Re: GNOME now

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

The overarching aspiration behind GNOME 3, in my opinion, is to create
a free user experience that is fit for the contemporary world. That
means addressing the changing needs of users, as well as changes in
hardware. It also means doing better than what we did before: UX
design has got a lot better in recent history, and I think the field
has become much more competetive. We need to keep up.

A rough list of high-level design goals for GNOME 3 might include things like...

 * Providing a focused, distraction-free, environment
 * Ensuring that user interfaces are focused and directed towards the
task in hand
 * Creating an experience that puts the user at ease and gives them control
 * Being compatible with touch interaction, particularly new hybrid devices
 * Seamless integration with the cloud

That's superficial and rather off the top of my head. One thing we
obviously need is a new HIG that lays out the design principles in
more detail; that's something that I really do want to do. It's just a
matter of finding the time.

GNOME 3 is still an unfinished project, of course, and there are
missing parts of the picture. We are continuing to refine and evolve
the core user experience, and it is getting better with every release.
3.6 was a big step up from 3.4, and I'm confident that we can do the
same again for 3.8. With each round of iteration and improvement, we
get closer to a more effective and stable UI.

Another big area is applications. We are working on a new suite of
core applications, which are designed in accordance with our
high-level goals (cloud integration is a key objective here). That
work is ongoing and there are blanks. It is one of the areas where we
need the most help right now.

Those core applications are serving as a basis for us to evolve our
application development platform. We are using them to develop new
interface elements and design patterns, which are informing the
development of the toolkit.

So where is this all going? We're still filling in the gaps in GNOME
3, and we're still refining the user experience. The toolkit and the
devoloper platform are coming along for the ride. At some point, I do
expect these things to come together. Over the next couple of years,
we can expect a stabilised core user experience with a set of
integrated, complementary core applications. We can also expect an
application developer platform that enables 3rd party developers to
make similar applications of their own. At that point, we may well
want to draw a line. Maybe we'll have a party? Maybe we'll call it
GNOME 4?

I think the bigger question right now is whether we can successfully
create a framework for a healthy application ecosystem within that
time. This is absolutely critical to our future, because it is only
with a diverse collection of applications that GNOME will be able to
meet peoples' needs. We set out some goals and areas for development
back at GUADEC, and which I blogged about shortly afterwards [1]. But
this is an area that we have historically struggled to deal with, and
it is fair to say that we haven't seen much progress since the summer.

Allan

[1] http://afaikblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/07/gnome-os/