On Thu, 2007-12-27 at 14:01 +0100, julian wrote: > as i've said earlier, i'm into the idea of a public vote on mockups (and > including the current theme) made by list members within the first two > 6-8 weeks of each release cycle. i think most of the time ubuntu-art is > shooting in the dark, so to speak, where envisaging a best-fit default > theme is concerned; choosing externally asserted design agendas over > plentiful public/user opinion.
With 'public' votes, you can only reach an internet-affine, high-interest part of users. Hardly anyone who's just a potential, not current user. Hardly anyone who just has better things to do. Plus forum (list and chat) dwellers can't be expected to care about marketing/branding and about the needs and wishes of other people that aren't represented directly. I don't care much about how people on the forum would vote. Such a vote doesn't even transport full opinions. I care about informed opinions and decisions. Input on the forum can be nice for tweaking details, but that's pretty much it. > at which point are we allowing - and encouraging - Ubuntu users to feed > back into the design process? i don't see a channel for that. People who want to get involved can come here and find information on the wiki. Now that everyone doing so is left in the situation we are - that is a problem. As things are, we have to wait for further direction while a lot of water went down the river already. > the question "who is our target audience" makes little sense to these > ends, i think. Ubuntu is a freely distributable operating system made > with the ends of being as 'generally useful' (whatever that means) to as > many people as possible. the 'target audience' is whoever is using > Ubuntu and, as such, their thoughts on the artwork ought to be > considered with sincerity accordingly. if Ubuntu-art has a target > audience, then Ubuntu itself must have a target audience - something > i've never seen Canonical define (and thankfully so). I do see the problem with a diverse audience. But current users and target audience are not the same thing. Ever considered to target users who don't use Ubuntu yet? Especially those who will not change the appearance defaults for the sake of changing them anyway? > > There also have been many saying that Ubuntu should stay away from > > blue. Cool, let's rule out brown and blue! > > > > fine by me. we'd be evidencing a disappointing lack of imagination if > green, blue and brown based palettes described our world of possible > choices. This is just silly. > as the comments in those pages make clear, they just like the colours > and the overall design continuity. admittedly they also like the > impossible 'dock' like menu. why expect users to be profound on the > topic, let alone thinking in terms of what is and isn't feasible? all > they know is that they like it - and that's as good a start as any IMO. Sure. They like the colour (i wouldn't make that a plural). Must be the same majority that doesn't like brown. Ah, so we don't expect users to be profound on the topic and to be thinking in terms of what is and isn't feasible, yet would want their votes? Great. > aiming high, in my opinion, is developing a design that > more-than-satisfies a supposed majority of Ubuntu using public. until we > know what it is most Ubuntu users actually want, we cannot have a clear > design charter. Aiming high in my opinion means going through a very thorough design process. It starts with a proper briefing. -- Thorsten Wilms thorwil's design for free software: http://thorwil.wordpress.com/ -- ubuntu-art mailing list ubuntu-art@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art
