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| pochu | troy_s: I'm off now, too late here | 01:14 |
|---|---|---|
| pochu | thanks again!! | 01:14 |
| pochu | and feel free to follow up my last mail regarding the iso tracker ;) | 01:14 |
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| nothlit | troy_s: you mean like this? :D http://www.gnome.org/~nigeltao/foxybuntu/foxybuntu-mock0.gif | 10:08 |
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| lapo | hi | 12:44 |
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| yharrow | does anyone know of an easy way to create and edit themes/styles for gtk? | 04:45 |
| troy_s | nothlit sorry don't quite get what you mean | 06:03 |
| troy_s | yharrow: There isn't one | 06:03 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Get out your text edior | 06:04 |
| troy_s | yharrow: And the pixmap engine | 06:04 |
| nothlit | troy_s: hmm its a gif animation of this awesome ui :P | 06:04 |
| troy_s | nothlit: oh... | 06:05 |
| troy_s | nothlit: it still looks a little panel based. | 06:05 |
| troy_s | let me look again | 06:05 |
| troy_s | nothlit: And web based | 06:05 |
| nothlit | troy_s: i saw what you said about colors on the mailing list, why don't you come up with a mock pallete? | 06:05 |
| troy_s | nothlit: !? | 06:06 |
| troy_s | nothlit: For Ubuntu? | 06:06 |
| yharrow | troy_s: oh man!. :P | 06:06 |
| nothlit | troy_s: yeah :P | 06:06 |
| troy_s | yharrow: It's deadly easy actually | 06:06 |
| yharrow | deadly?? | 06:06 |
| yharrow | :P | 06:06 |
| nothlit | isn't the pixmap engine a little buggy @ some things? | 06:06 |
| troy_s | nothlit: It isn't possible. sabdfl doesn't understand about anything other than monochrome. | 06:06 |
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| yharrow | troy_s: how does the picmap engine work? | 06:06 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Not at all in my experiene so far. | 06:06 |
| yharrow | pixmap* | 06:07 |
| troy_s | nothlit: The problem with trying to retrofit a palette is that it doesn't work... | 06:07 |
| nothlit | yharrow: it puts together pieces of images to create ui elements | 06:07 |
| abdullah_ | hi @ all | 06:07 |
| troy_s | nothlit: You simply override certain 'classes' and it uses your images to draw them | 06:07 |
| abdullah_ | i use kubuntu. how to change the cursor? | 06:07 |
| troy_s | abdullah_: xcursorgen | 06:07 |
| nothlit | troy_s: well each release would have a different color theme anyways, i wouldn't see why you couldn't come up with a different mood for every release | 06:08 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I would agree... | 06:08 |
| troy_s | nothlit: That is far too art and design thinking. | 06:08 |
| troy_s | nothlit: There isn't a chance of that happening. | 06:08 |
| troy_s | nothlit: So embrace the completely blah middle grey | 06:08 |
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| nothlit | thats unfortunate | 06:08 |
| troy_s | nothlit: sabdfl just doesn't get it. | 06:08 |
| shek | *test | 06:08 |
| troy_s | nothlit: In fact, _no_ one in Ubuntu does. | 06:08 |
| abdullah_ | it does not work :-( | 06:09 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I wouldn't go that far actually -- there are some really good folks | 06:09 |
| shek | Hi all | 06:09 |
| troy_s | abdullah_: If you use it correctly it does | 06:09 |
| troy_s | ;) | 06:09 |
| abdullah_ | and how to use? | 06:09 |
| troy_s | nothlit: and some are heavily interested in pushing Ubuntu art and design | 06:09 |
| troy_s | abdullah_: google or man xcursorgen | 06:09 |
| nothlit | you can probably change the cursor from kcontrol | 06:09 |
| troy_s | nothlit: But unfortunately, there are some that continue to push 'status quo' | 06:10 |
| abdullah_ | i used update-alternatives --config x-cursor-theme | 06:10 |
| nothlit | or put it in your ~/.Xresources | 06:10 |
| troy_s | abdullah_: Is this a predefined theme or your custom one? | 06:10 |
| abdullah_ | but this change only in the kdm the cursor | 06:10 |
| abdullah_ | a debian package. crystal | 06:11 |
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| nothlit | use the control center in kde. choose the mouse (under peripherals), and choose the cursor theme tab | 06:12 |
| abdullah_ | i used apt-get install crystalcursors | 06:12 |
| nothlit | troy_s: i look at launchpad, and i don't see many specs :( | 06:13 |
| abdullah_ | THX | 06:14 |
| troy_s | nothlit: It's cooked. We tried to get art and design airborn during Edgy. | 06:14 |
| troy_s | nothlit: We had 13 total launchpad members and not a spec of interest really. | 06:15 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Nonetheless getting a working process in place was critical, and sab simply didn't participate at _all_ despite having official checkpoints driven throughout the phase driven process. | 06:15 |
| troy_s | nothlit: And looking back to revisionist palettizing -- one of the extremely 'clever' dollar shop clerks turned marketing experts suggested that I simply 'combine all the colours' and call it the official palette. | 06:16 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Which gives you an idea as to the expertise level. | 06:16 |
| nothlit | troy_s: and everybody shared that opinion? | 06:17 |
| troy_s | nothlit: What opinion do you refer to? | 06:18 |
| lapo | troy_s: speccing is surelly important you always have to remember that you're not in a corporate where there's people payed to do the work | 06:19 |
| nothlit | let me rephrase: All of the nonartists preferred that mindset/method and were resistant to change or extra work? | 06:19 |
| troy_s | lapo: That is irrelevant as I have been exposed to enough people to accomplish the work. | 06:20 |
| lapo | troy_s: you work with people who may have no experience at all and that do the work because they like to, and if you spec something they're not interested in they will not work for it | 06:20 |
| troy_s | lapo: Then they shouldn't be doing it. | 06:20 |
| lapo | so everything is kinda difficult | 06:20 |
| troy_s | lapo: Not at all... | 06:20 |
| lapo | troy_s: for the result you had I think it is :-) | 06:20 |
| troy_s | lapo: Either learn a fashion to construct a presentation based on researched and solid design principles. | 06:21 |
| troy_s | lapo: Well considering that the 'client' opted out of _every_ interaction along the path... considering that we had 13 members to start... no process... etc. | 06:21 |
| troy_s | All of that takes _time_. | 06:21 |
| troy_s | Having done it once or twice in my life. | 06:21 |
| lapo | troy_s: yep, that' another big problem | 06:21 |
| troy_s | It simply takes time and dedication to sticking to a process. | 06:22 |
| shek_tang | hey all, i m pretty new to ubuntu but i am loving it. I've joined the artwork team, where can i see the list of "project" that has to be done etc? | 06:22 |
| troy_s | lapo: And sadly the halfassed result by the end of all that STILL fills my box up with mail and STILL gets chundered on about on the forums. | 06:22 |
| troy_s | lapo: So considering a sub optimal execution for reasons that should be obvious, I would argue that the entire effort was heading in the right direction. | 06:23 |
| troy_s | shek_tang: There aren't any. | 06:23 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I think it comes down to a _fundamental lack_ of educated folks on the scene. | 06:24 |
| troy_s | nothlit: There is too much 'status quo' | 06:24 |
| yharrow | troy_s: Ive been playing with KDE all day | 06:24 |
| troy_s | nothlit: And not enough think it through. | 06:24 |
| troy_s | yharrow: poor you. | 06:24 |
| troy_s | :) | 06:24 |
| nothlit | ahh | 06:24 |
| shek_tang | troy_s, so..what can i help out? | 06:24 |
| troy_s | yharrow: sorry couldn't resist... it is ok. | 06:24 |
| troy_s | shek_tang: I would look to the many people / groups of the community efforts that require help. | 06:25 |
| lapo | troy_s: the entire effort is *RIGHT* and in the *RIGHT* direction imho | 06:25 |
