Re: [libreoffice-design] Think, don't just do - WAS: Impress remote
Hi all, thanks for your feedback. And no excuses needed for anything that is beeing said. I assume everyone (including me) has only the best in mind, so do not take anything personal... I will try to address the major points. 1. Made bad experiences with User Research Anyone who is working in UX and does not believe in the power of working with users should actually question him / herself wether (s)he is doing the right job. Funnily enough, there was a great dilbert about this issue just a few days ago: http://dilbert.com/strips/2012-05-07/ If we do not go out of the house and work with real users (think of cultuural, social and many other factors influencing UX) we automatically do imply we are the users. But we are not. We are users, but not the users. Any UX process that does not take this into account will only accidently produce good results. If anyone has made bad experiences with that, then do should not resign. Instead work harder on making this work. It is a difficult topic. At least I never said anything different. I am not saying anything about the arguement, that we cannot do it any worse than it is, even without asking the users. If I have to say anything about this it would propbaly turm out to be personnal... So we agree on this never beeing said, ok? 2. If you want to help use our structures. I will not use the structures you set up, because I think they are fundamentally wrong (disclaimer: as far as I could follow them, seeing there have been tons of mails about this topic that I did not read all - correct me if anything I say is wrong). You propose a waterfallish modell with a closed design phase at the beginning. All I have learned in software development is: This does not work out. Not all designers should work on every topic. We have to build small teams and apply best principles of agile software development. You are isolating topics. The personas for Impress remote are different from those I saw at some other place. This will never lead to a consistent user experience across LibreOffice. This might lead to some isolated really cool solutions, but the user will never feel this is one applications suite. So, sorry, but I am not willing to invest my valuable time into these structures. 3. Vague offers of help You said my proposals are very vague. I partially agree with this. I did make a very concrete suggestion to help you solve the bold, italic,... icon discussion, by showing you a way how to solve this problem with users, taking different languages and cultural backgrounds into account. But there was no reaction to this. This offer still stands and could be a extremely concrete starting point. My following suggestions were indeed vague, because I felt it would be a waste of time to offer something concrete again, if there is no interest. As I said - my time is strongly limited. So, still staying vague, I can help to build up the artifacts (vision, personas, scenarios,...) that can help us to create a consistent UX within the LibreOffice suite, help to validate these artifacts with real users, create solutions together with developers and again validating them with users - just to name some things we need to work on. But be aware, this will shift the focus in this list from designing (which I still see as a craftmenship) to research and understanding. I strongly believe: if we understand, finding the solutions is easy. This is why the work we need to do is research. So if there is anyone interested in this resaerch based approach on LibreOffice design, give me a sign and we will find a way to start working. Cheers, Björn -- www.OpenUsability.org www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@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
Re: [libreoffice-design] Logo for the LibreOffice Conference 2012 in Berlin
Hi Stefan, Am 07.05.2012 18:33, schrieb Stefan Knorr (Astron): Hi Klaus-Jürgen, all, And my draft (2012-03-02): http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:LibO_Conference_Logo_2012Berlin_color.png Wonderful! I've had ~1 big complaint about it, namely that the Victory Column is higher than the 1px grey separator line (which seems like it should be the thing in the logo). Thanks for checking. That isn't a big problem. I have changed it and now it is on the same altitude. But there was a more awful mistake in it I changed for now. Thus, I've used your and Nik's great work as a basis... here is my proposal: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Liboconflogo2012-proposal-astron.png Source file: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Liboconflogo2012-proposal-astron.svg Superb. If we will not have this as logo we should put the theme on wallpapers. When I catch some time I will make a wiki page to show the proposals on one place. PS: I noticed that [for the victory column] you overlaid some green elements with white circles to make it look like a quarter-circle was cut off a rectangle. The better way to go about this, is to to convert both the circle and the rectangle to paths (Path Object to Path) and then use the function Path Difference to cut off the quarter-circle from the rectangle. Thanks for your hint. Changed it and found by the way the awful mistake. -- Grüße k-j -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@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
Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [Buttons] Creating/Improving LibreOffice web banners/buttons for external website use
Hi all, I added two designs to the wiki page Regards Alex -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@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
Re: [libreoffice-design] Think, don't just do - WAS: Impress remote
