I’m really happy that we will be holding a two-day UX Hackfest prior to this year’s GUADEC conference. It’s been a while since we’ve had a UX Hackfest, and this was a great opportunity to get people together.
This cycle is turning out to be incredibly busy, and there’s a lot of major features in the pipeline, including the lock screen, new input methods integration, message tray design updates, a reworked activities overview, updated designs for System Settings, Nautilus and Contacts, integrated application search, and a new initial setup assistant.
We’re holding the UX Hackfest to help us get on top of these feature initiatives and make sure that they are executed to a high standard in the next GNOME release. I’ve tried to keep it small, since this tends to be a better format for doing design work, and will help us to make speedier progress through the long list of things we want to work on.
I personally feel that events like this can play an important role in helping us to drive up the quality of the features that we develop for each release. There’s nothing like sitting down in a room to review work in progress and figure out what needs to be done. I hope that we can have more events like this in the future.
Another really nice feature of the hackfest is that there will be a mix of new and old faces in attendance. In addition to core design contributors and hackers, there will also be some cool interns helping out, including Fabiana Simões, Meg Ford, Giovanni Campagna and Anna Zacchi.
Igalia are generously hosting the hackfest in their A Coruña offices, and the GNOME Foundation is playing an essential role by supporting attendees. I’d also like to thank my employer, Red Hat, for enabling me to participate.
Update: I’ve just heard that Red Hat will also be sponsoring this event. Thanks Red Hat!
