Re: [libreoffice-design] UX Design + Neurodiversity Themes

Chris, let me add a few words as well...

* Ilmari Lauhakangas, nickname buovjaga, offers general onboarding 
session(s) for new contributors. That's useful for people who have not 
been involved with the project before, regardless of their specific 
interest. You can write him at: ilmari.lauhakangas@libreoffice.org to 
schedule such a session.

*  Another starting point is: https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design 
(although by now you know some of that already)

* Others have more experience than me in student-oriented activities 
initiated by a teacher rather than the students' apriori interest; but 
I'm sure that in order to suggest relevant ideas we would need more 
information about the students' background when they get to this 
activity (e.g. what academic program, what courses/skills are they 
assumed to have obtained by that point, whether this is in context of a 
specific course which has pre-existing pedagogic goals set).

* We use the LibreOffice bug tracker heavily, including for 
design-related issues - for 'bugs'/gaffes/deficiencies, for 
improvement/redesign ideas, and for suggestions for new functionality 
(which naturally have a design aspect to them). In your on-boarding 
session you'll probably learn to work with it - both to search for 
existing items and to file new stuff.

* Your personal experience is an LO user is the most fruitful source of 
design-related ideas. However - this statement also means that we have 
lots of people - QA, design, developers - focused on Writer, and a lot 
less on other modules and/or more complex/advanced functionality, whose, 
let's say, level of polish is sometimes lacking.

* We are not a uniform group of people - in almost any respect: 
Amount/frequency of activity, first language, professional background, 
age, and of course design likes and dislikes. You will likely see that 
reflected in feedback and interactions. (Sadly, though, few female 
participants in UI/UX work and LO development generally.)


On 24/09/2026 23:22, Jan Dittrich wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>
> I guess the easiest would be to join the design telegram group t.me/ 
> LibreOfficeDesign <internal:username_link/ 
> LibreOfficeDesign@562951099039968> and read the UI guidelines:
> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Design/Guidelines
>
> > and/or running UX Design Jam with UX students at Loughborough Uni.
>
> Usually, in design jams people try to invent new approaches to problems. 
> There sure is potential for this in office applications, but it is not 
> easy, aside from the problem of actually implementing it.
>
> If students are interested in evaluation: I think it could be helpful 
> reviewing basic features and workflows for their compliance with the 
> Nielsen heuristics and our own design guidelines (see above) and 
> potentially coming up with improvements within the limits of our UI 
> widget set. Heuristic evaluations [1] are also good group activities, so 
> I can imagine them to work well in this setting
>
> > I want to contribute a new theme specifically for people with dyslexia
> As a theme for the user interface or a theme for documents?
>
> Regards,
>   Jan
>
> [1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-to-conduct-a-heuristic-evaluation/
>
>
> Am 23.09.2026 um 12:40 schrieb Chris Parker:
> > Hi there
> >
> >
> >    1.
> > I want to get involved in LibreOffice’s UX Design. That can be my 
> > expertise as a UX Designer, and/or running UX Design Jam with UX 
> > students at Loughborough Uni.
> >
> >
> >    1.
> > Also, I want to contribute a new theme specifically for people with 
> > dyslexia (e.g., following BDA style guidelines<https:// 
> > www.thedyslexia-spldtrust.org.uk/media/downloads/69-bda-style-guide- 
> > april14.pdf>) to increase LibreOffice’s inclusivity.
> >
> > [Screenshot 2026-09-23 at 11.37.19.png]
> > Regards
> > Dr Chris Parker (he, him)
> > PhD.; C.ErgHF MCIEHF; SFHEA
> > 克里斯 帕克 博士
> >
> > Senior Lecturer in UX Design
> >
> > Read My Latest Papers<https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations? 
> > hl=en&user=oQbSNL8AAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate>
> >
> > Editorial Board Member:
> > Humanities and Social Sciences Communications<https://www.nature.com/ 
> > palcomms/>
> > YouTube
> > Design eLearning Tutorials<https://www.youtube.com/channel/ 
> > UCzvEHXd_578xes74hf9lC-Q?view_as=subscriber>
> > Podcast
> > Practical UX<https://open.spotify.com/show/2fkItLymnFyOWToyo9F03l? 
> > si=6637e95941654947>
> >
> > [Image]<https://ergonomics.org.uk/membership/registered-membership.html>
> > 🪒<https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17431-razor-emoji.pdf><-- I 
> > invented this emoji


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