| yharrow | troy_s: on the contrary, kde has simple tools that I needed that Gnome just could not or would offer | 06:25 |
| yharrow | or would not* | 06:25 |
| troy_s | shek_tang: Many of them would probably love to have you on board | 06:25 |
| troy_s | lapo: Sorry... current? | 06:25 |
| lapo | uhm? | 06:25 |
| nothlit | well then we need a strong community voice, or an example/mockup that is capable of demonstrating what should be done, to a convincing degree | 06:26 |
| troy_s | lapo: What are you referring to? | 06:26 |
| troy_s | lapo: Feisty? | 06:26 |
| lapo | troy_s: edgy :-) | 06:26 |
| troy_s | lapo: Eek! | 06:26 |
| lapo | troy_s: I mean what was tried to achieve | 06:26 |
| troy_s | lapo: Lol... well that's my feeling too. | 06:26 |
| troy_s | lapo: I just don't think we (as lovers of Ubuntu) are willing to choose a target audience. | 06:27 |
| troy_s | lapo: Which is _critical_ | 06:27 |
| troy_s | lapo: If you looked over any of the output that started to grow (remember we had ZERO output prior to edgy really regarding designs) | 06:27 |
| lapo | troy_s: yeah, but it's kinda impossible | 06:27 |
| troy_s | lapo: We have / had PLENTY of talented folks in the area. | 06:27 |
| lapo | troy_s: it's easier for specific derivate distros | 06:27 |
| troy_s | lapo: Hell... Who's work was incredible really. | 06:28 |
| troy_s | etc. | 06:28 |
| lapo | troy_s: sure | 06:28 |
| lapo | yeah, I think most of the who's work was good | 06:28 |
| troy_s | lapo: Well that's just the think... if Ubuntu is truly a 'distro' then it could command its own identity | 06:28 |
| lapo | well s/was/is/ | 06:28 |
| troy_s | lapo: I don't think that is the case for something like Gnome. | 06:28 |
| troy_s | lapo: The point is _we are going to make mistakes_ | 06:28 |
| nothlit | ubuntu is more distro-ised in a sense than others | 06:28 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I disagree... | 06:29 |
| nothlit | in that each DE version has its own distinct identity | 06:29 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Oh yes. | 06:29 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Sorry i misunderstood... | 06:29 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Ubuntu clearly strives to knock off MS as per bug 1 | 06:29 |
| ubotu | Launchpad bug 1 in Ubuntu "Microsoft has a majority market share" [Critical,In progress] https://launchpad.net/bugs/1 | 06:29 |
| lapo | troy_s: sure, but those choices do not depend on you, me or anybody here :-) | 06:29 |
| troy_s | So if you state that outright | 06:29 |
| troy_s | you MUST start AT LEAST consider some of the very formalized processes to achieving strong communicative design. | 06:30 |
| nothlit | without structure it would be difficult to collaborate and create a unified image | 06:30 |
| troy_s | (by very formalized I mean extremely well known -- almost every one of my design reference books has a similar process in them) | 06:30 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Absolutely. | 06:30 |
| troy_s | out to make morning eggs :) | 06:30 |
| troy_s | (wonderful chat though...) | 06:30 |
| troy_s | nothlit: In the end, it is _that_ process / structure that is important for the first couple of attempts -- the output is completely secondary. | 06:31 |
| troy_s | Have a look at Diana Fong's work (Masters of Fine Arts) for Fedora if you want to see a classic process (based off of her blog) | 06:32 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I still think the biggest chance of seeing a 'change' is to simply organize outside of the structure and create something that generates interest. | 06:35 |
| troy_s | nothlit: And to that end, it is truly in the Free Software spirit | 06:36 |
| lapo | troy_s: that's the way | 06:37 |
| lapo | troy_s: anyway to create interest you need to show something first | 06:38 |
| lapo | troy_s: words and specs alone cannot work | 06:38 |
| nothlit | i think i saw something about that, a community theme that would hopefully lead to official inclusion? | 06:38 |
| troy_s | lapo: Well not if you are presenting for people who have zero idea. | 06:38 |
| lapo | troy_s: and you need to minimize the work needed to create something nice | 06:38 |
| troy_s | lapo: I managed to set up two entire 'corporate' creative structures with words and paper alone. | 06:38 |
| lapo | troy_s: yeah, but we are in oss remember that always :-) | 06:39 |
| troy_s | lapo: How much work have you sunk into Tango? I don't know if we can avoid the work part :) | 06:39 |
| lapo | troy_s: I gathered a lot of interest with a stupid comparative image when tangerine was born | 06:39 |
| troy_s | lapo: Absolutely, but in the end, whether it is corporate or Free Software, the process needs to be similar (in its ability to unify design presentation) | 06:39 |
| troy_s | Tangerine was a great idea... it lost steam though it seems. | 06:40 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I think there are folks who could contribute to a community theme... | 06:40 |
| lapo | troy_s: yeah, mostly because how did it lost interest in it (me and adreasn) and didn't done anything with it for an year or so | 06:40 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I maintain email with _many_ newer artwork folks who for some reason can't find it in themselves to post to the list... | 06:41 |
| troy_s | nothlit: So I try to keep their encouragement high etc... | 06:41 |
| lapo | troy_s: I decided to let it bitrot and andreasn did the same | 06:41 |
| lapo | s/how/who/ | 06:41 |
| troy_s | lapo: I think a _lot_ can be gained by really nailing the cornerstones of an icon set -- being the most highly visible components -- the folder, the 'internet', etc. | 06:42 |
| troy_s | lol bitrot | 06:42 |
| troy_s | good old techrust | 06:42 |
| lapo | yeah am an old junk :-) | 06:42 |
| troy_s | lol | 06:42 |
| troy_s | lapo: Are you 100% busy with Tango or do you find time to contribute in other areas? | 06:42 |
| lapo | troy_s: I'm 90% busy with work | 06:43 |
| lapo | I do very little for tango atm | 06:43 |
| troy_s | lapo: What is your current time sucker? | 06:43 |
| lapo | troy_s: IT IT IT :-) | 06:44 |
| troy_s | nothlit: The _good_ news is that about 50% of the email I receive now is from people pursuing bachelors levels degrees in art / design. | 06:44 |
| troy_s | lapo: ugh. | 06:44 |
| troy_s | lapo: Waddling off into some dark corner to turn a server on then sit in another dark corner on ssh and admin it? | 06:44 |
| lapo | troy_s: anyway if you intend to base your design on tango style (which is not an icon theme!!! :-)) I'm all with you | 06:44 |
| lapo | troy_s: kindoff | 06:45 |
| lapo | troy_s: one wrong point in fedora artwork for example is the echo theme, they will never achieve a nice integration icon wise with something which is not tango style | 06:46 |
| troy_s | lapo: I think the icons in Fedora are a weak link... the icons need to be more based on an overarching style that is presented in the wallpaper / etc. | 06:47 |
| troy_s | lapo: Probably a weak link across most of the 'sets' | 06:47 |
| nothlit | isn't Human done by this company that did the xp icons as well? | 06:47 |
| troy_s | nothlit: IconFactory | 06:48 |
| troy_s | nothlit: But PROBABLY with some heavy sabdfl input. | 06:48 |
| lapo | nothlit: the quality of the theme is irrilevant, cause it cannot really cover all the icons used by the application around | 06:48 |
| lapo | nothlit: considering that most appication have tango style icons, the best approach should be to have a tango style icon theme | 06:49 |
| nothlit | lapo: i'm just wondering if sabdfl and co would be resistant to a replacement theme, depending on their investment | 06:49 |
| lapo | it doesn't have to be tango icon theme, which is just an example implementation, it can be a brand new theme | 06:49 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Again, I think sabdfl is bloody brilliant -- so given enough work into something and assuming that on some level he can see the validity in it, he would probably do it. | 06:49 |
