Re: Design in the open

[Luca Ferretti <lferrett gnome org>]

2012/4/25 Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>:
>
>
> But there are challenges and things we can do better. Among those
> obstacles, I see:
<snip>
> * giving people a stake in the project - the danger of design-led
> development is that people feel that the project is no longer theirs.
> They want to feel they can have an impact and that they can express
> themselves through their activities in the community.
> * design disagreements can sour relationships and lead to discord
> * letting people stay in touch with and understand design activities,
> and therefore the activities of the project as a whole

>From my point of view the main issue (at least perceived as issue) in
current design->develop workflow is explanation.

While our design/ux team is able to produce great ideas, frequently
the only visible product of design work is a wiki page with poor info.
Or, at least, poor compared with documents and info provided by
others. You can compare, for instance, our document about proposed
changes for unlock screen [1] or initial setup [2] with a similar
document from Canonical about changes for multiple monitor stuff[3].

In [1] and [2] I can see only hints about how features could work. In
[3] you have a fully detailed explanation of each phase or action or
reaction of the system. Of course you'll have to spend more time
writing and reading it, but people will be able to understand without
guessing. This should be helpful to maintainers ("I know what I've to
do, no need to ping designers"), casual contributors ("this piece is
not yet implemented, maybe I can work on it"), other teams ("I've to
document this feature, and I know how it will work"). And design team
too, people will be able to give a quicker, more precise, and better
feedback.

So basically: why do I've to agree with your design and apply those
changes? or say this new stuff is better? The proposed unlock screen
is gorgeous, but... wait, _guessing_ from mockups is seems I've to use
mouse and drag the little triangle before I can type my password...
slow... boring... current unlock dialog is better, faster, stronger,
harder... design team sucks, they want to break _my own_ workflow with
no actual reason or gain.

There are too many images and too few words in [1]. I've to scroll to
the end of the page before I can read "lock is removed by [...] Esc
key on keyboard" (BTW I usually type "Ctrl" to wake up monitor before
starting to type my passoword, it's closer than Esc). You are still
trying to change my workflow, but at least it seems I will not need to
use both mouse and keyboard.

So, IMHO a design driven GNOME needs good desing documents. The
"design document is a written contract"[4] between designers and other
teams, more time you spend writing it, less time you'll spend explaing
here on desktop devel list :)


[1] https://live.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/ScreenLock
[2] https://live.gnome.org/GnomeOS/Design/Whiteboards/InitialSetup
[3] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aHvJ-iIw-59bXTYBmIhQqEx0za2h9jpFE_RhZ2VOvJc/edit
[4] https://blog.slickedit.com/2007/05/how-to-write-an-effective-design-document/


PS

> * a process for resolving design disagreements - perhaps maintainers
> or the release team could mediate if a dispute seems intractable?

hmm.... disagreement between ... ? designers and maintainers?
designers and contributors? designers and i18n/doc/a11y team?
designers and users? designers and release team itself?