Re: [libreoffice-design] Design ethos

Mirek, all,

thanks for pointing to this interesting article. I tried to find out what you 
mean by 'design ethos' and found a mail [1] from you from that started the 
topic and the wikipage you created [2].

Unfortunately I think I do not really understand the goal you want to achieve. 
For my understanding it is extremely hard to define general design guidelines. 

I pick two examples you provide:

I can agree to "Polished - every little thing counts" - no doubt about that. 
But that is very general... What does apply for a design from that? How can I 
evaluate a design on this? 

In opposite "Contextual - [...] Don't show actions that the user can't take 
[...]" is at least ambivalent. True: never show stupid or misleading options. 
Wrong: never hide e.g. menu elements simply because they are not applicable at 
the moment (remember those attempts in M$ Office? Horrible times!)

I think this is a general problem with general guidelines as they are outlined 
in the mentioned article as well. Either they are so abstract that nobody 
would reject them - but then it is also hard to derive any consequence out of 
them --- Or they are specific but exceptions are the rule.

I see a possible solution - and hey, surprise - this again has to do with 
researching and understanding users: I think we should try to define 
conditions user under which certain rules apply. Conditions could be something 
like "If the user is likely to be in a stressful situation, prefer to the use 
of a wizard"

This is just my experience, perhaps I did misunderstand your intention here. 
What do you think?

Cheers,
Björn



[1] http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/msg04372.html
[2] https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Ethos

Am Mittwoch, 6. Juni 2012, 17:49:19 schrieb Mirek M.:
> Hi everyone,
> Could we agree to use the Firefox UX principles [1] as the basis for our
> design ethos?
> I'd like to get this approved on the upcoming IRC chat.
> If you have any issues with it, please speak up.
>
> [1] http://uxmag.com/articles/quantifying-usability
-- 
www.OpenUsability.org
www.OpenSource-Usability-Labs.com

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