2012/5/8 Björn Balazs b...@lazs.de Hi all, thanks for your feedback. And no excuses needed for anything that is beeing said. I assume everyone (including me) has only the best in mind, so do not take anything personal... I will try to address the major points. 1. Made bad experiences with User Research Anyone who is working in UX and does not believe in the power of working with users should actually question him / herself wether (s)he is doing the right job. Funnily enough, there was a great dilbert about this issue just a few days ago: http://dilbert.com/strips/2012-05-07/ :D good one If we do not go out of the house and work with real users (think of cultuural, social and many other factors influencing UX) we automatically do imply we are the users. But we are not. We are users, but not the users. Any UX process that does not take this into account will only accidently produce good results. If anyone has made bad experiences with that, then do should not resign. Instead work harder on making this work. It is a difficult topic. At least I never said anything different. I am not saying anything about the arguement, that we cannot do it any worse than it is, even without asking the users. If I have to say anything about this it would propbaly turm out to be personnal... So we agree on this never beeing said, ok? I feel like I phrased what I meant to say badly -- looking back, I do feel stupid for what I said. What I meant to say is that I'm not sure testing our current UI for the things we're working on now would be worth the effort. We plan to restructure some things in a major way to target the major problems that are blatant (just look at the template dialog or the color picker or the settings dialog). With the GSoC projects, we're also under a deadline of 3 weeks, and I doubt we could set up a good design workflow that takes user testing in mind, then follow it, and still make it on time. On the other hand, I certainly believe we will need to do user testing once we produce those designs. I can see how analysis of our current UI could be useful, though, and I'd like to incorporate it into our workflow. It would also be helpful to test the designs of our competitors. If you have tips on how to incorporate it into our workflow, especially in such a way that any volunteer could do it, please voice them in a reply. 2. If you want to help use our structures. I will not use the structures you set up, because I think they are fundamentally wrong (disclaimer: as far as I could follow them, seeing there have been tons of mails about this topic that I did not read all - correct me if anything I say is wrong). You propose a waterfallish modell with a closed design phase at the beginning. Not sure what you mean by closed design phase. Everyone is welcome to contribute. All I have learned in software development is: This does not work out. Not all designers should work on every topic. We have to build small teams and apply best principles of agile software development. That sounds great, down the road. Right now, though, I don't really think we have enough people involved to be able to form small teams. I'd also like to get some basic design principles, maybe a small HIG, approved so that we'd have something to guide our designs. You are isolating topics. The personas for Impress remote are different from those I saw at some other place. This will never lead to a consistent user experience across LibreOffice. This might lead to some isolated really cool solutions, but the user will never feel this is one applications suite. As I said, I believe we need some guiding principles. I also agree that our personas right now are basically worthless given their quality. Please feel free to improve upon them. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by isolating topics. I feel we have to work on one topic at a time, though of course we have to take the whole of LibreOffice into consideration, and some topics are interconnected. For example, the design of the file manager for Android will depend in part on the design of our Template dialog, as is clearly stated in the whiteboard's scope. So, sorry, but I am not willing to invest my valuable time into these structures. Could you offer some tips for creating a better structure, though? 3. Vague offers of help You said my proposals are very vague. I partially agree with this. I did make a very concrete suggestion to help you solve the bold, italic,... icon discussion, by showing you a way how to solve this problem with users, taking different languages and cultural backgrounds into account. But there was no reaction to this. This offer still stands and could be a extremely concrete starting point. I completely agree with user testing icons. I think it'd be great. That said, I hoped an experienced icon designer would come in and help with the project -- and some experienced designers did
Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: [Buttons] Creating/Improving LibreOffice web banners/buttons for external website use
Hi Alex, Am 08.05.2012 17:32, schrieb Alexander Wilms: Hi all, I added two designs to the wiki page Can you please make pngs, the svgs sometimes won't be shown in the right way. In your case I only see two white rectangles with a red pink surrounding --- Grüße k-j -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@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
Re: [libreoffice-design] Logo for the LibreOffice Conference 2012 in Berlin
Hi *, On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Andreas Mantke ma...@gmx.de wrote: Hi all, the LibreOffice conference will be held this autumn in Berlin. [...] Maybe it is a bit more difficult to create a logo for Berlin because there is no Eiffel Tower ;-) But Berlin has also the bear as mascot-character, so I was wondering if the B of Berlin could not be done with a leftward-facing bear where its forelegs shape the letter. I kind of dislike the the Siegessäule in the initial proposal since it exceeds the logo so much vertically, the TV-Tower would be even worse in this regard I'd guess... - so I'd either have it extend from the Conference line already (like https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/File:Liboconflogo2012-proposal-astron.png - my current favorite, but it is rather heavy) or a different monument like the more famous Brandenburger Tor or the bear. Or a more abstract one without clichée as someone wrote.. ciao Christian -- Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+h...@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