| troy_s | lapo: There are couple of problems with Tango's style though. | 06:50 |
| lapo | nothlit: I said the sadbfl he was wasting his money at the time though :-) | 06:50 |
| troy_s | lapo: One -- the palette isn't a real palette. It is more a sampling of colours across a spectrum. | 06:50 |
| lapo | troy_s: that's enough | 06:50 |
| troy_s | ? | 06:50 |
| lapo | troy_s: the simpler the guidelines are, the better | 06:50 |
| troy_s | lapo: And what is "Tango" at this evolutionary point? The outline plus ? | 06:51 |
| troy_s | You have made enough of them to know ;) | 06:51 |
| troy_s | What do you do when you start to think of a 'tango' icon? | 06:51 |
| lapo | troy_s: and looking at all the tango icons around based on that reference palette I think it worked out nicelly | 06:51 |
| troy_s | lapo: No, I am saying that I think the 'tango' style evolved a bit from when jimmac probalby did hte first couple... | 06:51 |
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| lapo | troy_s: perspective, strokes, palette, lighting mostly | 06:51 |
| troy_s | lapo: So I am wondering what it is. | 06:51 |
| lapo | troy_s: our guidelines served us well :-) | 06:52 |
| lapo | right andreasn? :-) | 06:52 |
| nothlit | i think of the strokes, inner highlight, simple design, and the pallete to some degree | 06:52 |
| troy_s | I personally am very fond of Paul Davey's work | 06:53 |
| troy_s | Incredible guy really. | 06:53 |
| lapo | troy_s: I used to hate the innerstroke, but it's a really important usability part | 06:53 |
| lapo | s/part/point/ | 06:53 |
| andreasn | lapo: the tango guidelines? it worked well when doing work for ISV's this far | 06:54 |
| lapo | troy_s: reallt nice artwork, not too good icons though | 06:54 |
| lapo | troy_s: first of all an icon needs to be clear, if it's even nice it's a bonus point | 06:54 |
| yharrow | I just realilzed why i candy is called eye candy | 06:55 |
| yharrow | eye candy* | 06:55 |
| lapo | troy_s: and Paul's icons are nice on macosx which uses 32x32 as the smallest size | 06:55 |
| troy_s | lapo: And why does Mac use 32 as smallest? | 06:55 |
| troy_s | lol | 06:55 |
| troy_s | exactly the point | 06:55 |
| troy_s | below about 48 is a complete waste of time in my opinion -- they should be glyphs at that point. | 06:56 |
| lapo | troy_s: that sort of artwork in smaller sizes will not work, things needs to be as simple as possible | 06:56 |
| lapo | troy_s: not at all | 06:56 |
| andreasn | Paul Davey? who is that? | 06:56 |
| troy_s | those sizes are legacy | 06:56 |
| lapo | andreasn: http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/53939809/ | 06:56 |
| lapo | troy_s: the most important size for an icon in the linux world is 22x22 | 06:56 |
| troy_s | lapo: And that is why it is a backasswards environment | 06:56 |
| troy_s | lapo: That size needs to be banished... | 06:57 |
| troy_s | lapo: The menus need to be 1) simplified to meet Miller's work thesis | 06:57 |
| yharrow | Because if the theme or effects or anything else, were food it would be good enough to eat.. | 06:57 |
| lapo | troy_s: I can be with you on the fact that we could clean the interface and rationalize a lot of stuff | 06:57 |
| andreasn | interesting illustrations | 06:57 |
| troy_s | and 2) we need to bump u pto a larger icon size as a base -- MINIMUM 32x32 | 06:57 |
| lapo | troy_s: all the apps out there uses that size, and you can | 06:57 |
| lapo | troy_s: all the apps out there uses that size and you cannot really change the whole world :-) | 06:57 |
| troy_s | andreasn: He is a very talented artist. | 06:57 |
| troy_s | lapo: Something changes something. | 06:57 |
| lapo | troy_s: you will never have enough man force :-) | 06:58 |
| troy_s | lapo: So if everyone keeps doing it, it will stay | 06:58 |
| troy_s | its just a stupid size. | 06:58 |
| yharrow | that may not make any sense to you guys | 06:58 |
| lapo | troy_s: changes in oss are really really difficult, you have to deal with a lot of individualisms | 06:58 |
| troy_s | it is a STUPID validation technique | 06:58 |
| lapo | right andreasn? :-) | 06:58 |
| troy_s | lapo: Shuttleworth has changed much in about 3 years. | 06:58 |
| lapo | troy_s: not that much at application level | 06:58 |
| yharrow | but if you look at some themes and think about them as food, you may understand what I mean | 06:58 |
| troy_s | lapo: Its coming. | 06:58 |
| andreasn | lapo: heh, yeah | 06:58 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Precisely. | 06:59 |
| lapo | troy_s: most of the changes he forcefully introduced (which where really small) where rejected by the community | 06:59 |
| lapo | troy_s: think about the ubuntu nautilus spatialization "fix" | 06:59 |
| yharrow | for example mac OS theme reminds me of delicios blueberry flavored candy.. If mac were a flavor I would eat it in a second | 06:59 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Back in early 20th century some crazy haired guy said something about everything being relative except the speed of light. | 06:59 |
| troy_s | yharrow: It is more about immersion | 06:59 |
| troy_s | yharrow: You have zero immersion with 22 sized icons that must be learned to understand their meaning | 07:00 |
| troy_s | yharrow: It is completely tripe if someone thinks they are communicating in 22 pixels. | 07:00 |
| yharrow | troy_s: sprinkles count.. | 07:00 |
| lapo | troy_s: we are communicationg in 22x22 believe me :-) | 07:00 |
| troy_s | yharrow: hell... 48 by 48 is about where you can actually start to draw a representational image to a 'mainstream' user. | 07:00 |
| troy_s | lapo: I couldn't disagree more. | 07:00 |
| lapo | right andreasn? :-) | 07:00 |
| yharrow | troy_s: designs on sprinkles dont :P | 07:00 |
| lapo | uhm...I need to copy and paste that sentence :-) | 07:01 |
| === andreasn_ [n=andreas@h101n1fls31o839.telia.com] has joined #ubuntu-artwork | ||
| lapo | troy_s: my point is that you don't have to communicate anything but the meaning of the action with icons, what you need to communicate have to be done with other means | 07:02 |
| lapo | and you have plenty | 07:02 |
| lapo | an icon need to be clear for the user | 07:02 |
| lapo | and the icons needs to be consistent with the other | 07:02 |
| lapo | so we can have a congruent and polished desktop | 07:02 |
| lapo | you shouldn't really do branding with icons, icons are an important part of the interface which is functional to the scope of the program which uses it | 07:03 |
| nothlit | i think you can do some branding, look @ tangerine | 07:04 |
| lapo | nothlit: tangerine is just a small subset of icons, that's all the branding you may have | 07:05 |
| troy_s | lapo: I only think that that 22 is a horrible design choice for mainstream operating system users | 07:05 |
| lapo | nothlit: some small change here and there | 07:05 |
| nothlit | lapo: thats the best sort :) | 07:05 |
| lapo | troy_s: I think it too, but it widelly used and you cannot really change that | 07:05 |
| troy_s | lapo: again, it will take a higher level of look / feel design to push the point | 07:06 |
| lapo | troy_s: I also think most of the icons in the UIs are not usefull and should be removed | 07:06 |
| nothlit | for an os, subtle hints would work fine since its so immersive | 07:06 |
| troy_s | lapo: A look / feel that avoids using the stupid 22 by 22 and reorganizes the menus for example. | 07:06 |
| lapo | troy_s: the mac uses a lot less icons, they do not have icons in the menus for example | 07:06 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Immersion is a VERY tricky level of interaction to achieve. | 07:06 |
| troy_s | lapo: Again, that is because windows started with a few icons in the menus | 07:07 |
| nothlit | stylesheets+svg will be an interesting way to tune looks in the future | 07:07 |
| lapo | troy_s: all those changes have to be done at application level and are not really possible w/o the author agreement | 07:07 |
| yharrow | troy_s: what frustrates me is that gnome is missing very simple things such as "right click on desktop> sort by name or sort by type" | 07:07 |
