unity-design team mailing list archive

[Thorsten Wilms <t_w_@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2010-05-17 at 10:29 +0100, David Siegel wrote:

> Thorsten, can you recommend any literature on this topic?

Specifically about the vocabulary / on how to talk about UX? Not
really.

My own language might be shaped by:
 * Jeff Raskin: The Humane Interface
 * Alan Cooper: About face 2.0
 * Donald A. Norman: The Design of Everyday Things
plus various articles.


> Would you be interested in co-authoring a document that would help
> people understand how to structure productive conversations on this
> list?

Perhaps. I would like to discuss how the wiki should be structured,
first.

Concepts touching aspects of window and file management used to land in
the Artwork section of the wiki. I made an effort to keep them out of
the Artwork/Incoming section of specific releases, as those should allow
an overview of things that have at least the potential to be ready for
the release. The result is pretty much a centralized instead of a
distributed graveyard:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/Concepts

I think in future all concepts that go beyond mere theming should be
kept out of the Artwork section. Given there's no Design section,
Ayatana seems to be the best fit, except if you want that label to stay
exclusive to Canonical-backed projects. Of course it shouldn't be a
continuation of that wasted effort, so we need the structure and
guidance you have been speaking of, David.

On the Ayatana main page, I'd like to see a brief intro and pointers to:
 * A system of goals/objectives. I think it should flow from the success
of present and potential users, aided by a few assumptions we make
(which have to be explicit).
 * A pragmatic introduction to UX design, how to talk about it included.
 * An outline of a process we will develop, follow and refine.
 * A list of Canonical projects
 * A list of community-led projects, work in progress


The wiki itself does not speak well of our design and user experience
sensibilities. Is anyone listening who would be interested in marrying
Etherpad-like editing with a non-hierarchical wiki, perhaps using
Lift/Scala, Nitrogen/Erlang or Seaside/Smalltalk? ;)


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/