Re: On the Interaction with the design team

[Lapo Calamandrei <calamandrei gmail com>]

2011/6/7 Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt postinbox com>:
> Lapo Calamandrei wrote on 06/06/11 17:20:
>>...
>> 2011/6/6 Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>:
>>...
>>> I feel that the current operation of the design team is hurting our
>>> relationship with Canonical, who also have designers who have, I
>>> believe, failed to influence design discussions in the same measure as
>>> the "core" members of the design team like Lapo, Allan, Jon.
>
> However good or bad Gnome's design processes are, I don't think those
> processes have anything to do with the relationship with Canonical. The
> reason Canonical designers have not influenced Gnome design discussions
> is that we are not instructed to take part, and most of us haven't even
> heard of #gnome-design. (To be clear, nobody's telling us *not* to take
> part, it's just not part of our jobs.)
>
> That may be a good thing or a bad thing. I can certainly see drawbacks:
> for example, I have lost count of the number of times one of my
> colleagues has sketched something that assumes the existence of
> gnome-about-me, and I've had to say "uh, that doesn't exist any more".
> Or when they've talked about having a unified settings panel for online
> accounts, oblivious to the Web Accounts panel being designed and
> implemented upstream as they speak.

That's the downfall of not working in close contact with upstream, or
you stick with a certain version of the software or you'll aim a
moving target. Even with everything documented or with some magic tool
to track what we're doing this won't be solved, the only way is to
design stuff diretcly upstream and influencing design decisions.

>
>>>                                                              I think
>>> the lack of documentation of the core design team makes it harder for
>>> new designers to get involved.
>
> I do agree with this. For most of the Gnome designs I come across, I
> think: What stage is this at? Is this supposed to be a draft, or the
> final design? What alternatives have been considered so far? What
> benefits and disadvantages have been predicted in each? Have any of the
> predictions been tested with users? How could I most productively
> suggest another alternative? Getting answers to those questions
> shouldn't require waiting for the right person to turn up on IRC.
>
We can certanly improove things in this area, but we're usually very
busy and we have no tools to do it. If I want to give feedback to some
design I see on our repositories I just leave a note there if the
right person is not online. Yeah it's not the best way possible, but
there are ways to do it, if you want to.


>>>                                To sum it all up, I believe the current
>>> dynamic of the design team is doing damage to GNOME as a community.
>>
>> Would you elaborate this? Adding some facts please?
>
> For example, I think a lot of the discontent with Gnome Shell could be
> calmed if the wireframes of alternatives that were considered were
> published, and if user testing results were published too.
There's planty of stuff around regarding Shell design, it just not
nicelly structured, but both the wiki and our repos are full of
material, old stuff included, anyway not my domain so I'll just pass
here.

>
>> Unfortunatelly IRC is the only tool which work fo us atm (since google
>> pulled wave which was nice), we're very open and responsive on the
>> channel, I listen to every suggestion I get and answer any question,
>> just hang on the channel and see.
>
> An XMPP chat room (as used for Inkscape developer discussion, for
> example) has the relevant advantage that history can be easily available
> even to people who weren't in the room at the time.
The same is true for irc with a log bot or something like that.

>
>>                                   Also the repositories we are using
>> are open and everybody can participate.
>
> Requiring designers to learn git limits the number and type of designers.
We actually don't require that, sparkleshare does all the magic. We
just ned to grant write access to people.

>
>>                                         I respect and esteem Matthew
>> Paul Thomas which is the only canonical designer I ever interacted
>> with on the channel and I think I have zero issues with him, while I'd
>> like to see him more activelly involved.
>>...
>
> Thank you. The main reason I'm not more actively involved is that when I
> get home from work I try to focus on things that aren't software.
Fair enough, you should use your work time then :-)

>
> --
> mpt
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