| troy_s | lapo: Then people went bonkers with it... | 07:07 |
| troy_s | lapo: Actually the menus and pixel size I think is free to choose in gnome. | 07:07 |
| lapo | yharrow: uhm? | 07:07 |
| yharrow | lapo: I mean for lining up icons | 07:07 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Cascade could be in there too. | 07:07 |
| lapo | troy_s: somewhat, I think you don't have exactly the idea on how different our software are eh :-) | 07:08 |
| TheSheep | yharrow: desktop is not a directory, just don't keep your files on the desktop ;) | 07:08 |
| troy_s | yharrow: For quick window management. | 07:08 |
| yharrow | I want very much to stick with gnome but they are missing so many simple things. | 07:08 |
| lapo | yharrow: ah right | 07:08 |
| nothlit | TheSheep: the nautilus desktop icon arrangement is limited though | 07:08 |
| troy_s | lapo: It doesn't really matter if ONE product gets the presentation right, the rest fall into line -- case in point -- look at the Mac | 07:08 |
| TheSheep | nothlit: that's because it's added as an afterthought after a lot of bitching from windows users who wanted fileso n the desktop | 07:09 |
| lapo | troy_s: a lot of ui which looks the same are implemented in different way, doing for example a gtk theme is a lot tricky because you have to consider a lot of hacks for variuos ui pieces implementations | 07:09 |
| yharrow | nautilus is another issue for me too. it doesnt even support tabs! | 07:09 |
| TheSheep | nothlit: and it's bad as anything added as an afterthought | 07:09 |
| troy_s | lapo: Yes... there aren't too many of those left though. | 07:09 |
| nothlit | yharrow: lol, gnome HIG is what it is | 07:09 |
| lapo | troy_s: yeah, but you cannot go and change all the application around yourself | 07:09 |
| troy_s | lapo: I have come across exactly perhaps ONE horribly nasty app set - firefox and thunderbird | 07:09 |
| lapo | troy_s: good example | 07:09 |
| nothlit | yharrow: spatial browsing is the actual default gnome file browsing method | 07:09 |
| troy_s | lapo: Actually, the beauty of free software is that you can at least change _quite a few bits_ | 07:10 |
| troy_s | nothlit: I think that is a schema | 07:10 |
| troy_s | nothlit: You can change _most_ of that via the schemas | 07:10 |
| troy_s | for default setups | 07:10 |
| nothlit | hmm | 07:10 |
| yharrow | IMHO I think the only reason Mark chose gnome is because we can greatly influence their development. KDE is to large and advanced for us to try and change or cater to our needs | 07:10 |
| lapo | troy_s: yes, but you need a lot of manpower to do it and you don't have it, and you probably never have | 07:10 |
| nothlit | i'm just saying thats the default gnome, even though ubuntu uses browser mode instead | 07:10 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Let's be realistic about that comment. Mark has enough resources to write a window manager from the ground up. He could have easily weighed in on E or etc... | 07:10 |
| troy_s | lapo: Start small. | 07:11 |
| lapo | troy_s: the only way to change things in oss is just filling bugs and hope somebody with your same opinion will fix them | 07:11 |
| troy_s | lapo: Again, I believe that if you manage to pull off somewhat of a consistent and 'friendly' to those mainstream users 'base' the rest falls into place. | 07:11 |
| nothlit | yharrow: i think simplicity is a great choice for computer <users> | 07:11 |
| lapo | troy_s: or you can try to fix it yourself | 07:11 |
| yharrow | troy_s: mark is also a smart man and would never waste money simply creating a window manager from scratch | 07:12 |
| lapo | troy_s: with the tango guys we are trying to change the various ui, convincing the authors of the apps about stupid icons uses, and believe me it is a LOT difficult | 07:12 |
| lapo | right andreasn? :-) | 07:12 |
| nothlit | lapo: the best way to change things in oss is submit a patchset/mockups :P | 07:12 |
| lapo | nothlit: yeah, right, but you have to convince te maintainer they are right, and it is not really obvious | 07:12 |
| andreasn_ | lapo: hrm, yeah it sometimes is. you can get some trust after a while though | 07:13 |
| troy_s | or fork | 07:13 |
| troy_s | the all powerful fork | 07:13 |
| troy_s | if someone disagrees, take the base and build greater. | 07:13 |
| lapo | troy_s: that means fork, and fork is usually bad | 07:13 |
| troy_s | bah | 07:13 |
| yharrow | troy_s: heh, and then rejoin if neccessary like beyl and compiz are doing | 07:13 |
| lapo | troy_s: and if you fork you have to be sure you have a good community and a better maintainer | 07:13 |
| lapo | troy_s: forking stuff is really something you want to avoif | 07:14 |
| troy_s | fork is the fundamental strength behind natural selection and DNA, how can it be bad? | 07:14 |
| lapo | avoid | 07:14 |
| troy_s | It pushes the issue | 07:14 |
| nothlit | lapo: just maintain an enhanced branch/patchset for the enthusiasts | 07:14 |
| troy_s | Look what happened with Beryl | 07:14 |
| nothlit | lapo: if its good, it'll prove itself | 07:14 |
| lapo | nothlit: google for goneme and you'll have an exmple | 07:14 |
| lapo | example | 07:14 |
| troy_s | I wish more things woudl fork and the code would flow a little more freely. | 07:14 |
| lapo | troy_s: forks are the last effort | 07:15 |
| lapo | troy_s: and most of the forks are a waste of time and resources | 07:15 |
| TheSheep | one thing where tango is great is limiting the set of verbs available for actions in the ui | 07:15 |
| nothlit | project forks mean confusion. loss of resources, taking sides, etc | 07:15 |
| lapo | troy_s: think about the famous forks we had | 07:15 |
| andreasn_ | goneme was a really great all-talk-and-no-hockey project. What does the author of that do these days? I want a hacker imdb :) | 07:15 |
| lapo | eheh | 07:15 |
| yharrow | troy_s: talking about this gave me an idea. rather then build our Ubun2 theme from the ground up. We can start with the Human theme and replace pieces of it as we develop replacements. | 07:16 |
| lapo | troy_s: name a fork which worked nicelly apart xorg (which was quite the opposite of a fork tho) | 07:16 |
| yharrow | troy_s: Im talking about the actual files. not neccessarily the design components | 07:17 |
| lapo | troy_s: I really cannot think about one single fork which worked apart xorg and epiphany which are really corner cases | 07:17 |
| nothlit | yharrow: that would cause a mishmash with no sense of unity or direction | 07:18 |
| yharrow | nothlit: heh, your probably right. | 07:18 |
| === andreasn_ is now known as andreasn | ||
| nothlit | lapo: both of those became entire shifts, rather than forks where both branches can live successfully | 07:20 |
| lapo | nothlit: those "forks" where done by the maintainers that's why they worked | 07:21 |
| TheSheep | nothlit: there is an alternative to froks -- upstream patches | 07:21 |
| lapo | because maintaners where unhappy with other devs decision and inamovable positions | 07:21 |
| TheSheep | nothlit: most bad interfaces come from lack of knowledge, and corrections would be probably (guessing) accepted | 07:21 |
| lapo | TheSheep: yep, you can write tons of patches but they have to be accepted | 07:21 |
| TheSheep | lapo: accepting is actually just a matter of documenting them well | 07:22 |
| lapo | TheSheep: not that simple :-) | 07:22 |
| TheSheep | lapo: documentation is *never* simple | 07:23 |
| lapo | TheSheep: especially on ui, dobey wrote a lot of patches for icons "abuse" but he had a lot of diffuculties to get them accepted | 07:23 |
| lapo | and not all of them are in | 07:23 |
| lapo | TheSheep: and dobey is a great hacker | 07:23 |
| TheSheep | lapo: dobey has kind of a hostile approach, doesn't he? | 07:23 |
| lapo | TheSheep: yep, that's another problem, but the quality of the code is high | 07:24 |
| TheSheep | lapo: good for hacking but not very effective in inter-personal things | 07:24 |
| TheSheep | that approach | 07:24 |
