Open source user experience

Here's an interesting slideshare+audio (hit play button for audio and
slide sync):
http://www.slideshare.net/jsonin/flirt-date-commit-injecting-design-into-an-open-source-project-presentation

I agree that a lot of open source projects out there could benefit from
this, and of course, the community would benefit as a result.

Mike C.

Tom Coombs wrote:
> I've been thinking about the open source movement.
>
> I know very little of the UX community's involvement, so firstly I'm posting
> to ask what has been happening so far. Mozilla, Open Office and some others
> must have had serious UX involvement. Secondly, if it doesn't already
> exist, I wonder if there's the potential for us to structure some kind of
> virtual agency that would allow us to engage effectively.
>
> Few thoughts
>
> - In my opinion, several OS projects are incredible achievements that are
> hampered by small usability problems or even just language issues. I really
> believe in the movement. I think some corners of it need our help.
>
> - UX involvement, unlike coder involvement, might be more effective if the
> people weren't aligned to a single project, so maybe the movement doesn't
> naturally structure itself to include us.
>
> - Be a good way to spread the UX word, and a good way for us to collaborate
> and learn from each other. Might be especially useful for people trainign
> in UX. Maybe meetings like the book club but instead the topic is an open
> source project that everyone's looked in advance.
>
> Any thoughts? Knowledge of UX involvement so far?
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ...........................................
> Tom Coombs
> http://www.manwomanandchild.com
> +44 (0) 7968 151198
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
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>
>

I'm glad to see this post.

Drupal is a good example. Until recently, Drupal was largely built with
little help from folks like us. The founder, Dries Buytaert, however is a
strong believer in usability and experience and managed to get Drupal
formally tested twice in lab setting. Given the poor test reults, the
community is rallying around becoming more usable and organizing itself.
groups.drupal/org/usability is a fine example. Folks in this channel and
various IRC channels come together to build better designs - and engineers
are begining to shift towards these channels for advice. These channels are
essentiall the virtual agency you speak of - but are Drupal specific.

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Tom Coombs <tom at manwomanandchild.com>wrote:

> I've been thinking about the open source movement.
>
> I know very little of the UX community's involvement, so firstly I'm
> posting
> to ask what has been happening so far. Mozilla, Open Office and some
> others
> must have had serious UX involvement. Secondly, if it doesn't already
> exist, I wonder if there's the potential for us to structure some kind of
> virtual agency that would allow us to engage effectively.
>
> Few thoughts
>
> - In my opinion, several OS projects are incredible achievements that are
> hampered by small usability problems or even just language issues. I
> really
> believe in the movement. I think some corners of it need our help.
>
> - UX involvement, unlike coder involvement, might be more effective if the
> people weren't aligned to a single project, so maybe the movement doesn't
> naturally structure itself to include us.
>
> - Be a good way to spread the UX word, and a good way for us to
> collaborate
> and learn from each other. Might be especially useful for people trainign
> in UX. Maybe meetings like the book club but instead the topic is an open
> source project that everyone's looked in advance.
>
> Any thoughts? Knowledge of UX involvement so far?
>
> Tom
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ...........................................
> Tom Coombs
> http://www.manwomanandchild.com
> +44 (0) 7968 151198
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

On 9 Feb 2009, at 16:03, Tom Coombs wrote:

> I've been thinking about the open source movement.
>
> I know very little of the UX community's involvement, so firstly I'm
> posting
> to ask what has been happening so far. Mozilla, Open Office and
> some others
> must have had serious UX involvement. Secondly, if it doesn't already
> exist, I wonder if there's the potential for us to structure some
> kind of
> virtual agency that would allow us to engage effectively.
[snip]
> Any thoughts? Knowledge of UX involvement so far?

You might find some of http://delicious.com/adrianh/opensource+ux of
interest, especially http://www.openusability.org/

Cheers,

Adrian

I just ran into Paula Bach's work on UX and Open Source, in
particular:

"Designers Wanted: Participation and the User Experience in Open
Source Software"

http://cscl.ist.psu.edu/public/users/pbach/paper1367-bach.pdf

A nice read ...

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 17:03, Tom Coombs <tom at manwomanandchild.com> wrote:

> I've been thinking about the open source movement.
>
> I know very little of the UX community's involvement, so firstly I'm
> posting
> to ask what has been happening so far. Mozilla, Open Office and some
> others
>
>
If you want to build an IxD group applyed to solve open source software
issues I'm with you.
FLOSS is to much closed to the coder knowledge in my opinion and must be
helped by IxD fields.

Luca Cappelletti

--
---
Luca Cappelletti
Infodomestic.com

"...Together we stand, divided we fall."

