Re: [libreoffice-design] [UX] - Big Picture [was: LibreOffice Toolbar Usability Interface ...]

Hi Jared, all,

one of the mails still marked as to-be-replied-to, but never found the
time - sorry!

Jared Meidal schrieb:
> Because I like the “big picture” I would like to make some comments
> to help me, and perhaps others, formulate the trajectory and
> philosophy for the UX future of LibreOffice. [...]
>
> As an open source application, The Document Foundation has the great
> opportunity before them to show the wise maturity borne in the FLOSS
> community of how to present accessibility to the user--customized
> control. [...] To offer innovation within the GUI (emphasis on USER)
> would be a benefit not simply because everyone else is doing it, but
> because it fits exactly in-line with the philosophy of free software,
> if done right.
>
> [...] LibreOffice will be successful not because of innovation
> (dictation) but because of freedom (customization) and user-focused
> design (as a reminder, users are very diverse).
>
> My practical suggestion, is to take the best of tabs, ribbons and
> docks. Take the finest customization techniques built into
> LibreOffice and already available in the FLOSS-sphere and pack them
> into an upgrade of this suite that will offer users what they want,
> what they need, and what works for them--all at the same time.
>
> What this would look like is ever-present, full customization of
> tool properties: grouping, position, appearance and visibility.  My
> term for this is “toolgroups.”  This reaches beyond the function of
> static tools grouped within a ribbon tab.  Rather, this is a
> user-customized group of tools tagged to appear always, or workspace
> dependent.  The group can be placed in a sidebar, floating dock or in
> an inactive tabset (invisible or simply unusable). [...]

I tried to shorten your mail without losing it's main content - I hope I 
kept the most important information.

During the last months we had a few discussions with developers on 
customization and options.

While it is reasonable from a user point of view to be given a broad 
area of modifiable options, this might mean a enormous programming 
effort for developers, a larger code base, slower execution and more bugs.

Even from UX point of view it might not be as easy as you describe:
An average user will not change the UI - either he likes it and can work 
with it or he can't (and stops using the product). That's why the 
standard configuration is more important in my eyes than any possible 
customization.

You're right that there are different user groups with different needs 
that might be addressed with a specialized UI.

But I think providing pre-formatted themes are a better way to go.

And even here the workload for the developers is quite high...

My take is:

What we need is an easy way to create extensions for UI customization.

This way the standard theme can be overridden by an extension with a 
different theme or with an additional customization tool. Toolbar 
content, size and positioning, docking and context sensitivity (probably 
the most problematic part) can be defined there.

But we should keep in mind:

One of the main advantages of LibreOffice is it's platform independency.
On each of the operating systems People can work with LibreOffice in the 
same way - mainly because the position of their toolbars, menu entries 
and buttons are similar among Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

We definitely should keep this behavior for the standard theme.

Defining this theme will be one of the most important tasks for us 
during the years to come, and we will have to hear on our user base very 
closely...

Allowing this configuration will probably cause some developer effort 
and I don't know if there is already one willing to spend his/her spare 
time to this task.

But your statement is true:

A more user-oriented UI can be used as marketing tool and promotional 
item - and it fits very well with the idea of Freedom and Liberty.

Toolbars are already quite configurable - even if most people don't use 
this feature.


Best regards

Bernhard

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