| lapo | TheSheep: you have to have the author/maintainer agree with you, and not all the hackers around are sensible about usability | 07:24 |
| lapo | or better our interpretation of usability | 07:24 |
| TheSheep | lapo: it's even worse | 07:24 |
| TheSheep | lapo: everyone assume that usability is simple and that everyine knows about it | 07:25 |
| lapo | TheSheep: user testing is the only way | 07:25 |
| yharrow | How do you import a pallette into inkscape? | 07:25 |
| TheSheep | lapo: so it's more "I know better" | 07:25 |
| lapo | TheSheep: anyway there are a lot of simple things which are obvious to some and not so to others | 07:25 |
| lapo | TheSheep: let's use some examples | 07:26 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Put the GPL into the inkscape/palettes dir | 07:26 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Which is different if you use SVN versus repos. | 07:26 |
| lapo | TheSheep: take baobab, do you think it really need a toolbar? | 07:26 |
| TheSheep | lapo: of course not :) | 07:27 |
| lapo | TheSheep: less unusefull stuff you have the better, this basic principle is difficut to get for application authors | 07:27 |
| troy_s | lapo: Focus group based 'user testing' is the only way | 07:27 |
| TheSheep | lapo: that's not good for all kinds of applications, mind you | 07:27 |
| troy_s | lapo: In the end, the people who are giving feedback belong to a given demographic | 07:27 |
| lapo | TheSheep: synaptic, I think I shouldn't have a mark all button on the toolbar, because it's the default action it should do | 07:27 |
| TheSheep | lapo: you have to recognize that there are applications for different user groups | 07:28 |
| lapo | TheSheep: sure, but less stuff better usability almost always | 07:28 |
| troy_s | lapo: And _that_, is where we all hit the dirt. Without a knowledge of WHO is giving the feedback, you would be failing to apply the research to the given audience. | 07:28 |
| lapo | TheSheep: sure, but basic usability priciples still applies | 07:28 |
| troy_s | Once again: Audience, Audience, Audience. | 07:28 |
| troy_s | lapo: There is _no_ such thing as a BASIC usability principle. | 07:28 |
| troy_s | it doesn't exist. Its a myth. | 07:29 |
| TheSheep | lapo: you'd be surprised how the basics are often overriden by more important but less obvious things | 07:29 |
| yharrow | troy_s: what is the difference? | 07:29 |
| troy_s | yharrow: SVN installs to /usr/share/local/inkscape/palettes | 07:29 |
| troy_s | yharrow: The repository one is somewhere else that eludes me right now. | 07:29 |
| lapo | TheSheep: there are no thing set in stone, but most of the time the lesser the better works | 07:30 |
| yharrow | oh ok | 07:30 |
| nothlit | troy_s: i'd say theres one: Familiarity does not equal usability. | 07:30 |
| troy_s | lapo: If you are referring to the maxim of simplicity, even it as a design rule isn't exactly simple :) | 07:30 |
| lapo | TheSheep: fire up two or three app and see how many icons you could remove from the toolbar because are never used for example :-) | 07:30 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Amen | 07:30 |
| troy_s | nothlit: Bless your soul. | 07:30 |
| yharrow | locate palettes | grep inkscape = /usr/share/inkscape/palettes/svg.gpl | 07:31 |
| TheSheep | lapo: if you simplify something too much, you're actually adding complexity -- by adding modes, decreasing visibility, etc. | 07:31 |
| troy_s | lapo: Again, if people knew about Miller's work, they would know a pretty damn good number of THINGS to put in the toolbar | 07:31 |
| troy_s | yharrow: That's it! | 07:31 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: Miller? | 07:31 |
| troy_s | yharrow: You simply take your gpl and put it in there and restart inkscape. | 07:31 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: The Magical Number Seven Plus or Minus Two | 07:32 |
| lapo | TheSheep: sure, never oversimplify, but most of the stuff can be simplyfied believe me :-) | 07:32 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: ah, right | 07:32 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: And I think what you were getting at by 'increasing complexity' again is bound to audience | 07:32 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: word processors rule here :) | 07:32 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: For example, for my six year old, you probably couldn't oversimplify enough. | 07:32 |
| yharrow | troy_s: putting it in ~/.inkscape/palettes worked but I will put a copy in the main dir too, just in case | 07:32 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Oh yes... it didn't work at one point that way for me. | 07:33 |
| yharrow | troy_s: you were using svn? | 07:33 |
| nothlit | yharrow: put the artlibre icons into ~/.inkscape/icons/ while you're at it :D http://andreasn.se/diverse/temp/icons.svg | 07:33 |
| troy_s | http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/ | 07:33 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Always | 07:33 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: you could -- note how he prefers "complex" toys, with moving parts and sounds and bells and whistles :) | 07:33 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/ | 07:33 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Wrong again | 07:33 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Its a she :) | 07:33 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: I've read it, I just didn't remember the name | 07:33 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Lol. | 07:34 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: not fair! | 07:34 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Just another case in point about poor assumptions in audience | 07:34 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Which I think is exactly the point of this discussion | 07:34 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: oh, I get a lot of these | 07:34 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: So in a roundabout way, you hit is spot on the money! (As usual you stinker) | 07:34 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: recently I've done a re-styling of certain web interface for a database | 07:34 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Did you glean anything? Miller's work is perhaps the most amazing and relevant study regarding interface design | 07:35 |
| lapo | troy_s: what I'm trying to say anyway is that if you spec something, you have to consider the "environment" and you need to choose not to change too many things, otherwise it will not work 'cause it cannot be implemented :-) | 07:35 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: and one of the e-mails from users said how great it is now with the new style that it's all on one page | 07:35 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Solely because it is how _every_ user (mental issues aside) approaches the piece out of the gate. | 07:35 |
| troy_s | lapo: Again, it depends on the sheep. | 07:35 |
| troy_s | lapo: Some will agree and contribute, some won't. That's the nature of evolution. | 07:36 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: I immediately assumed that consistent styling made him think it's a "one site", when before it threw him from one stle to another (part of the system was a wiki, for example) | 07:36 |
| troy_s | lapo: I have found nothing but a willingness and desire thus far... perhaps that will change. | 07:36 |
| lapo | troy_s: hopefully | 07:36 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Launchpad suffers from that 'one styling' now... it is wonderful, but it tends to hide the fact that it is separate components. | 07:36 |
| lapo | troy_s: but you have to get willingness by the right people :-) | 07:36 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: turned out he was refering to a smaller font in the main view of table with articles | 07:36 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Read the Malone Launchpad bug :) | 07:36 |
