unity-design team mailing list archive

[Charline Poirier <charline.poirier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Great ideas!

Your message made me think that there is a very close link between 
values and principles. Values should be at the source of our principles 
and principles should be formulated in a way that is actionable and 
tangible for designers. For example, it is difficult for designers to 
design to warmth (which expression and use differ significantly in 
various cultures), but they certainly can design to collaboration which 
you mentioned in the next sentence. Collaboration has the advantage of 
being behavioral and so there are specific actions that can be taken to 
facilitate it, like bring people together and provide them tools.

In addition to the basic heuristic usability principles such as 
consistency, feedback, etc. Ubuntu should have some distinctive 
principles that support its own identity: Linux for human beings.

Some of the principles could be:

Interconnection

From the user's perspective, interconnection means a seamless 
experience of the activities they engage in to achieve an end goal.

From the designer's perspective, it could mean: make the interaction 
between various applications connected to each other and to the whole.


Collaboration

From the user's perspective: Easy access to sharing and communication 
tools.

From the designer's perspective: make communication and collaboration 
tools immediately visible and accessible. Emphasize such tools over others.


User control

From the user's perspective: focus on my goals, don't be in my way and 
don't distract me, use my language, let me make decisions and don't give 
me fake choices.

From the designer's perspective: never be wasteful, if something 
doesn't add anything, don't put it in. Make the structure of the system 
anticipate user actions and respond to user lead.


This llist is by no means exhaustive...


C.
Charline Poirier
User Research Programme Lead
Canonical

Charline.poirier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tel: +44 207 630 2491







Allan Caeg wrote:
> Borrowing heavily from the format and content of Google's UX principles
> ( http://www.google.com/corporate/ux.html ), below is my proposed draft
> of the Ubuntu UX Guidelines. Before reading it, please keep in mind that
> this (very) rough draft is based exclusively on my experiences with
> Ubuntu (the OS), and the community so I am encouraging everyone to
> contribute what is fit.
> ____________
>
> The Ubuntu User Experience is usable, beautiful, simple, consistent,
> customizeable and warm.
>
>
> 1. Linux for Human Beings
> The Ubuntu community brings to the world a GNU/Linux operating system
> that is meant to be used by human beings. Ubuntu is aimed at being
> usable to everyone regardless of age, culture, or race. With a team that
> focuses on usability and a group of translators for localization, it is
> designed to be easy and pleasurable to use for everyone out of the box.
>
>
> 2. "Pretty is a feature"
> The need for beauty is self-explanatory. Ubuntu's artists believe that
> beauty is an important factor that improves the user's experience.
>
>
> 3. Keeping it simple
> Despite aiming to build a complete operating system out of the box,
> people behind Ubuntu are keeping things as simple as possible. The whole
> system that is fit in a CD is trimmed of bloat that would simply be
> obtrusive to the user experience.
>
>
> 4. Guided by consistent standards
> The open source world has a very wide variety of options. As a GNU/Linux
> distribution, the Ubuntu team handpicked a collection of applications
> that would create a consistent experience. By default, Ubuntu includes
> application that follow the same standards. Thanks to the GNOME project,
> the Ubuntu desktop has applications that use the GTK+ toolkit or that
> adapt to its look and feel. 
>
>
> 4. Free in every sense
> Ubuntu is a Free (and Libre) Open Source Software. Other than being free
> of charge for the user to own and use, it can be modified and
> redistributed. The default desktop may follow consistent standards, but
> Ubuntu can be customized very easily to fit the needs of its users. It
> may come with default applications and configurations, but it is also
> designed to be tweaked very easily to satisfy different needs. The
> Ubuntu community recognizes and promotes individualism./
>
>
> 5. Humanity Towards Others
> Probably, the most important user experience feature of Ubuntu is its
> warmth. The Ubuntu desktop encourages its user to collaborate with the
> community by asking for help and contributing. Other than the sense of
> community, Ubuntu's warmth is displayed by its artwork. Unlike most
> operating systems, Ubuntu's look and feel is not the traditional
> "kitchenware." People behind Ubuntu aim to let the user feel that the
> computer is not foreign to the human being.
> ______________
>
> Again, this is a very rough draft. I would love to hear your feedback :)
>
>
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--
PK