Re: Emergency marketing team meeting

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Sri/Jason:

> I don't know about you guys, but I'm still not clear what came out of
> the UX hackfest.  Which would automatically make me agree with the
> below.  Furthermore, I don't understand how within the 6 month time
> period that you will have all the user testing, addressing regression
> (gnome shell for instance has no applets, I consider that a regression
> regardless of whether it is a good thing or not and finally documentation.

I agree.  The GNOME community is not like some other desktops where a
central design team drives overall desktop requirements.  Instead, those
in the GNOME Usability team tend to propose ideas and shape direction
in an ongoing dialog with the overall community and specific project
maintainers.  In any volunteer community there are a wide array of
opinions, so it is unrealistic to put too much weight on the ideas from
any one individual.  To what degree any proposal from the UX hackfest
becomes reality will depend on many factors, and any ideas proposed may
take time to implement and might influence long term design more than
an initial GNOME 3.0 design.

I do agree that that is a real concern that people outside of the GNOME
community may not understand this and may get confused, or expect
features which may never leave the prototype or proposal stage.  There
may be a need to set expectations properly and to ensure that we
communicate that events like the UX Hackfest are forums for free
thinking and prototyping - not necessarily reflective of what will
actually be delivered.  Design, after all, tends to go through many
iterations before it becomes reality.

Brian