| troy_s | lapo: In my experience, the Free Software crowd has a disproportionate percentage of borderline genius types. It helps. | 07:37 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: I think the term "different application" is moot on the web | 07:37 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Hrm... let me find the bug and you will see why I would probably disagree with that statement a little... | 07:38 |
| lapo | troy_s: with the tango guys we bugged devs, filled bugs and so and we had, after some time, good results, but you have to convince a lot of people that you are right and you have to prove yourself before speaking usually :-) | 07:38 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Remember -- when people come to "Launchpad" for example, they think UBUNTU | 07:38 |
| troy_s | and the byproduct is this bug: | 07:38 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: by the way, do you know of any user-interface centered wiki site? | 07:38 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: The best one I know of | 07:39 |
| troy_s | is planet HCL in terms of a site | 07:39 |
| troy_s | not a wiki though iirc | 07:39 |
| troy_s | the rss is very insightful. | 07:39 |
| troy_s | (albeit in a scattered sort of opinions first approach) | 07:39 |
| troy_s | (as opposed to a tactical attack on specific audiences versus expectation) | 07:39 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: I started one for my own notes, but it has poor content for now :) | 07:40 |
| troy_s | bug 88818 | 07:40 |
| ubotu | Launchpad bug 88818 in malone "Many people report non-Launchpad bugs on Launchpad products" [High,In progress] https://launchpad.net/bugs/88818 | 07:40 |
| troy_s | https://bugs.launchpad.net/malone/+bug/88818 | 07:40 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: That single bug is entirely somehow wrapped up in what we were just discussing. | 07:40 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: I think that for a wiki to be effective, it really needs to boil down the notion of focus group to pages. | 07:40 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: As you need to distill exactly who you are talking to with an interface selection. | 07:41 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Hell... there was a time not that long ago when people didn't know what a button was in a GUI. | 07:41 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: nod nod | 07:41 |
| troy_s | <lapo> troy_s: with the tango guys we bugged devs, filled bugs and so and we had, after some time, good results, but you have to convince a lot of people that you are right and you have to prove yourself before speaking usually :-) | 07:41 |
| troy_s | lapo: The problem is I don't know if any of the very well researched folks I know would ever say they were 'right' | 07:42 |
| troy_s | lol | 07:42 |
| troy_s | lapo: They tend to be a little more cautious -- citing exceptions along the way and fleshing out those exceptions into larger 'be carefuls' | 07:42 |
| lapo | troy_s: with "right" I mean the stuff I'm suggesting needs to be done :-) | 07:43 |
| TheSheep | or at least we are convinced :) | 07:43 |
| lapo | troy_s: as you can surelly see english is not my native language, consider that whet weighting words :-) | 07:44 |
| troy_s | lapo: But again, where is that coming from -- follow me? Gut instincts or ?! | 07:44 |
| lapo | ugh? | 07:44 |
| lapo | uhm? | 07:44 |
| TheSheep | lapo: let's mob them | 07:44 |
| troy_s | lapo: Your english is a helluva lot better than my "lapoish" | 07:44 |
| === troy_s is horribly short on 2nd languages. | ||
| troy_s | Bonjou. Comme ca va? | 07:44 |
| troy_s | Le cahier de exercise. | 07:45 |
| === lapo is horribly short of the 1st a well :-) | ||
| TheSheep | troy_s: that's one of the disadvantages of speaking English natively | 07:45 |
| troy_s | Ah zut! | 07:45 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Yet another audience issue :) | 07:45 |
| troy_s | lapo: I mean what do you base your 'the stuff I'm suggesting needs to be done' on is what I was getting at. | 07:45 |
| lapo | troy_s: the hig, better desktop videos, beliefs, logic | 07:46 |
| troy_s | lapo: I find the HIG to be quite flawed on a number of levels -- too Utopian. | 07:46 |
| lapo | troy_s: it's clear that the gtk_yes and gtk_no icons are stupid and should be burned :-) | 07:46 |
| troy_s | lol | 07:47 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: there is another problem: people have this habit of choosing the wrong product for their skill | 07:47 |
| troy_s | it seeks to address too many in a very naive and foolish approach. | 07:47 |
| lapo | troy_s: then step up and try to change the points you don't find good | 07:47 |
| troy_s | lapo: It isn't my place. | 07:47 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: like picking the cellphone with most features instead of the one with the features I actually need | 07:47 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Woop. Guess what causes that? | 07:48 |
| lapo | troy_s: the hig is good for most part and is a needed tool, a very needed one | 07:48 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: It is a desired impact. | 07:48 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: many factors, but the reluctance to make decissions is one of them | 07:48 |
| troy_s | lapo: I think interface guidelines are wonderful if you simply come out and state "hey this isn't for people with motor impaired skillsets, colour sensitivities, etc." | 07:48 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: if I choose the one with many features, I don't need to decide which features I don't need | 07:48 |
| lapo | troy_s: I don't know if you used gnome 1.x, but if you think gnome2 is a mess, that was an order of magnitude worse :-) | 07:48 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: I would say it is a desired outcome | 07:48 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: That is called solid design and marketing :) | 07:49 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Creates that 'i need that' | 07:49 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Whether they do or not. | 07:49 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: marketing is the root of all evil | 07:49 |
| troy_s | lapo: Limited experience with GNOME 1. | 07:49 |
| nothlit | TheSheep: what? everything has a tradeoff | 07:49 |
| TheSheep | Not praising the worthy prevents contention, | 07:49 |
| TheSheep | Not esteeming the valuable prevents theft, | 07:49 |
| TheSheep | Not displaying the beautiful prevents desire. | 07:49 |
| lapo | troy_s: in oss you need an holy guide all the people subscribe | 07:49 |
| TheSheep | :P | 07:49 |
| troy_s | lapo: I just find that when people get up on a soapbox and say "This is good for all users" i tend to lose faith in _everything_ surrounding that statement. | 07:49 |
| troy_s | lapo: That's the problem, I eat gods for a living. | 07:50 |
| troy_s | lol | 07:50 |
| lapo | troy_s: I think the scope of the hig is quite the same as the spec you want to write | 07:50 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Whoa Tao Te Ching quotes in #u-a | 07:50 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: reading it along Donald Norman :P | 07:50 |
| troy_s | lapo: Perhaps. I wouldn't be so bold as to cause them Human Interface Guidelines... | 07:50 |
| lapo | troy_s: the hig is not set in stone and it doesn't want to say "I'm good for every user" it just a set of guideline everybody agreed | 07:51 |
| TheSheep | lapo: agreement has nothing to do with it | 07:51 |
| TheSheep | lapo: it's just "when in doubt, do this, at least you won't screw it up that much" ;_ | 07:51 |
| lapo | TheSheep: right | 07:52 |
| troy_s | lapo: Mine would be more... 'The Non Linux / Gnu familiar Guideline That Might Make Mainstream Folks Using Mainstream Operating Commercial Operating Systems A Little More Likely to Make the Flip" | 07:52 |
