Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] ux-advise advice
Hi Jean Francois, On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 08:50 +0100, Jean-Francois Nifenecker wrote: As I understand (correct me if necessary) this list goal -- which I find excellent -- is to narrow the topic to actual user experience enhancements Well - the idea is that this is a place that hackers can get advice from user experience experts. ie. I want to do XYZ change, I have a patch to do it - first let me check with some UX experts. It is intended to try to build good relationships between designers and those who actually implement their designs, thus far it seems to be working. My feeling, at this first participation, is that apparently it's quite difficult to make ideas flow here when one's not from the happy few. The design list is a great place for this 'flowing' of ideas. So here are a few questions of mine that will help me understand the nuts and bolts of this list: Where do the discussions lead ? Who decides to (not) implement a change discussed here ? When is a consensus considered valid ? Who decides that ? So in all of these cases, the discussions produce advice to a developer who asked for advice. It is fairly useless having a consensus solely of people who are unable to make any real change in the code :-) As such, pissing off the developers by immoderate criticism is a highly ineffective way to achieve any change, instead it is likely to solidify opposition. As I wish to post a few new messages wrt various UX topics I'm considering important, I'd better know how things are held so that the threads don't go wild because of respective ignorance. If this is initiated by you, and you have no intention of doing any coding on the topic, this is the wrong place - please try the 'design' list. All the best, Michael. -- michael.me...@suse.com , Pseudo Engineer, itinerant idiot ___ Libreoffice-ux-advise mailing list Libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-ux-advise
Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] ux-advise advice
Hello Michael and all, wow! At least! Some *precise* and to the point answers! Thanks! Le 18/02/2012 09:21, Michael Meeks a écrit : On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 08:50 +0100, Jean-Francois Nifenecker wrote: As I understand (correct me if necessary) this list goal -- which I find excellent -- is to narrow the topic to actual user experience enhancements Well - the idea is that this is a place that hackers can get advice from user experience experts. ie. I want to do XYZ change, I have a patch to do it - first let me check with some UX experts. It is intended to try to build good relationships between designers and those who actually implement their designs, thus far it seems to be working. Ah! Ah! I'm starting to get the real thing which has nothing to see with what I was presented at first: this list is in *no* way for users to ask for a change/enhancement to the devs! It is all the way around: the devs are those asking for advice to the world. So, if this is the actual goal, telling people in the users' discussion lists to come here is plain *wrong*. - The list to go is *[design]* isn't it? My feeling, at this first participation, is that apparently it's quite difficult to make ideas flow here when one's not from the happy few. The design list is a great place for this 'flowing' of ideas. uh uh... So here are a few questions of mine that will help me understand the nuts and bolts of this list: Where do the discussions lead ? Who decides to (not) implement a change discussed here ? When is a consensus considered valid ? Who decides that ? So in all of these cases, the discussions produce advice to a developer who asked for advice. It is fairly useless having a consensus solely of people who are unable to make any real change in the code :-) As such, pissing off the developers by immoderate criticism is a highly ineffective way to achieve any change, instead it is likely to solidify opposition. Now I have a much clearer view of this list usage. It seems I goofed and pissed people off without even knowing I did so. Sorry for that. - I guess TDF should make things clearer to the outer world and internally. *Much* clearer. This would be a service to all: the devs who wouldn't be bothered by some whingers (like myself, though I wouldn't classify me as such) and users like myself who wouldn't spoil their time sending hopeful messages to some inappropriate place. As I wish to post a few new messages wrt various UX topics I'm considering important, I'd better know how things are held so that the threads don't go wild because of respective ignorance. If this is initiated by you, and you have no intention of doing any coding on the topic, this is the wrong place - please try the 'design' list. *Now* I understand that. Thanks again for clarifying. - don't you think it would be *very* beneficial to all to make things *very* *very* *VERY* clear about what each list is meant for? Who's asking what to whom? Thanks again for answering and giving me a clearer view about UX. It's a shame that those who participate (hey, Cedric!) are themselves directing people here while we (I) should go elsewhere (ie, [design]). Then they feel pissed off... Doh! So I see that my place is not here. I'll un-subscribe when this thread is over and leave you in peace. Accept my apologies for my dumb questions. I'll go the [design] route. Hopefully my messages will find their way there. PS: wrt the text boundaries thingy, do you know if that feature discussed on [design]? If it was not, then we're in a catch 22. Best regards, -- Jean-Francois Nifenecker, Bordeaux ___ Libreoffice-ux-advise mailing list Libreoffice-ux-advise@lists.freedesktop.org http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/libreoffice-ux-advise
Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] ux-advise advice
Hi again Michael, it's a real pleasure to talk with you in a smooth and sensible manner. I feel much better than when reading some previous msgs on the other thread. I may be somewhat long here and, hopefully, won't bother and take too much of your (precious) time. Before I go any further, let me introduce myself -- which I should have done long before: I'm a 56 yo French civil servant using OOo since 2005 when my employer decided to move from MSO. Since then I never looked back and I have always been very pleased with OOo. In a former part of my professional life, I had been an unofficial part-time programmer (Turbo-Pascal, Object Pascal then Delphi). Though this was supposed to be a part-time job, it in fact took most of my time, daily and nightly for nearly 15yrs. I was forced to stop sometine after I switched job as I couldn't do both. Now, I've been an IT tech (support chain) for 20yrs. As such, among a lot of other things, I help and train my colleagues to our office automation suite of choice (was MSO, now OOo, soon to be LibO). More importantly, I can see everyday how and why my colleagues use the software, what they do right and what they do wrong. To the risk of seeming overly proud, I think I have a broad view of our corporate workflow and I can tell where the local pitfalls are (wrt office automation tools). I have some ideas of what's wrong with the current textprocessors and in which direction some changes would be beneficial to their users. (hence my visit here ;) Now, back to the discussion :) Le 18/02/2012 15:51, Michael Meeks a écrit : On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 14:00 +0100, Jean-Francois Nifenecker wrote: Ah! Ah! I'm starting to get the real thing which has nothing to see with what I was presented at first: this list is in *no* way for users to ask for a change/enhancement to the devs! Right - we have few-to-no mechanisms for users to ask devs for things, beyond bugzilla and perhaps some user surveys if someone wants to put the work in to set these up. This is in large part because we have a factor of ~a million more users than developers. It is hard to think of a functioning system that can deal with 10^6 random conflicting opinions -per-developer- and filter them in a meaningful way. It is all the way around: the devs are those asking for advice to the world. Preferably not the world, but some known-sane-and-decisive UI / LibreOffice feature experts, like Astron, Christophe, Regina, and others. As I understand from your words, here's part of the workflows: users - [users lists] - UI experts - community members devs - [UX] - UI experts designers - [design] - UI experts others(*) - (*) who? Are users listened at? On what criteria? Who are the designers? What do they do with the lists discussions? What are their interactions with the devs? If there are UI experts who have a view, they should be here, such that when people ask for advice they can give it. Ok, that's neat. What makes someone a UI expert? Fine - please write up some new blurb for the list description, and/or edit the wiki where it refers to this to some new, more descriptive / balanced position. Which page do you refer to (there are plenty ;)? As for what's on the site/wiki (see copies below) I can tell that UX and design are mixed up, which doesn't help a user's choice. Well, [UX] remains quite hidden, though. From what I read on the second page, I can't tell where User Experience is dealt with: is it UX or is it Support and Training (as the helpdesk personel has also a wide view of user experience)? Also, I can find links from the Design pages that point to UX (wikipedia). This doesn't help making sense and encourages coming to [ux] while [design] is probably better suited. But I'm still unsure... On this page: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/ one can read 8 -- Do user experience [UX] and visual design: Design provides the visual basis for any tool. In addition to the factual content, it is able to transport usability, quality and emotions. The LibreOffice Design Team dedicates its skills and creativity to improving LibreOffice by visual means, inside the office suite, in user interaction and at any place where the product, or the community behind it, is visible in public. Our team consists of professionals and ambitious amateurs in several areas. If you're interested, and want to share and improve your knowledge by working collaboratively in an active and friendly team, join in. -- 8 And on that one: http://www.libreoffice.org/get-involved/ux-visual-designers/ we read 8 -- UX/Visual Designers If you're interested in user experience and visual design work, we'd love to hear from you. Primary points of contact and resources: the Design Team wiki page and the Design mailing list. LibreOffice aims
