward", rather than "from the user back", and as such I think it is fundamentally flawed. Despite how much we try, I think it is very difficult for us to put ourselves in the shoes of an ordinary Freenet user, we are already too immersed in the concepts and jargon of Freenet. The answer I think is a completely fresh perspective from someone that is unpolluted by existing Freenet concepts and jargon, who can focus on the user's needs to get stuff done, rather than our need to expose functionality. Janie has asked if we could put together a document describing the "use cases", basically the tasks that should be achievable from Freenet's UI from the user's perspective, but *not* simply a list of the functionalities that must be exposed. I've started a collaborative document here, all are welcome to contribute, but please read the notes at the top: http://etherpad.com/5GB8lyh5qD Ian. -- Ian Clarke CEO, Uprizer Labs Email: [email protected] Ph: +1 512 422 3588
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