| lapo | anyway it's just a "tool" to have some sort of coehrence in the jungle of application which are the gnome dekstop | 07:52 |
| TheSheep | then again, my friends look at HIG like at a Holy Bible :/ | 07:52 |
| lapo | TheSheep: and it's the right approach most of the time :-) | 07:52 |
| troy_s | lapo: With a subtext of: "This applies to those with 85% mainstream visual acuity, 80% mainstream motor skills, etc. and residing in the relatively mature age group of approximately 21 - 36." | 07:53 |
| TheSheep | lapo: not really, they neve read it all, they just quote snippets :) | 07:53 |
| lapo | eheh | 07:53 |
| TheSheep | lapo: and out of context too | 07:53 |
| lapo | TheSheep: that's one problem :-) | 07:53 |
| lapo | TheSheep: anyway lazyness makes the world goes round :-) | 07:53 |
| troy_s | In the end, the user is always right. We just need to direct our designs to whatever users we wish to 'be right' :) | 07:54 |
| TheSheep | you can't expect every developer to hire some lab staff and test subjects | 07:54 |
| troy_s | lapo: If it were only lazyness impeding development of the design related matters it would be easy to fix. | 07:54 |
| lapo | troy_s: don't bet on it :-) | 07:54 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Which is why having a wiki would be nice. | 07:54 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: For the 'small' developer who needs to know some of the traits of a target user. | 07:55 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: there is openusability.org ... | 07:55 |
| troy_s | (again, it is why Miller's work is so relevant -- it applies to the largest percentage of human brains.) | 07:55 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: the problem is there is very few "hard facts" | 07:55 |
| troy_s | lapo: And the 'spec' is already written. It is being worked on by a few. | 07:55 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Absolutely! | 07:55 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: feel free to use mine, by the way: http://ui.sheep.art.pl | 07:56 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Again, why Miller's work is relevant. But also | 07:56 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Dropping the 'is not international' idea. | 07:56 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Cultures vary at least as dramatically as users. | 07:56 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: not much so far, and what's there is probably more or less wrong, but it's all about gradual improvement :) | 07:56 |
| andreasn | I'm off, bye! | 07:56 |
| lapo | I have to go as well, nice chat | 07:56 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Within that, if you pick a culture and a general demographic (male / female / both) and an age group | 07:57 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: but computers are more or less tied to the western cultures | 07:57 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: You can have very effective communication | 07:57 |
| lapo | ciao guys | 07:57 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: At least, it works for billion dollar companies with effective design campaigns | 07:57 |
| TheSheep | bye lapo | 07:57 |
| troy_s | Ciao lapo! | 07:57 |
| troy_s | Come back soon. | 07:57 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: the best rules can be derieved from the cognitive sciences -- at least they have good chance of being universal | 07:59 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: then again, they can apply in so many ways, often contradictory | 07:59 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Agree there. | 07:59 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: and the interactions are impossible to anticipate | 07:59 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Yep. Its frustrating, which is why I choose to avoid being 'universal' and try to appeal to a particular audience. | 08:00 |
| troy_s | at least you can throw relativity out the window | 08:00 |
| troy_s | and just deal with subjective experience if it fits with the target. | 08:00 |
| TheSheep | being "standard" at least appeals to those who already use the computers | 08:00 |
| TheSheep | and to those taught by them | 08:01 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: If there were 'standard' | 08:01 |
| troy_s | we don't need to look far to debunk that myth too. | 08:01 |
| troy_s | every single wm implements things differently, et.c | 08:01 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: let me tell you about an example | 08:02 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: you know roguelike games? | 08:02 |
| TheSheep | these are text-based dungeon-crawling games | 08:03 |
| TheSheep | but use ascii pseudo-graphics, not textual descriptions | 08:04 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Duh :) | 08:04 |
| TheSheep | because they often work in text mode, they are often picked up by blind users | 08:04 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: I loved em! | 08:04 |
| TheSheep | because screen readers work nice with text mode | 08:04 |
| TheSheep | even if they need to use the 'look' command a lot to get the idea of their surroundings | 08:05 |
| TheSheep | now, we had one blind user who reported that he can only play ADOM and not other roguelike games | 08:05 |
| TheSheep | because in theo tehr games, he'd have to point the screenreader to the message area all the time | 08:06 |
| TheSheep | while in ADOM it would read the messages automatically when they appeared | 08:06 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: That is exactly the point of our entire discussion. | 08:07 |
| TheSheep | a little investigation revealed that ADOM was suing BIOS calls to print the messages on the screen, while other games used ncurses that usually pinted directly into the graphics memory | 08:07 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: It is probably relevant though, that if ADOM were developed for the blind, it would have been a target spec. | 08:08 |
| TheSheep | in this case, using the most primitive, well known, popular method payed off in support by screen readers | 08:08 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Absolutely. It also raises an interesting thing regarding aesthetic design: How do you create an aesthetically appealing output for a blind person using a screenreader? | 08:08 |
| TheSheep | sure, but see, the people who design screen readers, special keyboards and pointers, braile terminals and other assitive technology are not stupid -- they usually try hard to make it work with as many "standard" things as possible | 08:09 |
| troy_s | Then it would have 'worked' | 08:09 |
| troy_s | I still think it is a myth. | 08:09 |
| TheSheep | rolling your own user interface instead of using standard libraries can break it, for example | 08:10 |
| troy_s | The fact that it is console and that console - console has a greater chance of working with the device than say the more obvious, GUI to console. | 08:10 |
| troy_s | Unless your TARGET AUDIENCE is considered when developing. | 08:10 |
| TheSheep | it's not, I'm getting scrollwheel support in all my applications even when I didn't program it at all, the applications were written before scrollwheel even existed | 08:10 |
| troy_s | Little different -- its a window event | 08:11 |
| troy_s | But I can appreciate what you are trying to forward. | 08:11 |
| TheSheep | it often works if you just don't get in the way :) | 08:11 |
| troy_s | That sort of 'standard' is more of the givens | 08:12 |
| troy_s | What we are suggesting here isn't that you reinvent the keyboard or ... xxx | 08:12 |
| TheSheep | games are horrible in this regard -- they all always have to create their own UIs | 08:12 |