.O.
..O
OOO

GTalk,MSN: luca <dot> cappelletti <at> gmail <dot> com
Linux Registered User: #223411
Ubuntu Registered User: #7221

"l'intelligenza è utile per la sopravvivenza se ci permette di estinguere
una cattiva idea prima che la cattiva idea estingua noi"

"La chiave di ogni uomo è il suo pensiero. Benché egli possa apparire saldo
e autonomo, ha un criterio cui obbedisce, che è l'idea in base alla quale
classifica tutte le cose. Può essere cambiato solo mostrandogli una nuova
idea che sovrasti la sua"

"Uno studioso è soltanto un modo in cui una biblioteca crea un'altra
biblioteca "

I've also realized that one thing which works very well for open
source development (and not design) are branching and merging
activities. So far, these activities do not translate very well into
visual deliverables such as wireframes as design elements are not
very modular. Lacking such modularity it is very difficult to have
multiple designers work separately and merge "design elements" or
"design rules" into one coherent whole.

As posted in a newer thread, this is one area which I plan to think
about and tackle with a new UI prototyping tool (also open source).
If everything goes well to plan, the tool will allow for the creating
of design element alternatives (branching) as well as merging of
various design elements from different sources.

Check out http://www.fluidia.org and ping me if you're also
interested in working on this.

Jakub Linowski

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371

I've been working in open-source for a bit over four years now...
getting designers to donate their time for collaborative projects at
the same level as developers do would be a tremendous boon.

Plus, an IxDA-facilitated open-source initiative would be an excellent
way to get more experience on a wider variety of projects, while
contributing to the state-of-the-art.

I for one would relish the opportunity to see how others work and
build some battlefield camaraderie.

The point Andy makes above (about open-source versioning tools being
ill suited for design) is an important one... how do we set up the
infrastructure for OSS design collaboration? What's the SourceForge or
Google Code for designers? I imagine IxDA Labs could take a hybrid
approach... weave together a wiki, knowledge management tools, digital
whiteboarding...

Please count me in :)

-Jonathan

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 2:35 AM, Elizabeth Bacon
<lists at elizabethbacon.com> wrote:
> Tom, et al.,
>
> I'm really excited to say that IxDA may be able to support and aid
> you in your & others efforts to connect with the Open Source movement
> and community.
>
> Several IxDA board members met with Aza Raskin of Mozilla at the
> Interaction'09 conference to discuss how we could work together in
> the future, given the alignment of interests we have in making the
> world a better place. IxDA really wants to enable new sorts of
> design-led open source efforts to succeed. We're presently
> envisioning having a kind of "IxDA Labs" area, just like they have
> a Mozilla Labs area, where such design-led, collaborative open-source
> projects can be seeded and developed.
>
> Our steps in this area thus far have been semi-connected to the
> current infrastructure project. Anybody who's interested in pursuing
> this idea further, please let me know what you think about being a
> leader and/or forming an initiative in this area with support from
> IxDA. :)
>
> Cheers,
> Liz
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

Integration and distribution of the design processes has been something the team has been exploring. A lot of work has gone into making remote UI research more accessible and streaming it to the development team faster, such as tagging of video, etc.

Part of the consensus is the humanization of code tracking software for designers UI demands and adaptation of it for designer specific files and processes.

I have also been playing with Digital Pens and thinking about Tablets for UI mockups. Crayon Physics for UI design that export to common XML UI specs would be fun ; )

-Zach

We've bounced around the idea of IxDA labs for a while now. In fact,
some might argue that we've had one for the longest time-- people have
always been welcome to show us a better way to do things, and we have
ways of setting up sandboxed development environments, albeit very
manually.

What got me excited over the weekend was Aza Raskin's point that there
is a vast gulf of opportunity for Interaction Design in the open
source world, and that we are welcome to the table in many ways. While
OSS is indeed a code-based world, I think there are collaborative
behaviors our tools need to pick up in order for us to effectively
join the party:

-) Our design deliverables are not well suited for source control
systems. They can't "diff" our files and tell us clearly what changed,
nor do a sexy "merge" like you can with text-based code. Sure, you can
annotate a change when you check it back in to the main branch, anyone
who works with source control knows those change annotations usually
get BSed. It's useful to see *everything* that changed-- there's
always some small change that wasn't made clear in the comment.

-) To the point of modularization: In the same fashion that it takes
effort to modularize code, so can we do the same with design docs. Set
up common symbols and background layers so that a change in one place
propagates across the design doc. Find a way for people to work on
those symbols and layers without having to check out the whole
freakin' file. Allow people to update, or "build" the latest snapshot
so everyone is on the same page.

Anyone know of a solution for this? Would Adobe Version Cue help here?
Fireworks doesn't seem to be invited to that party, at least in CS3
...

