[HIG] Welcome to the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines working group

[Adam Elman <aelman users sourceforge net>]

Hi folks!

Below is the list of people who volunteered today to participate in 
creating the GNOME HI Guidelines.  That should match the membership 
of this list at the moment.  As the list admin, I think current 
policy is that anyone can join, but they do have to be confirmed 
manually by me first; that should help keep this list focused on the 
HI Guidelines, as I'll encourage folks to use the usability@gnome.org 
list for more general usability conversations.

It would be a good idea, I think, for everybody on the list to send a 
brief introduction describing their background wrt GNOME and 
usability.  I'll send mine in a separate note.

Anyway, here are some suggestions for next steps:
1) We need to pick a team lead.
2) We need to set some project milestones, specifically for the short 
(~10 page) document we agreed to provide for GNOME 2.0, and the ~50 
item usability checklist as well.
3) We need to figure out who's doing what.
4) We need to figure out logistics like whether and where we can put 
documents in CVS, etc.

As for (1) -- if nobody else wants to lead the group, I'd be happy 
to.  Here are some pros and cons about this (certainly not an 
exhaustive list :)

Pros:
* I have a background in usability, albeit not the strongest one here 
(more about this in my intro :)
* I have some project management experience
* I know a bunch of GNOME hackers and tend to have pretty good 
relationships with them
* I have time at the moment to commit to this.

Cons:
* I'm looking for a job doing usability/interaction design; assuming 
I get one at some point in the next couple of months, I may have to 
drop or deemphasize the time I spend on this project.  (Of course, if 
I were to get a job doing HCI work on GNOME, that might not be a 
problem.  hint hint. :)
* I have little experience developing or doing interface work on 
desktop applications; most of my career I've been working on 
web-based applications.  I've been a GNOME *user* for quite a few 
years, and hung out with a lot of GNOME hackers at Eazel, so I've 
spent a lot of time thinking about usability issues.
* I've never written a set of UI style guides.  (I've been reading 
them for years, though).
* I've never managed/maintained an open source project.

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

Later,
Adam

Core team:
Adam Elman (adam) <aelman@users.sourceforge.net>
Gregory Merchan (auspez) <merchan@phys.lsu.edu>
Colin Z. Robertson (colin_zr) <c.z.robertson@ndirect.co.uk>
Calum Benson (calum) <calum.benson@sun.com>

Secondary team (reviewers/contributors):
Andrea Mankoski (andi) <andi@eng.sun.com>
Suzanna Smith (suz) <suzanna.smith@sun.com>
Jon Tollefson (kniht) <tollefso@chartermi.net>
Maciej Stachowiak (mjs) <mjs@noisehavoc.org>
Jon Erling Blad (vacumhead) <itjoblad@aftenposten.no>
Kenny Graunke (Dekar) <kenny@whitecape.org>
Christian Rose (menthos) <menthos@menthos.com>

Leader of GNOME Usability Project:
Seth Nickell (seth) <snickell@stanford.edu>


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