| troy_s | But consider more efficient ways of working for a given group. | 08:12 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Also bear in mind that without innovation and the WILLINGness to throw it all out the door and experiment, we end up exactly where we are now. | 08:13 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Which is arguably sub-optimal on several levels. | 08:13 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: And horribly effective on others (hell... you can use a completely 'Free' operating system to browse the web -- so that is a success in and of itself) | 08:13 |
| TheSheep | um, the Web consists of free operating systems, the commercial products are refugees here | 08:14 |
| troy_s | lol | 08:14 |
| troy_s | albeit refugees with large weapons and first world funding. | 08:14 |
| troy_s | that occasionally manage to take up bastions in strategic areas (Flash anyone?) | 08:15 |
| troy_s | lol | 08:15 |
| TheSheep | the whole idea of "owning software" is as alien as the idea of "owning land" was to Indians | 08:15 |
| troy_s | amen | 08:15 |
| troy_s | lol | 08:16 |
| TheSheep | wonder where are we going | 08:16 |
| TheSheep | and what will our kids think of us | 08:16 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: about that target audience, it's just marketing, you can *create* your target group with any characteristics you want, it's just a question of resources spent | 08:18 |
| TheSheep | personally I find that the best software is written by the people who only need it for themselves | 08:20 |
| troy_s | Lol -- because it is always easier to hit the target audience needs | 08:26 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: And regarding target audience (not a bad term either) you can't create a group. They do evolve and change over time, but no amount of marketing could generate an audience (unless you mean similar to the band U2 generating a new 'market' for themselves and merchandise) | 08:27 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: I'veread somewhere that you should never aim for the current audience needs -- you should always aim a little off, so it's something they want to become | 08:28 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Probably good in a marketing scenario. | 08:29 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: not too far, however, because they are lazy ;) | 08:29 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: I don't know the relevance when you are providing a wrench -- but perhaps. I know that car advertisements use that trick in spades (Just look at 4x4 truck visuals) | 08:30 |
| troy_s | The 'average' target audience members is only doing that sort of appealing driving in their fantasies. :) | 08:30 |
| TheSheep | same with "usable" software, it's sort of a myth | 08:31 |
| TheSheep | I'm becoming a little tired of all that "it's not your fault" crowd recently | 08:31 |
| TheSheep | sure, design can help greatly, but it won't replace a little care and brains :) | 08:32 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Amen! | 08:32 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Again, it is relevant only to the folks using it -- which is why I would expect the unix mentality to thrive -- small cli driven expert apps with PLENTY of different UIs. | 08:33 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: unix has POSIX for the cli interfaces | 08:34 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: it's pretty much set | 08:34 |
| TheSheep | troy_s: and it's good, as you get interoperability for free | 08:34 |
| TheSheep | I think that the best thing that happened to desktop computers in the last 3 years is dbus | 08:34 |
| TheSheep | it lets you mix-and-match GUI apps in similar way you can do that with cli apps using pipes | 08:35 |
| TheSheep | and you don't care which app it is, as long as it has needed functions | 08:36 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: Yeah DBUS is much needed. | 08:37 |
| troy_s | TheSheep: And it is dynamic which is nice. | 08:38 |
| TheSheep | gamin is another nice thing | 08:38 |
| TheSheep | no more "hit refresh to see changes" | 08:38 |
| TheSheep | it's the reusable components like these that make people write better applications | 08:39 |
| TheSheep | otherwise lazyness prevails | 08:40 |
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| yharrow | troy_s: I just finished a bit of a mockup | 09:38 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Email it to me or dcc in pm? | 09:39 |
| yharrow | troy_s: Im waiting for it to export to png | 09:39 |
| yharrow | troy_s: its taking a while to render | 09:40 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Use the SVN inkscape -- it is superior in rendering time etc. | 09:41 |
| troy_s | yharrow: In fact, there was a bug in the renderer that caused tremendously long renders. | 09:41 |
| yharrow | troy_s: how do I download from svn? | 09:41 |
| yharrow | rendering time is ridiculous | 09:41 |
| troy_s | wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork/Incoming/HowToCompileInkscape | 09:42 |
| troy_s | iirc | 09:42 |
| troy_s | pretty simple | 09:42 |
| yharrow | ok cool, gonna do that soon as it finishes rendering | 09:43 |
| yharrow | whenever that is *rolleyes | 09:43 |
| yharrow | troy_s: still rendering | 10:03 |
| yharrow | lol | 10:03 |
| yharrow | over 15 minutes | 10:04 |
| yharrow | this is insane | 10:04 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Compile svn | 10:04 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Load said svg | 10:04 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Render | 10:04 |
| troy_s | you have hte buggy one | 10:04 |
| troy_s | you will have the complete compile and finished render done by the time it finishes... trust me | 10:05 |
| troy_s | kwwii had a 3 hour render | 10:05 |
| yharrow | troy_s: I didnt save the svg yet, I wanted to see what it looked like before I saved it. dumb move. | 10:05 |
| troy_s | off of an image that took me 2 minutes | 10:05 |
| troy_s | NO kidding. | 10:05 |
| yharrow | now THAT is inSANE | 10:05 |
| BHSPitMonkey | hey TheSheep, I haven't really seen you in a while | 10:05 |
| troy_s | as i said... break it. | 10:05 |
| troy_s | :) | 10:05 |
| troy_s | BHSPitMonkey: luckily we have him back sklurking | 10:06 |
| yharrow | ok gonna compile while this renders | 10:06 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Good idea :) | 10:07 |
| troy_s | hilarious... | 10:08 |
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| troy_s | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RqdZCo6vkI&search=stossel | 10:09 |
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| === ..[topic/#ubuntu-artwork:troy_s] : "Welcome to #ubuntu-artwork. 7.04, the latest and greatest, is out now, download it now at a mirror near you!" -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RqdZCo6vkI&search=stossel | ||
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| troy_s | yharrow: Have you seen Motorola's red campaign? | 10:15 |
| troy_s | It is quite amazing... I have driven past the bloody billboard about 20 times and rather went 'wow' to it at least a few times... | 10:15 |
| yharrow | troy_s: nah, I havent seen it, I could google for it though. what is it about? | 10:20 |
| troy_s | you would need to see its simplicity | 10:22 |
| troy_s | but that said, i just came across the designer... | 10:22 |
| troy_s | lol | 10:22 |
| troy_s | quite amazing http://www.wolff-olins.com/ | 10:23 |
| troy_s | if you don't recognize the 'olins' do a search | 10:23 |
| troy_s | it will become clear. | 10:23 |
| yharrow | ok will do that | 10:28 |
| yharrow | gotta go for a while be back in a bit | 10:33 |
| yharrow | troy_s: I'll just send you w/e renders within the next 5 minutes | 10:34 |
| yharrow | nm, Ill be back in about an hour or 2 Ill send the file then | 10:40 |
| yharrow | oh wait. it just finished | 10:42 |
| yharrow | troy_s: ok here it is | 10:42 |
| yharrow | ping troy_s | 10:51 |
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| troy_s | yharrow: Resend | 11:36 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Sorry, afk | 11:36 |
| troy_s | yharrow: Or was. | 11:36 |
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