Re: [Usability] Openusability and GNOME usability

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2005, Philip Van Hoof wrote:

> Date: Sat, 27 Aug 2005 23:26:38 +0200
> From: Philip Van Hoof <spam pvanhoof be>
> To: usability gnome org
> Subject: [Usability] Openusability and GNOME usability
>
>
> Hi there,
>
> As a GNOME developer who is obsessed with the idea of "some day" having
> a platform where it, for a user, no longer matters whether a desktop app
> was developed using libraries typical for desktop platform a or using
> libraries typical for desktop platform b (xfce, maemo, gnome, kde, wm,
> whatever and whichever) . . .

me too

I was just pondering how xfce, maeomo/gpe, and gnome might better be able
to converge by using standard API for various things like for example the
file chooser the about dialogs and other things.  Then depending on how
you compile your app you would get things setup to more closely match your
preferred enviroment (to a large extent this is what is supposed to be
happenning already with maemo/GPE).

I guess it highlights how difficult a task the GTK developers have when
it comes to developing the toolkit and trying to meet all these
different needs.

> . . I wonder . .
>
>
> What is the status of cooperation between you guys and the guys at
> openusability.org?
>
> Have you guys spoken with each other?

Sort of ...  not really

> Have you guys contacted them and/or have you guys been contacted by
> them?

The latter.  A nice German(?) woman Ellen (?) encouraged us to get
involved as I recall.  I didn't sign up at the time but I have been sort
of meaing to get around to it eventually especially since I'm now
occasionally poking and prodding some KDE projects about usability.

> Are you guys planning to do
> this in a (near) future?

Me personally, yes probably if only to see what they are up to.  They seem
to be helping the KDE developers quite a bit and presenting their work in
a way developers are more receptive to which is something I think I may
have been failing to do recently (or it could just be Gnome developers
dont like my suggestions).

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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