Re: [libreoffice-design] Where does the design-team go?

Hi Mirek, design teamers, all,
sorry for the late reply. But now I find some time to answer (a very 
long e-mail).

I don't need an answer to this e-mail for the next, hard working time. 
But let us work on this stuff - let me say - in March/April 2013 after 
releasing 4.0.0.


Am 12.11.2012 10:40, schrieb Mirek M.:
> Hi Klaus,
>
> On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 8:58 AM, klaus-jürgen weghorn ol
> <ol@sophia-louise.de <mailto:ol@sophia-louise.de>> wrote:
>
>     Hi all,
>     seems to be a very aggressive title?
>     My personal impressions are that the design team is loosing the
>     sight for graphical elements, and only works on user experience.
>     Let me tell what happened the last weeks:
>     1. Taking *all* VI from whiteboard list to playground list.
>
>
> Playgrounds were an experiment that didn't pan out.
> The idea was to have continuous iteration on the visual design of
> things, as, unlike interaction design, visual design proposals are easy
> and quick to implement.
>
>     2. Talking about, that it isn't the design team's job for working on
>     T-Shirts or other marketing material
>
>
> We are doing the FOSDEM T-shirts (Astron should put up a whiteboard
> soon), but were wondering whether it's not a better fit for the
> marketing team.
>
>     3. Taking off all Playground lists. Where is the discussion to do
>     this? So there is no way to find any work for visual identity.

It's ok to do so, but how to find the stuff?

> The discussion is at
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Meetings/2012-11-10.
> It boils down to none of the playgrounds being maintained or active, and
> if people want to collaborate, we don't want them to waste time on
> projects that aren't very relevant anymore.
> We'll do whiteboards instead of playgrounds now.
>
>     4. There were no dialogs about buttons, banners, conference material
>     etc.
>
>     I know that some of you aren't work on VI but there is a huge call
>     for banners, web buttons etc. Especially for 4.0. And that isn't the
>     marketing team's job.
>     It seems that I'm the only one working for this and this isn't good
>     because I haven't the skills to do such things for 4.0.
>
>
> There should be a 4.0 rebranding whiteboard up soon.

http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/4.0_Branding

>     When we do a review we should do a view too:
>     I have a simple problem with the whole design working process. The
>     focus of all who worked here for the last year was only on [UX]. We
>     have no [VI] in work. We don't give the marketing what they urgently
>     need [2]. We as Design team didn't work on any stuff for the next
>     Conference.
>
>
> I wouldn't say we've done no VI work, because we've done icons,
> templates, the 3.6 rebranding, and a new Windows look.
>
> It's true that many of the volunteers (me included) are more focused on
> the UX work, but you can't blame them for working on what they prefer.

Oh, I don't want to blame anyone for working on what he prefers. I only 
want to focusing that - as it is my impression - the VI get lost in our 
design team.

> A while ago, I sent out an e-mail about project caretakers.
> Would you like to create a few VI whiteboards and become a caretaker?

I'm taking care of some points, especially the web buttons, 
documentation design. But I'm not able to become a caretaker of this.

> Which whiteboards so you think we need?

- Marketing material
-- Web banners [1]
-- Logos/Banners for events
-- Giveaways, T-Shirt
-- Documentation

[1] 
http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Whiteboards/External_web_banners

>     Look and compare the Whiteboards and the Playgrounds to get a
>     feeling about it. Marketing material is in Playground, no working
>     point in Whiteboard.
>
>
> (See reasoning for playgrounds above.)
>
>
>     Maybe my words are a bit hard. I thought about all of it the last weeks.
>     Then two questions appear to me and I gave them a name:
>
>     1 Nik as a great designer for the stuff here who was away for a
>     longer time comes along and asks this question:
>     Nik's question: "What stuff can I do for you now to get a really
>     good movement in your design? Only one because I have no time to
>     work on many things." What would we say?
>
>
>     2 Bernhard had the experience to get the stuff in a well-structured
>     order, so the people can find and work with it easily.
>     Bernhard's question: "Where can I find the material to work on
>     next?" Let's have a look: "Wiki - Design - ? Aaah Whiteboard, but
>     there is only UX and no graphical design. So they need no graphical
>     design?"
>
>     Let's do our next work with these two questions.
>
>     The marketing team starts a discussion about their strategy [3] and
>     of course there are some critics even the design team is concerned
>     [4]. Do we get them? Do we work on it? If we don't do this the
>     others made it for themselves without us.
>
>     And we should do this too: Defining a strategy for design [VI] and [UX].
>
>
> Not sure what exactly you mean by that -- could you elaborate?

Ok, let's try.

In the first time Libo tried to get developers, but now it is time to 
get people to help the project for e.g. the design team.

We as design team do a good job. We are not many people who do this job 
and we can't get all the issues.

Let us talk about how we get more people involved, how we can fix them 
to stay here. We have had some very good people, but loose them.
We need help for this concept by the elder project workers (e.g. the BoD).

Let us talk about what Leif mentioned [2]:
<quote>
 * A more clear decision flow within our own organization.Who is
   actually deciding what? One of the cases has been the new design
   project (the old renaissance project from OO.o). A lot of mock-ups
   and sketches has been seen but nobody has picked it up and made a
   corporate decision. But the problem is that users can't find out who
   that in fact should be.
</quote>

[2] 
http://www.mail-archive.com/marketing@global.libreoffice.org/msg05626.html

It is not only a problem of the design team, but part of it.

I'm working now on some buttons/banners with a "Get involved!" slogan as 
an initial proposal [3].
Not only "Get involved" in a team but also in the programme to use it.
It will be part of my proposals for 4.0.

[3] http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/User:K-j/Drafts/Concept-GIn

Do we have a concept? Or do we work on our own (as I do)? Where is our 
design vision? Where is the direction?

I know that 4.0 is coming too fast for the design team to get a really 
good concept.*) I talked with Astron in August about that.
I know that it isn't the right time for discussing that. Especially the 
UX-team can't do a design concept for now because they need to solve the 
current issues for UX. But maybe we can get the direction.

*)
We should start now to get a design for 5.0 as a whole complex with UX, 
VI, marketing, web design. But we won't be able to do this without help.

Let me quote Leif again because it is something that should lead the 
design team too:
<quote>
The mission:
 What story do we want to tell? Is our goal to convince that our 
product is the best? the cheapest? Are we trying to convince users to 
download and use LibreOffice or to become engaged and participating?
</quote>

This leads me to my proposal concept "get involved!".

>     ------ maybe an own discussion but part of strategy
>     I don't think that the voting about the new design in 3.6 happened
>     in a really good way no matter what happened with the announcement.
>     We should not vote by Google+ or even by IRC. Especially not for the
>     design which concerns to our presentation. Google+ can show us some
>     direction, and IRC is not my/our tool for community and
>     communication (I e.g. am not able to join these IRCs). There was no
>     official discussion about the proposals here on the ml (or I missed
>     it). And lack of time isn't an excuse for it.
>
>
> Alright, we'll make sure we're more open this time.

;-)

--
Grüße
k-j

--
Unsubscribe instructions: E-mail to design+help@global.libreoffice.org
Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/
Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette
List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/
All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted