Form and Function – Page 20 – Allan Day's GNOME Blog

Every Detail Matters: Half Way There!

A small Every Detail Matters update to bring sunshine and joy to your Thursday.

There have been four new bug fixes since I last gave an update, which was a little under a fortnight ago. Several of these bugs focus on visual presentation, to make sure that text is easy to read and the UI intelligible. The others address interaction gremlins, which is always important when you have a somewhat dynamic UI.

Congrats to Stefano Facchini, Vít Stanislav and Alex Hultman for getting your fixes submitted! You’re awesome, and I’m sure that the users of GNOME 3 will love your changes.

The new fixes bring us to the half way point! We set the goal of fixing 20 bugs by the end of the cycle, and we have now closed 10. So things are going well, but there is still more to do! If you fancy fixing a GNOME bug that will enhance our user experience, this is your chance to help.

I’d like to reiterate that Every Detail Matters is not just for newbies. We are also setting our sights on issues that would benefit from the attention of a more practiced hand. If you are an experienced hacker who wants to chip in but doesn’t want the hassle of figuring out what needs fixing, Every Detail Matters is definitely for you.

So:

1. Check out the wiki page

2. Pick a bug

3. Get stuck in

That is all. :)

Welcome to the Post-WIMP Era

It is hard to say exactly when the WIMP paradigm came into being. The mouse and pointer (or ‘bug’ as it was originally called) came out of the work of Douglas Engelbart and his research staff at the Stanford Research Institute during the mid to late 1960s (his Mother of all Demonstrations is still amazing to watch). It was later, with Xerox Parc’s Alto and Xerox Star, and with the Apple Lisa, that the WIMP approach solidified. Which device got there first is somewhat irrelevant; between them, these early devices established the central features of what we now know as desktop environments.

The ‘WIMP’ paradigm is made up of four key components: windows, icons, menus and a pointer. The approach was highly file-centric when it was conceived, and mimicked the physical world of the office. There were files and file systems, and a desktop containing a variety of objects, such as a wastebasket. (The Xerox Star desktop even had an inbox and outbox for mail.) Multiple files could be worked with simultaneously by having them on the screen at the same time, with windows forming the basis of early multitasking functionality.

Every Detail Matters: An Update

Last month, I announced a new initiative called Every Detail Matters. Its goal: to make GNOME 3 really awesome by ensuring that small design details are taken care of. Each round of the initiative will focus on a particular part of GNOME 3. Designers and developers will work together on refining the user experience.

For this first round of Every Detail Matters, we are focusing on the Activities Overview. We are being ambitious and are aiming to fix 20 UX bugs by the end of the release cycle.

There has already been an amazing response to Every Detail Matters. A whole crew of contributors have set to work, including some new contributors. Zan Dobersek, Seif Lotfy, Stefano Candori and Marc Plano Lesay have all successfully sumbitted patches. Vít Stanislav and Stefano Facchini are also hard at work on contributions of their own. The development version of GNOME Shell is already much nicer thanks to what they’ve been doing.

Announcing Every Detail Matters

Today I’m announcing a new GNOME initiative called Every Detail Matters, the aim of which is to take care of all the little details and make sure that every part of GNOME 3 really shines. It will also provide great opportunities for those wanting to contribute to GNOME.

Minor visual and operational details make a huge difference to the user experiences that we provide. Small bugs can seriously undermine the overall experience. At the same time, little details can make the difference between being good and being amazing. The aim of Every Detail Matters is to focus in on these small details and make sure that we get them right. Continue reading Announcing Every Detail Matters

GNOME Design Update

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these design update posts. There’s plenty going on in GNOME design at the moment though, so I thought it would be a good idea to write about what’s being worked on. Here’s what we’ve been up to recently.

Perhaps the biggest and most exciting design venture right now is Jon and Jimmac’s ongoing application design work. We all know about Documents and Contacts, which had initial releases in 3.2. Now other new application designs are being produced, including Music, Photos, Chat, Transfers, Weather, Web, Mail, Calendar, Videos, Clock, Maps and Notes. These application designs are looking pretty awesome, and we’re already had developers stepping up to work on them. You can check them out them out on the wiki.

Continue reading GNOME Design Update