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. 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.
> 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. So, here we go:
>
> *The Goals:*
>
> - *Make LibreOffice easy to use while retaining its power.* 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. The best example of this is page margins. The
> easiest way for a lot of my customers to find this is through the
> right-click menu.
> - *Lead current trends in technology, don't just follow.* LibreOffice
> retains a layout that was first commercially phased out about four years
> ago. While the Menu/Toolbar paradigm is an excellent way of displaying
> program features for less fully-featured software and smaller screens,
> but let's face it - most desktop screens are no longer small and
> LibreOffice is extremely full-featured. Instead of copying another office
> suite, let's pave the way for others to build on.
> - *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.
>
> *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.
>