[libreoffice-design] Re: [libreoffice-design] Design Tenets Proposal

Hi Scott, all

thanks for bringing us back to the basics we need
if we want to reach out to a general approach from 
individual ideas and great mockups.

It's really superb to see the different UI rework 
proposals with lots of good ideas and proposals.

But turning the multitude of them into one optimized
design might take more time and dedication we 
imagine at the moment.

And as you pointed out we need to define the main 
goals and rules for the overall UI design before we
start to look at the individual mockups and design 
elements.

Scott Pledger wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> One thing that I've noticed is that we have a lot of great redesign
> proposals floating around, but we have yet to establish a true direction for
> the Libre Office platform.  

+1

> Someone recently posted this video (
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl9kD693ie4 ) which really made me realize
> the importance of having specific long-term goals for software design.

Thanks for this link! It contains a multitude of interesting information we can
use for our work too. Even if these videos have a total length of about 1 1/2 hours
they are really worthwhile following them.

>  Therefore, I wanted to propose a few simple goals that I think LibreOffice
> ought to have for its design as we move forward (maybe even for the 4.0
> release)  as well as the basic tenets that I think we can use to help
> achieve these goals.  

I think it would be worthwhile to put these goals and tenets on the wiki and refine 
them there. Would you be able to create a wiki page (perhaps starting as 
subpage to your userpage) containing this information?

> So, here we go:
>
> *The Goals:*
>
>    - *Make LibreOffice easy to use while retaining its power.*

I don't know if it is reasonable to have these two topics linked together so 
tigthly. 

Ease of use is of course one of the most important goals.

But it relates reciprocally to the complexity of the task.

If we come to a point where these two goals (ease of use and powerful 
feature-richness) are so oppositional that we had to reduce the importance of 
one in favour of the other, which one would be supported?

>    This is by
>    far one of the biggest complaints I have when I suggest that my clients use
>    LibreOffice - they don't understand where things are in the
>    menu/toolbar hierarchy.  [...]

I would not introduce details in this phase of the discussion, because they might
lead to a narrowed view on the topic.

Ease of use is far more than toolbars/menus: numbers of mouse clicks, mouse
distances, tastature access/accessibility come to my mind - and there are even 
more like colors and contrast, positioning of objects and so on:

Nearly every modification to the UI has an impact in this field.

>    - *Lead current trends in technology, don't just follow.*  [...]
>    Instead of copying another office suite, let's
>    pave the way for others to build on.

While I fully support the second part of the statement, I don't want to have the 
first one as part of our main goals.

I want to see LibreOffice having the *best* UI, not the newest or trendiest one.
There are parts in other UIs being very interesting and clever.  We can include
them (if legally possible) in our general concept, if they fit well.

If LibreOffice will be a trendsetter or not depends on the fact if we find *better*
solutions than all the other designer out there (or if we manage to include them 
more consistently in our product).

So just following others is as wrong as setting trends in technology while other
existing ideas manage to fulfill the necessary task much better...

>    - *Help people to be more efficient.*  This is really important if we
>    want to get LibreOffice used in more businesses and schools, and is
>    ultimately the best way to get any piece of software adopted.

This is tightly related to "ease of use", so I'd combine these two goals.

What I'd like to add as goals:

- * Interoperability on different platforms.*
LibreOffice wants to be present in a similar way on all the major platforms.
Even if user switch from one platform to another, they should be able to work
the way they are used to. A major task will be definition of fixed (platform 
independent) and OS-adapted (platform specific) parts in the UI in order to 
find a common way that provides LibreOffice's branding and behavior at the 
same time as smooth integration in the platform (with UI elements, behavior
 etc)

- *Don't forget actual users for possible future ones.*
Microsoft lost milions of users (to OOo/LibreOffice and others) because they
didn't take into account, that people tend to keep the Ui they are used to.
Even with a totally new approach we should be able to find the tasks in a 
similar way to the old one.

- *Let people have fun.* 
Working with LibreOffice should provide positive feelings - have a look at the
slogan we positioned on the website:

"Make it just work, and look great, too!" 
> *The Tenets:*
>
>    - *Allow users to focus on the content, not the UI.*  The document
>    viewport should never change size or lose/gain visibility due to pop-up
>    dialogs or toolbars.  The only exception to this is menus, as users expect
>    these to overlap their document.  One major subset of this should be live
>    previews.  For instance, you have to click through Headings 1-10
>    individually to see what the differences are.
>    - *Everything should be accessible within 3 clicks, not just the 'most
>    common' features.*  This will help reduce the clutter while increasing
>    users' mastery of the software.
>    - *Consistent UI areas (not features) across all individual 'apps'.*
>    Keep the UI as consistent as possible without sacrificing the
>    features/functionality of any individual app (Calc, Writer, etc.).
>    - *Value context over comprehensiveness.*  Users don't need to have table
>    tools up and at the ready when they only have text in the body of a document
>    selected.

I think there might be some more such tenet, but I can't contribute to the brain-
storming at the moment.

Perhaps it would be reasonable to define the goals first and come back to the 
tenets afterwards?

Best regards

Bernhard




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