On Thursday 11 September 2008 16:44:39 David Cortright wrote: > http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080911-canonical-to-fund-upstream-li >nux-usability-improvements.html > > "Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth announced Wednesday that his company, > Canonical, will hire professional designers and interaction experts to > improve the usability of the Linux desktop software ecosystem. They will > work closely with upstream developers to bring a better experience to users > of the open source operating system... He emphasizes the importance of > making usability enhancement a community-driven effort. He acknowledges > that improving usability across the entire scope of the desktop software > ecosystem is a daunting challenge, but he believes that the collaborative > spirit of the open software development model can get the job done." > > A necessary step in getting open source software ready for a more > mainstream market. Is anyone here working on this?
I've been working on the Kubuntu project (KDE Ubuntu) for the past 2 years and KDE for over 4 years. I don't work for Canonical but I am on the Kubuntu council and I attend the Ubuntu Developer Summits. If you closely read his blog article, it is unclear if he is going to hire more designers, or if he has already hired more designers and if those designers are going to be artists or "interaction designers". Currently there are a handful of artists and a UI designer. Canonical is not the first FLOSS-centered company to invest in UX. Others, such as Redhat, Sun, and Novell have had staff designers for years. How much this has effected FLOSS is hard to tell. Canonical has vision, but I don't believe they have anyone to guide it yet. If they manage to get someone in there who knows what they are doing in terms of design, and also understands FLOSS, then I will be more optimistic that this effort will make a difference. It is hard for a software company to make the necessary cultural change to truly integrate UX in to their processes -- especially one centered in a FLOSS culture. Until then, I will be watching with baited breath. ~ C -- Celeste Paul (seele) obso1337.org ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
