Hi James,
El sábado, 2 de febrero de 2013, James A. Laslavic escribió:
> Hello Carlos,
>
> Thanks for getting in touch with me. From reading your email and checking
> the links you gave, it sounds like you already have a designer, Yu Chen,
> who is busily implementing a comprehensive vision. I'm a bit concerned
> about trampling on his plans, and also, my original goal when I publicly
> offered to take on a pro bono client was for a project that currently lacks
> trained design talent.
>
Yes, Yu is our designer for the user interface and as I mentioned he has
recently started to implement his visions to the real code.
>
> That being said, if I understood Ilmari correctly, it also seems to be the
> case that you're still looking for some design talent, and I'm willing to
> help as long as we can make the puzzle pieces fit together in a way that
> works to everybody's satisfaction. It would be good to have a meeting to
> discuss a clear division of responsibility (to avoid the problem of me
> stepping on Yu Chen's toes), and also to discuss your project's current
> view of design itself. I read one of the links about "design vs
> development," and there are a few things in there that also leave me
> somewhat concerned, so I'd like to talk about it to make sure that we're on
> the same page and are a good match for each other as client and designer.
>
Before we can talk about divisions of responsibilities I would like to show
you some things before:
First, when you're developing an application with low resources like
this, you have to optimise and balance the feature requests with the time
and the man power available. We can take long time (months) discussing the
design vision and the best way to give to the user the best experience, but
at the end it has to be implemented with current code by someone. Also we
can imagine a fantastic interface that doesn't respond to the current
existing widget toolkit so it would obligate to the coder to construct the
widgets from zero that, would mean more time and resources. So, when we
define the new user interface, we need to take that in consideration.
Second, the main goal of the user interface is to make available to the
user all the features that the application has (or will have) in a simple
and intuitive way. To be possible to do this it is absolutely needed, in my
honest opinion, to have some knowledge of the software capabilities because
it is not just a question of make the interface *beauty* it is a question
of make it *useful or* in other word, *productive*. So the reason why I
recommended you to download and install the application and do some
exercises with it, to was to be able, at last, to talk the same language
when we chat about animation with Synfig.
Current user interface has several design lacks but they can be summarised
in two:
Multiple window interface is outdated and is user obstructive. Single
window interface with multiple document is our target. At the same time we
want to keep the current user configurability that the interface has. So
the user can decide with multiple options what's the layout he wants to
have to his better workflow without limitations from the interface itself.
Many of the features of Synfig Studio are not visible. I'm not talking that
they are not intuitive because the icon or the menu entry aren't intuitive.
I'm talking that they are not exposed clearly to the user unless it does
the right click at the right place. Most of the commands the user can do
are obtained from the contextual menu through the right mouse click. It is
good for animators that are used to the commands and know where they are
when to use them, but its awful for new coming users.
The solution of the first problem is addressed with the single window
interface and the mock-ups that Yu has designed. The second part (exposure
of the widgets) has been discussed but can be polished. I think you can
give us some ideas on which are the best practices on user interface
design.
But to be productive, you first should step in and get in contact with the
community, the users (don't forget that they are our final clients) and the
application itself. Once you get used to that you are in a good position to
join Yu and work with him to polish the design, suggest changes and
question why one thing is designed one way and not other.
> If this all sounds sensible, then when would you like to meet? I figure a
> quick, informal Google Hangout for this type of initial meeting would be
> the most time-efficient and productive. I'm in Pittsburgh, PA (GMT -8), and
> could meet as soon as tomorrow evening. If that doesn't work, then just
> give me an idea of when you and anybody else who wants to be a part of this
> quick face-to-face are generally available, and I'll try to find a time
> that works with my schedule. In the meantime, if you haven't already, then
> you can check out my portfolio <http://www.jalgraphics.com/> to start to
> determine if I'm the right designer for your project.
>
I'm in Spain UTC+1 and you're at UTC-5. I'll be busy all my evening so we
can only chat from 22:00 my time (what is 16:00 your time). Please ping me
from that hour if I'm online.
Best, Carlos
>
> Best regards,
> James Laslavic
> Carnegie Mellon University, Class of 2013
> Communication Design / Ethics / Psychology
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:42 AM, Carlos López González
> <[email protected]<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', '[email protected]');>
> > wrote:
>
>> Hi James,
>>
>> This is Carlos López (aka genete) current coder leader of the Synfig
>> project. By a contact email from Ilmari Lauhakangas I've been informed that
>> you're willing to help on Synfig Studio UX/UI redesign, offering your
>> experience on graphic design for human interaction interfaces.
>>
>> Currently we have one person (Yu Chen aka Jcome) working on that and he
>> has been working several months on collect the best practices from other
>> design applications as well as have created mock-ups for the different
>> parts of Synfig Studio. He has knowledge of the animation principles as
>> well as many of the knowledge of the correct workflow to exploit the
>> features of Synfig. You can see a summary of his work here:
>> http://www.synfig.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3259
>>
>> Since a few weeks he has started to work on type actual code to make
>> those designs a reality. I'm mentoring his work to fill the gaps he could
>> have on the understanding of the core code of Synfig.
>>
>> In order to incorporate to the current design/coding cycle I recommend to
>> you to start by downloading and installing Synfig Studio and start by
>> getting used to the features that Synfig offers to you, in order to
>> understand the current designs that has been proposed by Jcome. Once you
>> can create your own animations you can make use of your experience as
>> designer to improve the current UX/UI design made by Jcome with suggestions
>> and improvements. The forums is a good place to start those discussions.
>> Its small community is very warmly and friendly.
>>
>> This email is copied to synfig-devl mailing list to keep the rest of the
>> development team informed.
>>
>> These links will be useful for you:
>> http://www.synfig.org/cms/en/download/stable
>> http://wiki.synfig.org/wiki/Category:Manual
>>
>> Looking forward to have news from you.
>> Best
>> --
>> Carlos
>> http://synfig.org
>>
>
>
--
Carlos
http://synfig.org
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