On 18 September 2011 20:11, Matthew Paul Thomas <m...@canonical.com> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Jonathan Meek wrote on 07/09/11 19:33: >> >> Actually, I intended something more in depth than that. I asked one of >> the designers and am going to attempt to begin work on a comprehensive >> HIG. Everything about the design needs to be thought out, not just >> 'integrate with this.' The problem with this undertaking is that there >> are so few applications that can be considered "Ubuntu" applications. >> Less and more than you would think. (Though, I've only heard from one >> person, and his design choices may not be the consensus of the entire >> design team) >>... > > I'd hope it isn't. ;-) But Thorsten Wilms was right: what will > developers make out of it? Interface guidelines are useless unless they > actually change developers' behavior. For example, Microsoft has > extensive Windows UX guidelines on MSDN, but given all the "copying > Apple" worry in this thread, it seems nobody here has even heard of them. > > Now, imagine these responses from application developers if you wrote > some interface guidelines for Ubuntu: > > * "Ubuntu design guidelines? I've never heard of them." > > * "Jonathan Meek? I've never heard of him. Why should I do what he > says?" > > * "Ubuntu? Ubuntu's just a distro, what business do they have setting > 'guidelines' for applications?" > > * "I use Fedora for development, why should I care what Ubuntu wants?" > > * "Ubuntu? You want me to take advice from the people who designed > Unity? Hah!" > > * "I read a couple of pages but it was really boring." > > * "Gnome already has guidelines, this is just another example of > Ubuntu trying to go their own way. Shame on them." > > Improving the design of Ubuntu applications is a design problem in > itself. And even if those criticisms are unfair, they're going to come > up. So if you want to make a difference, you need to have a way to > minimize, or be able to address, each of those criticisms. > >> Provisionally, Mr. Gifford is correct. The are going to be started on, >> and presented for peer review. I'm debating how to go about this now >> less than I am whether to go about it at all. >> >> I would like some opinions to feedback into this. I know what the >> designer said were good designed Ubuntu applications, but what do >> people here think are some? And why do you think that? (This includes, >> looks, structure, and behavior as well as integration.) >>... > > This is the biggie. If guidelines are to be credible, they need to be > either self-evidently logical, demonstrated to succeed in real Ubuntu > applications, and/or written by people who designed successful Ubuntu > applications. The Windows, Mac, and iOS guidelines can all use > applications designed by the OS vendor as examples of what to do. But > there are very few applications targeted for Ubuntu first, let alone > Ubuntu exclusively. I think guidelines will be premature until that changes. > > - -- > mpt > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.11 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iEYEARECAAYFAk52NFkACgkQ6PUxNfU6ecrfYACgu152ebybXC0EsGhgSQ/nBtU0 > g5kAnixYzKSiFcdmQjkxVCmZUR56wAgB > =0RD1 > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana > Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp >
Guidelines are very great and such, but like you already said, many people will not even bother to read them. Even if we manage to get everyone to read the guidelines, then there is the issue of interpretation. You cannot have complete and perfect consistency if you don't want the guidelines to spell out the code that the developers have to use. We always say that we should take away the difficulty of choosing from users when they do not have the tools or knowledge available to make the right decision. The same logic applies here to developers. Most developers are not in the right position to make good decisions about interface design or about the correct implementation of a guideline. To do it right, we should take away their choice. That means: do not spend time implementing what we know about design in the text of guidelines, but spend our time implementing it in code. We should make GTK+ (and maybe Qt too) look better. Locate areas where things don't look so great and submit patches for them. Propose better default values for the properties, submit code that generates pretty menu bars, etc. We should take away choice by making the easiest solution available to developers the solution we want, e.g. writing beautiful and good implementations of standard behaviour (tabs, Ubuntu One, media playing, things like that) that developers can just plug into their applications. Because those methods will be the standard way of doing things, the easiest way of doing things, they will use them and with that they will automatically be consistent with the rest of the desktop. If the current solution for this problem is too hard, we should try to find a solution that we can handle, a solution that involves coding and designing under control of the right designers. Regards, -- Sense Egbert Hofstede http://www.sensehofstede.nl/ _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