- Nasir

We should also think about open-source design apart from open-source
development. Just as developers come up with neat ideas, build
something, and put it out there for others to download and use,
there's no reason why some thoughtful designers can't iterate over a
great product idea and publish the design for the world to see (with
no initial concern for developer collaboration)... Then, some
developers, business types, etc., could download the full design and
implement it.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 2:15 PM, William Selman <wselman at gmail.com> wrote:
> Having worked with open source tools as a developer and with
> developers for five years now, I think the cultural obstacles
> mentioned in the Paula Bach article above (which is an excellent
> piece, thanks for the link!) are very real. I think it would be
> useful to seriously consider strategies for overcoming and/or
> resolving these obstacles before approaching specific projects.
> Obviously, there will be some project communities that would love IxD
> contributions. However, I just want to emphasize that some project
> communities may offer resistance (or just ambivalence) and that
> thinking through how to overcome those reactions would make
> successful collaborations more possible.
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

I think this discussion is probably the best example of the beginnings
of developing that process. It is a lot more difficult to do with
diagrams and ideas than code and text, which lend themselves to much
more computer regexy crunching.

I think it is worth abstracting a little what need to goes on rather
than hook onto a specific tool just yet (especially a commercial one).

From what we have so far from the suggestions are:

- A need to break down the design (and docs) in a modular way
- A need to be able see that documentation in a merged form
- A need to be able overly 'layers' as a kind of versioning process
- A need to make changes that percolate through all the other modules
and docs

By the way, the thing that immediately comes to mind is the kind of
process used for those giant lithographs of microchip circuits and/or
the way four-colour printing works (or used to) when the printer would
overlay the films together and immediately be able to spot an error or
misalignment visually.

That's at least for the middle or latter stages and that part I can
see managed by some kind of tool than a person (which is what mostly
happens on projects right? One of us is the, ahem, tool.)

I'm still finding it hard to imagine that working for the earlier,
importantly rougher parts of the process. I've done quite a few online
collaborative projects run globally across many countries with many
people and the brainstorming, back-of-the-napkin process is the
hardest bit to do, but where a lot of the magic happens.

Once things become a bit more refined (like a digitally created
wireframe rather than a napkin) it gets a bit easier to share and
modify.

But it would be good to be able to work out how that earlier part
could work well. And I think it would be good if the tools used for it
weren't proprietary. I wouldn't want an open source project to fall
over just because Adobe screwed up, oh I don't know, an installer or a
particular format.

Maybe simply being able to write notes on images of sketchpads (please
don't say 'digital whiteboard') like Flickr allows is another start.
This seems to be the way a lot of those links given above have worked.

FluidIA looks like a great start and is asking a lot of the right
questions. I think we do need to just do it as David says and then
find out what works and doesn't, but at the same time we need to ask
the right questions at the start to get the process even roughly lined
up IMHO.

Count me in. Somehow. ;-)

Best,

Andy

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Andy Polaine

Interaction & Experience Design
Research | Writing | Education

Twitter: apolaine
Skype: apolaine

http://www.polaine.com
http://www.designersreviewofbooks.com
http://www.omnium.net.au
http://www.antirom.com

Hi Andy,

I like this thread, and would enjoin anyone interested to contribute to the
FOSS movement in whichever way they find appropriate - there's some good
stuff happening out there :)

Yours is a good response, well structured.

Without trying to sound snarky, churlish, or childish, I have to point out
that some form of UxD involvement has been happening in parts of the FOSS
movement for years - although, true, to look at some of what comes out you
may not think so :) The thing is, new or not, this concerted effort is the
start of something wonderful that will help.

Good luck with it, and if you need a blog/wiki/whatever thrown together to
provide a collaborative environment, let me know.

Best regards, Andrew

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Andy Polaine <andy at polaine.com> wrote:

