Hi Michel,
This is a meritocracy -- if you're not happy with something, you're welcome
to swoop in and change it. :) (Of course, the community also has to accept
those changes.)
If you'd like to do user studies, please be my guest. Right now, designs
are based on heuristics [1], guidelines [2], and discussions, but of course
it'd be great if they were validated by other means as well.
(I don't have the time and energy to invest in user studies or user testing
right now, which is why they aren't being done. It'd be great if you could
help there.)
I understand you're not happy with the Start Center, and it would've been
ideal if you could have chimed in after the inital call for designs, but
now you can still chime in with suggestions for improvement, user research,
user testing, or propose patches.
If you'd like to chat further, come to today's IRC chat. [3]
[1] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Principles
[2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Guidelines
[3] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Meetings
On Fri, Oct 25, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Michel Renon michel.re...@free.fr wrote:
Hi,
This thread makes me wake up from my silence for few months.
I've already given up on working in the design team, because it's useless,
but I wanted to express some comments and provide a clear answer to K-J.
Thanks to Mateusz Zasuwik for his strong feedback !
But I see that there is no real reactions.
Le 24/10/2013 13:06, K-J LibreOffice a écrit :
Hi Kendy, Mirek, *,
Am 15.10.2013 10:45, schrieb Jan Holesovsky:
[...]
Terribly sorry - best to keep me CC'd for quick turnaround :-)
I was more looking for a wallpaper (as K-J suggests) or the 'welcome
information' (as Cor said) - I think it gives better first time
experience than a 'no recent documents found'...
Sorry for not being clear in my request :-(
What happened with the whole thing? It was somehow lost in discussion.
First, I just want to say that what happens for the start center is a huge
fiasco for LibreOffice. It clearly shows that there is no design process :
- a subject is thrown for GSOC without any initial work, studies,
validated UX design, prototype, nothing. Just It would be useful to
present few recently used documents there (as thumbnails), and do more
fancy stuff. [1] And all others GSOC subjects (with UI/UX part) are the
same.
- a student starts to code, without any information about UI/UX
- the student then wants to enhance UI/UX and makes some completely
improvised assumptions about what users expect [2]. In this thread, you can
read that Mirek starts a design whiteboard at the end of July, half time of
GSOC.
- he codes what he wants (because there is no roadmap, no blueprint...)
- at the end of GSOC, the start center is unfinished, the UI/UX brings lot
of regressions. Worst of all : some huge lacks in a11y.
Do we
- use the proposal Mateusz gave us?
While being a very good proposal, it is based on broken foundations.
However, it shows that a skilled/professionnal designer can quickly
propose very interesting mockups, even if the designer seems to be a
graphist (not a UX designer).
- make any proposal of a sc-wallpaper?
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean .
If it is about proposals to add some background image (ie wallpaper), then
it's just some painting on a broken wall, so it's useless.
- announce it?
No !
- start other things?
- left it all?
I propose to mix those 2 points :
- revert the code of the new start center : LO4.2 should keep the LO4.1
start center
- start a new process to design a new new start center :
- involve devs, QA team, a11y team
- ask some users (specially from MIMO [3])
- should enhance the current start center or create a new one ?
- clearly define a UI/UX design (with prototypes), validated by every
team
- only then, start to implement it
It is a standard process when you want to build anything (a physical
product, a building...).
The way LibreOffice is developed today is the best way to shoot himself in
the foot :
- don't listen to users (is it the Gnome way of doing ? [4])
- no roadmap (Charles clearly said that [5])
- incoherent UI/UX [6][7]
- schizophrenic behavior in design team [8]
- ship unfinished/undesigned features (template manager for LO4.1, and
today the start center)
All this make me feel desperate about LibreOffice. Really. And the facts
are here :
http://it.slashdot.org/story/**13/10/20/2310240/forrester-**
research-shows-steep-decline-**in-free-office-suite-statshttp://it.slashdot.org/story/13/10/20/2310240/forrester-research-shows-steep-decline-in-free-office-suite-stats
As most users start switching to online and mobile version, there is no
free office suite to compete GDocs or Office365 or Office for iOS/android.
(where is LibreOfficeOnLine ? it would have been one answer).
Now back to my silence for a long time.
Regards,
Michel Renon
[1]
