kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Gerry Sweeney <gerry.sweeney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have not posted here before although I have been on the list for quite some time.  I thought I might post in response to Michael Kavanagh just to relay my experience and offer some guidance (for what its worth). I have driven many product changes that have involved UI design. Not only is it difficult, but its easy to offend peoples sensibilities.  I am a hands on developer and a business leader, but I also have a good eye for athletics and visuals, I am unskilled in the use of design tools and am no designer myself, I mostly work with graphic designers but am generally good at breaking down what a designer should do and what scope they should work within. 

As a general rule, most people can tell you what they don’t like, but most that can tell you that, cannot give you a new brief - in other words people know what they like when they see it but cannot tell you what to create. 

Design and aesthetics is *very* subjective and you will never end up with something good if you try to do it by committee, instead you will end up with disagreements and discontent.  I think as Michael suggests, I would strongly advise putting someone capable in the “director seat” and empowering them to drive change in the project. I would also suggest that the group is very clear about scope because design is not just about appearance, design is about function, proportions and general usability and getting this right will most definitely involve functional and screen layout changes which developers on the project would need to take on board. The most common reason for a developer to dispute a change is when its difficult to do - getting good design results in a software product is difficult.  

The bottom line here is, if you cannot trust the person fulfilling the “director of design” role it will be a nightmare. 

In terms of driving change, in areas that are subjective this is what I generally do. I know that UI/Aesthetics are really subjective, so I identify the developer(s) and before asking for any changes I make it really clear that they should expect change and lots of iterations. In my experience developers can easily get offended when they do something and you tell them you don’t like it, they may take it personally and switch-off, easy to spot when it happens but quite difficult to re-establish buy in.  In the 25+ years I have been in this business I know its easier to get that on the table from the off, sell the worst case and find devs that are willing to work on that basis, any outstanding developer the works on UI or web design knows this, its part of what makes them really good. 

In terms of design choice be “timeless”, in other words be contemporary, modern and and clean in design, simple lines, simple colours, flat textures, simple shadows - over-design is the best way to make a product look “fisher-price"

The director of that UI project (or project manager, or whatever role title you choose to allocate) has to make tough decisions, they need to channel creative input and they need to take all input and consolidate it into something coherent and progressive, its doable but its not just about being the “colouring in” department. 

I have darted about a but there but the essence is.

* Allocate the leader of the design project to 1 person and empower them, if you choose the wrong person, live with it until you can reasonably close the project off and start again
* Do not make design decisions by committee, let someone say yes or no so you have a common direction
* Allocate the minimum number of devs to the task as possible, one is optimum for most projects. 
* Make sure the Dev(s) is happy to work in a high-rate-of-change model and is willing to iterate and not get personally offended if something they have done needs to be re-done. 
* In design choice be “timeless”

FWIW...

Gerry

> On 12 Jan 2018, at 17:46, Michael Kavanagh <michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> Can I suggest after v5 UI/graphic design is split off into a separate group with a suitably qualified person in charge (e.g. like the lib/docs maintainers)? With a core team and a UI policy it might make for a more cohesive look and feel rather than several people having a crack at different bits in different applications.
> 
> Just a thought.
> 
> On 12 January 2018 at 12:46, Константин Барановский <baranovskiykonstantin@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:baranovskiykonstantin@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> Forgot to attach the source of bitmap2component icon.
> 
> 2018-01-12 14:39 GMT+02:00 Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxx>>:
> Agreed.  Your bitmap2component idea is excellent.
> 
> > On 12 Jan 2018, at 12:37, jp charras <jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx <mailto:jp.charras@xxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> >
> > Le 12/01/2018 à 13:27, Константин Барановский a écrit :
> >> Thanks for your answers. What are you think about this icon for bitmap2component?
> >
> > I do like the pcb calculator and the bitmap2component icons.
> >
> >>
> >> 2018-01-12 13:00 GMT+02:00 Simon Wells <swel024@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:swel024@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:swel024@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:swel024@xxxxxxxxx>>>:
> >>
> >>    I agree with Jeff, Not a fan of the pcbnew/modedit/gerbview icons, I don’t mind the eeschema
> >>    icon, but also not a fan of the bmp2cmp icon, the only way i can see bmp2cmp being better would
> >>    be a (well known) bitmap looking square with an arrow pointing to a footprint and/or symbol
> >>
> >>    Simon
> >>
> >>
> >>>    On 12/01/2018, at 11:47 PM, Jeff Young <jeff@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:jeff@xxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>    I like the more subdued colours in Oliver’s, although I do like your calculator icon (perhaps
> >>>    with Oliver’s pcb colouring in the background).
> >>>
> >>>    Cheers,
> >>>    Jeff.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>    On 12 Jan 2018, at 10:22, Константин Барановский <baranovskiykonstantin@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:baranovskiykonstantin@xxxxxxxxx>
> >>>>    <mailto:baranovskiykonstantin@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:baranovskiykonstantin@xxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>    Hi Everybody!
> >>>>    As you know (or not) I'm work on new icons for KiCad for a long time:
> >>>>    https://code.launchpad.net/~baranovskiykonstantin/kicad/+git/kicad/+ref/new_icons_rebased <https://code.launchpad.net/~baranovskiykonstantin/kicad/+git/kicad/+ref/new_icons_rebased>
> >>>>    <https://code.launchpad.net/%7Ebaranovskiykonstantin/kicad/+git/kicad/+ref/new_icons_rebased <https://code.launchpad.net/%7Ebaranovskiykonstantin/kicad/+git/kicad/+ref/new_icons_rebased>>
> >>>>
> >>>>    And inspired by changes in app icons I made my variant.
> >>>>    Please, leave feedback.
> >>>>
> >>>>    2018-01-12 5:28 GMT+02:00 Andrey Kuznetsov <kandrey89@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:kandrey89@xxxxxxxxx> <mailto:kandrey89@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:kandrey89@xxxxxxxxx>>>:
> >>>>
> >>>>        Awesome, thanks!
> >>>>
> >>>>        Looks good.
> >>>>
> >>>>        On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 7:27 PM Oliver Walters <oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx>
> >>>>        <mailto:oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:oliver.henry.walters@xxxxxxxxx>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>            Andrey,
> >>>>
> >>>>            Here's all I can provide currently (at work!)
> >>>>
> >>>>            <image.png>
> >>>>
> >>>>            I have sent the entire patch to Wayne and JP privately so the merging is now in their
> >>>>            capable hands :)
> >>>>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jean-Pierre CHARRAS
> >
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