> I think this discussion is probably the best example of the beginnings of
> developing that process. It is a lot more difficult to do with diagrams and
> ideas than code and text, which lend themselves to much more computer regexy
> crunching.
>
> I think it is worth abstracting a little what need to goes on rather than
> hook onto a specific tool just yet (especially a commercial one).
>
> From what we have so far from the suggestions are:
>
> - A need to break down the design (and docs) in a modular way
> - A need to be able see that documentation in a merged form
> - A need to be able overly 'layers' as a kind of versioning process
> - A need to make changes that percolate through all the other modules and
> docs
>
> By the way, the thing that immediately comes to mind is the kind of process
> used for those giant lithographs of microchip circuits and/or the way
> four-colour printing works (or used to) when the printer would overlay the
> films together and immediately be able to spot an error or misalignment
> visually.
>
> That's at least for the middle or latter stages and that part I can see
> managed by some kind of tool than a person (which is what mostly happens on
> projects right? One of us is the, ahem, tool.)
>
> I'm still finding it hard to imagine that working for the earlier,
> importantly rougher parts of the process. I've done quite a few online
> collaborative projects run globally across many countries with many people
> and the brainstorming, back-of-the-napkin process is the hardest bit to do,
> but where a lot of the magic happens.
>
> Once things become a bit more refined (like a digitally created wireframe
> rather than a napkin) it gets a bit easier to share and modify.
>
> But it would be good to be able to work out how that earlier part could
> work well. And I think it would be good if the tools used for it weren't
> proprietary. I wouldn't want an open source project to fall over just
> because Adobe screwed up, oh I don't know, an installer or a particular
> format.
>
> Maybe simply being able to write notes on images of sketchpads (please
> don't say 'digital whiteboard') like Flickr allows is another start. This
> seems to be the way a lot of those links given above have worked.
>
> FluidIA looks like a great start and is asking a lot of the right
> questions. I think we do need to just do it as David says and then find out
> what works and doesn't, but at the same time we need to ask the right
> questions at the start to get the process even roughly lined up IMHO.
>
> Count me in. Somehow. ;-)
>
>
> Best,
>
> Andy
>
> ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> Andy Polaine
>
> Interaction & Experience Design
> Research | Writing | Education
>
> Twitter: apolaine
> Skype: apolaine
>
> http://www.polaine.com
> http://www.designersreviewofbooks.com
> http://www.omnium.net.au
> http://www.antirom.com
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

--
---
Andrew Boyd
http://uxaustralia.com.au -- UX Australia Conference Canberra 2009
http://uxbookclub.org -- connect, read, discuss
http://govux.org -- the government user experience forum
http://resilientnationaustralia.org Resilient Nation Australia

Gimp may be a case for open design for os project.

--jarod

On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:51:22, Andy Polaine <andy at polaine.com> wrote:
> Hi Andrew - not snarky at all. I felt sure something was probably
> happening somewhere, but I hadn't see it.
>
> The hardest part, as I see it, is moving from a kind of shared
> knowledge environment, like a wiki/whiteboard, into something more
> akin to the kind of versioning that open-source development projects
> commonly used.
>
> As people have mentioned before, the versioning needs to not lose or
> kill off half-formed ideas but have some way of incorporating them
> until they're further developed and ready to be more clearly
> specified to a point where they're useful for, well, for who?
> That's also a question - developers? Users? Other designers?
>
> Or it may be that the kind of versioning mindset we're used to
> seeing in software development projects *isn't* the right way to go
> about an open-source ux/ixd process. I think it's worth us all
> thinking broader and drawing upon other ways of working. Music making
> is one thing that comes to mind here. I'm sure there are others.
>
>
> . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
> Posted from the new ixda.org
> http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371
>
>
> ________________________________________________________________
> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
> To post to this list ....... discuss at ixda.org
> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
>

--
Sent from my mobile device

http://designforuse.blogspot.com/

Hey folks,

Sorry -- I just wanted to say that I'm super incredibly busy with
another IxDA initiative right now (in addition to N other things) --
so if you wrote me off-list about this topic & were waiting for a
response or if people were waiting for me personally to try and get
something up and going in the short-term under the IxDA banner, I
wanted to apologize proactively for the lack of attention. :)

Andrew, if you want to create the foundation of a collaborative
working environment for this initiative, I say go for it!

And if you or anybody else would like IxDA to provide a working area
for project coordination, we use Basecamp to manage most of our
initiatives and I'd be glad to set you up with a project & account.
Just say the word!

Depending on how any external working area develops, we could look at
folding it into the IxDA infrastructure. But it's more important, I
think, to seize the energy manifesting itself here and make something
happen organically.

I'll reiterate that this kind of go-for-it approach is the core of
our organization's philosophy. As we said in our value manifesto:
"IxDA relies on individual initiative, contribution, sharing and
self-organization as the primary means for us to achieve our goals."
Rock on! :)

Cheers,
Liz

Vice-President, IxDA

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371

Jonathan Abbett wrote:
"What's the SourceForge or Google Code for designers?"

Love the question - my variation on it is "What's the DynamicDrive
(JS script depository) for designers?"

and another variation, assuming designers work with product managers:
"What's the design depository for product managers?"

Every time I enter a wrong password in a web site, I notice that the
ensuing behavior is somewhat different from other web sites, beyond
what is justified by the particular circumstances. Seems to me that
some "open source"/"best practices" (for limited scenarios, such
as "log in"), if specified in some standard way, could be so useful
as to spread on their own - through product managers.

A depository of ix design for both product managers and designers,
would look like this:

- "Open Source Spec" items
- Wiki based entries
- Text, plus standard flowcharting graphics
- Limited scope of each spec item
- Spec items could have optional/alternate parts to accommodate
enrichment by specific circumstances
- User case #1: product managers
- User case #2: interaction designers

Does this exist?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=38371