Re: [Libreoffice-ux-advise] ux-advise advice
Hi Jean-Francois, On Sat, 2012-02-18 at 17:22 +0100, Jean-Francois Nifenecker wrote: I may be somewhat long here and, hopefully, won't bother and take too much of your (precious) time. :-) Before I go any further, let me introduce myself Great to have you around, sounds like you have some useful skills insight. In a former part of my professional life, I had been an unofficial part-time programmer (Turbo-Pascal, Object Pascal then Delphi). Ah - so you have all the skills you require to jump in and be part of the solution here. That is good to know. If you go to: http://www.libreoffice.org/developers-2/ You can see how to grab the code. I would personally start digging around: sw/source/core/layout/paintfrm.cxx or thereabouts; if you read the git log for that you can see -tons- of work and improvements from Cedric, and perhaps help propose an improvement in patch form. (*) who? Are users listened at? On what criteria? Who are the designers? What do they do with the lists discussions? What are their interactions with the devs? I guess, the UI experts (a synonoym for designer and artist in what I write), are to some degree self selecting; and hackers listen to people who have done good work in the past and/or provided helpful input and/or provided beautiful artwork and/or are particularly articulate and thoughtful I guess. Ok, that's neat. What makes someone a UI expert? cf. the above :-) like being a hacker, it requires some history of pleasant and mutually useful interaction; that credit and position takes some time to build up. Which page do you refer to (there are plenty ;)? Whichever pages that you think are out of date and/or inaccurate :-) I didn't read his mail; but I suggest that if a hacker has asked for input here, and there has been no negative feedback, and that decision is taken then he did 100% the right thing, and anything else is just time-wasting fluff. Possibly we'll revisit the decision in future. Certainly if there is concrete code, and someone making the status quo even better then we will. Well... I *did* give input (see other thread) but this was quite badly received. So - the time to give input is -before- the work is completed, while it is in progress, while it is still easy to change things, when the developer is asking for advice :-) When the code change is complete, and the work has been done, and there are no shortage of other real bugs to be addressed (ie. just after release) is a pretty terrible time. I was treated as a troll. I fail to understand what I did wrong: was I impolite? harsh? did I call people names? I don't think so. Perhaps it is the last snowflake that breaks the bough, and gets the blame prolly :-) if people try to apply pressure to very busy people, they will get a rather bad reaction often. Well, I do. When a dev gets a consensus here, I'd think he gets to [design] and ask for validation. Designers who give constructive feedback to developers are supposed to lurk here :-) hopefully these are also the leaders on the design list. Or is there a brick wall between the two lists? Otherwise, this would mean that design decisions are made here by devs without refering to anyone in the Desing team. There are plenty of people from the design team here. However, they are not using the list to discuss next-generation-star-trec futures with a woolly mob of enthusiasts :-) they discuss very concrete, boring, 'real' things instead :-) That keeps the bandwidth low enough for developers to interact on the list too. It is a half-way house between the madness in both the developers list and the design list :-) Thanks ;) But no, it would take ages before I can get to the core and, unfortunately, I haven't time enough. Like most of us here. Sure - well therein lies the problem. If no-one cares about restoring this enough to go and change the code, then ... we stick where we are :-) Next time some sort of change happens in this area, I expect the same thing will happen, asking for advice here. Meaning that if I want my ideas to spread, I should stay subscribed and post when a question is asked. Of course; if you have valuable design input to give, and by your experience it sounds as if you do, you're welcome to give input on the list. But be assured that this is just advice. If the repeated advice is don't change anything, I'm familiar and happy with the status quo ;-) then that rapidly looses it's attraction; there is a consensus that the existing UI is in need of some major (incremental) change. To come back to the question that brought me in this list, ie the (dreaded) text boundaries, I have a strange feeling that this is a question I can't grasp. So - I consider the issue closed, until we have a developer that actually wants to do something about the situation to
