Re: On the Interaction with the design team

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi,

Allan Day wrote:
> Dave Neary wrote:
>> Presumably you & others are still not interested in drawing a few
>> developers and designers into a gnome-design mailing list, separate from
>> the usability list
> 
> I think it's important that we work on being more accessible, and we
> need to make it easier for people to stay informed about what we're up
> to in GNOME design, but I don't think a mailing list is a good way for
> us to do that, and I'm pretty sure the others who are involved in
> design work feel the same way.
> 
> So yes, you presume correctly. I'm open to other suggestions though. ;)

That's disappointing. Using IRC really is an anti-pattern which the
design team should avoid - it's only one step removed from doing
everything in person or on conference calls. Bugzilla isn't a forum, nor
can you be sure who you're talking to, or easily follow past discussions
through archives. And design is apparently out of scope for the
usability list. Wiki pages and blog posts are good, but they are
broadcast rather than a communication channel.

I really can't think of anything better than a mailing list which you
could use to allow GNOME developers to initiate discussion with
designers, and to allow designers to work together publicly on design.

> Right now, design update blog posts (like the one I did last week [1])
> are one of the best mechanisms at our disposal, in my opinion. Long
> term, we probably need specialist design tools or even a wave in a
> box [2].

Blog posts are, by their nature, periodical and, as I said, broadcast
rather than "a place to get in touch with GNOME's designers" (which was
the original request).

>> (which is more post-processing than drawing up plans,
>> I think)?
> 
> Maybe I missed a memo, but I wasn't aware of it having a particular
> focus (other than usability).

Maybe I missed a memo myself - usability and design aren't the same
thing, I think. Although one can design to make something usable, what
I've seen mostly on the usability list is the incremental improvement of
applications which have already been designed (this is what I mean by
post-processing).

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org