Re: [libreoffice-design] Re: Flat/Symbolic Icons Update

Hi Kévin, all,

Am Dienstag, 26. Februar 2013, 14:09:46 schrieb Kévin PEIGNOT:
> 2013/2/26 Björn Balazs <bjoern.balazs@user-prompt.com>
> > Am Donnerstag, 21. Februar 2013, 12:50:37 schrieb Kévin

> > Then, about the icon guidelines, As I sayed to Mirek, we
> >
> > shouldn't
> >
> > > choose if we use Gnome ones, Elementary ones, Ubuntu 
Ones
> > etc, but let
> >
> > > users choose that by a survey. Because if surveys are
> >
> > useless for
> >
> > > ergonomy (user always choosing , for pure design it 
helps to
> > know what
> >
> > > final user find sexy or not.
> > >
> > > I would like to have Bjoern thoughts on this, so I CC 
him.
> > Well then, here we go :) - and as Heiko correctly pointed 
out,
> > we would be more than happy to support LO by any kind of 
user-
> > based decision making.
> >
> > What we can and should do: User test the quality of each 
icon
> > we use in terms of understandability.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but for me this is more about 
ergonomy than
> design, even if design count. It's the same thing than 
knowing if a
> clipboard is better than a glue tube for paste. Then, making 
the glue
> tube/clipboard glossy, flat, tango etc is pure design, and 
doesn't change
> its understandability.

Yes, in most cases. The usability of an icon is mostly defined 
via the metaphor. The design might mess up the clarity of it 
though ;) - and this is where we can improve a lot. 

E.g. I do not understand how some people can still defend the 
filing cabinet for save action. Data shows it simply is the 
wrong (aka not-understandable) metaphor. This has nothing to 
do with whether I or anyone else likes the icon or not... And 
it will stay the wrong metaphor even if it is a flat icon ;)

> > But I am actually skeptical about making DESIGN decisions
> > based on surveys. At least I would not do it directly, 
e.g. by
> > showing three kinds of design and asking 'Which do you 
like
> > best?'. I guess indirect methods are superior here.
> >
> > For this, we need to define our desired target groups 
first.
> > Only then we can address anything concerning 'taste'.
> > Otherwise we will just get a random sample of users in any
> > survey (which is ok for questions like understandability 
of
> > icons) - and with each survey we are in danger of getting 
a
> > different subset of users. The result could be that we end 
up
> > with a non-consistent design-language, because in one 
survey
> > the purists 'won' while in another survey the majority 
likes
> > it more 'playful'...
> >
> >
> > So what we can do, is trying to research who is using LO 
for
> > which reasons, doing which tasks - and then trying to 
identify
> > primary users (personas), for which we then can try to 
find a
> > consistent and appealing design-language.
>
> I agree, we need to define them, but I don't know how we can 
do this. 

We are happy to help / guide any group of volunteers trying to 
do so - just we cannot make it ourselves - it simply is too 
much work... Basically it will be (as most things) an 
iterative process of gathering ideas and feedback...

> Then
> If I well understood what you mean by non-consitent design 
language, you
> think we would have an incoherent  icon set. I don't agree 
with that,
> because the survey would be done only once, just to decide 
what design, and
> finally what guidelines we should have for all our icons, 
and all icons
> would follow these ==> this will stay consistent.

Yeah - the icon set will be consistent - but we have to make 
other design decisions, e.g. websites, banner, art within LO, 
even definition of user experience flows in the software... 
And all of these will not be answered with one survey. And if 
we do multiple surveys with different end users, we might end 
up in the mess of non-consistency...

> Then, about identifying our users, as I sayed, I absolutely 
do not know how
> to do that, do you have some methodolgy/advices ? I'm not 
sure knowing who
> are our users will directly help us choosing design 
language, but it will
> tell us who are the users that we need to take more account 
of the views in
> a survey. Then, we do the survey about which guidelines they 
prefer and we
> ask them (indirectly) which type of user they are, and we 
compare the
> results with our known users. I think it's what you meant by 
indirects
> methods, am I wrong ?

Well there is not the ONE way of doing it. Most likely you 
would want to create personas as artifacts representing the 
different user groups.

You can derive decisions from these artifacts, by very 
different means, e.g. introspection, surveys, discussions,...

Again, I am skeptical about doing a survey about issues of 
likes and dislikes... Most promising in this context would 
probably be to work with moodboards - but I would have to 
think about it more...

Cheers,
Björn

> > Can you follow the thoughts?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Björn
> >
> >
> > --
> > Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs
> > Business Management & Research
> > T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949
> >
> > User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise
> > Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com
> > HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer 
Björn
> > Balazs
> >
> > --
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-- 
Dipl.-Psych. Björn Balazs
Business Management & Research
T +49 30 6098548-21 | M +49 179 4541949

User Prompt GmbH | Psychologic IT Expertise 
Grünberger Str. 49, 10245 Berlin | www.user-prompt.com 
HRB 142277 | AG Berlin Charlottenburg | Geschäftsführer Björn 
Balazs

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