Re: [libreoffice-design] Welcome graphics for the Startcenter in 4.2

Hi Mirek,


Le 27/10/2013 02:04, Mirek M. a écrit :
> Hi Michel,
> This is a meritocracy -- if you're not happy with something, you're
> welcome to swoop in and change it. :) (Of course, the community also has
> to accept those changes.)

As Cor Nouws already said, it's always more difficult to do something 
and then modify it again and again than taking time to design it 
correctly the first time.
I don't even talk about users getting upset by regular changes.

> If you'd like to do user studies, please be my guest. Right now, designs
> are based on heuristics [1],

Too much abstract.

> guidelines [2],

It would be ok, but here is only one (unimplemented ?) widget...

> and discussions,

That's the problem in the design team : too much unstructured discussions !
You should spend your time on making prototypes and user testing in a 
scientific way.

> but of
> course it'd be great if they were validated by other means as well.

Till today, the validation is done only with "I like", "I don't like", 
"I'd prefer" from the design lead/team.
Creating a validation process means having a global vision, and precise 
goals with metrics (goals that can be measured ; ex: nb of clicks to 
perform a specific action, or mouse move distance).

> (I don't have the time and energy to invest in user studies or user
> testing right now, which is why they aren't being done. It'd be great if
> you could help there.)

The color picker experience was very interesting :
- in mailing list or in chat, design team spent endless hours trying to 
imagine/guess what would be better, based on only one screenshot
- in few hours, I made some html prototypes that allowed to reveal 
immediately some important question (live preview or not ?)

And Jacob Nielsen showed that with just 5 users, you find nearly 80% of 
UX problems.
(http://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/)

So I repeat : less discussions, more prototypes & user testing.

> I understand you're not happy with the Start Center, and it would've
> been ideal if you could have chimed in after the inital call for
> designs,

When was it done ?
I searched both mailing lists (design and ux-advise) and found nothing 
about preparation of Gsoc. It seems that all subjects related to design 
were proposed without any preparation in the mailing lists.

The whiteboard for StartCenter was created on 24/07/2013, when GSoc was 
half time.
And the first official mail was created by Krisztian Pinter also on 
24/07/2013.

==> Design team should already work on subjects and prototypes for 
Gsoc'14. And same idea for LO4.4 (it's already too late to make 
proposals for LO4.3).

Just read my advise for planning :
http://www.mr-consultant.net/blog/2013/04/thoughts-about-libre-office-design-process-part-7-schedule/


> but now you can still chime in with suggestions for
> improvement, user research, user testing, or propose patches.

Even if the design team creates a professional proposal based on user 
testing, it would be dependent on dev kindness to implement it.
It looks more politically/diplomatic than meritocracy : it's much easier 
to get your proposal implemented if you're friend with one dev.
It's not an offense against devs or design team : it's just the only 
human way of doing when there is no official rule.
So, as I said to Charles, it's better for me to stop making proposals 
for LibreOffice for now.

BTW, few days ago, I met some people who might be interested by 
LibreOffice UX. I hope we can work together and maybe contribute.

Regards,

Michel

--
To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscribe@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