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I wish there was a some sort of a Open Source UI squad that would just work towards making awesome UIs for projects like Audacity, GIMP etc. There are so many l

I wish there was a some sort of a Open Source UI squad that would just work towards making awesome UIs for projects like Audacity, GIMP etc. There are so many low hanging fruits here like - iconography, spacing, using the right widget controls etc. that would make a lot more people want to use (and hopefully support) such software.

chrisweekly 9y ago
+1 this, 1,000x this.
GuiA 9y ago
Building a solid design culture is extremely hard - in my experience having worked professionally as a designer and engineer, much more so than a solid engineering culture (which is already insanely hard). There’s a reason only a handful of organizations in the world succeed at both. I spent time volunteering for Gnome many years ago (2.x days), and it was extremely hard there, even though it had a reputation for being one of the most designer friendly open source projects. It was a struggle to push for design considerations with obvious benefits such as accessibility - let alone anything remotely resembling aesthetics. The issue with open source is that ultimately, the project maintainers tend to be programmers with programmers’ priorities and views on design. Good design requires consistent, thoughtful sacrifice and compromise, and someone at the top to enforce it. If the open source UI squad makes recommendations that the Gimp maintainers choose to ignore, then what?
- TuringNYC 9y ago
  Perhaps having "skins" capabilities would allow the best of both worlds...though it might end up like WinAmp with thousands of unuseably designed yet popular skins.
  - wiz21c 9y ago
    I'm afraid it goes deeper than that. For example, you could decide to move some functionality from a sidebar to a context menu. this implies reprogramming the interface very differently; a skin can't do that. This also implies prototyping a lot. So basically the designer and the coder have to sit together quite a lot, that's not easy when you communicate via internet.
gsich 9y ago
(UI) Designers don't want to work for free. This is more or less the observation I made in regards for Open Source software. Having some side projects or helping OSS is somewhat expected from a programmer. From other professions not so much.
- themodelplumber 9y ago
  I did some free UI design for a game I found on the Pygame site a while back. At the time I was gainfully employed as a graphic designer, UI designer, and illustrator. The artwork was gratefully received and I had a fun time working with the software developer. Here's what I think made it go well: - High visibility: The game was featured in the website sidebar. So I thought it'd be neat to contribute. - Easy as HTML: Extract game zip file, edit Python files in a text editor, plug in my own filenames instead of the default ones. Start game, see my graphics. - Developer was very open and friendly. Just an IT guy with a hobby. - I knew about the Pygame website already because I followed FOSS stuff. I don't know how many UI designers are browsing sites like that, but my guess is not many. But imagine if they did: what are the chances their workflow would be as easy as it was for me? In a compiled language, forget it. I remember a few years back when suddenly it seemed like everything was on GitHub. My UI designer peers _hated_ this and many still do. So it's far from inviting in many ways for a UI person, though I don't mean to suggest they couldn't hack it if they wanted to.
  - chao- 9y ago
    > ...suddenly it seemed like everything was on GitHub. My UI designer peers _hated_ this and many still do. What about it do they hate? I ask as a non-designer, to whom their perspective may be foreign.
    - untog 9y ago
      Github is a code management tool, so it isn’t too surprising that designers aren’t fond of it. Imagine code diffs, but for visual designs instead. Showing you which palette colors have changed, which margins have been tweaked etc. - Github doesn’t do any of that.
TheTruestKyle 9y ago
I would help
osrec 9y ago
Funnily enough, I'm in the process of assembling a team to do just this! As a way of giving back to the open source community (which has given my company a great deal over the years), I'll be asking all my devs to spend a paid week per year contributing UI improvements to open source software.
ericdykstra 9y ago
Good UI is overrated in utility apps. Audacity, for the people who use it, use it very frequently. It's a powerful tool with a specific purpose. The initial few minutes of confusing UI are trounced by the hundreds of hours people spend in the program after they have all the UI and keyboard shortcuts memorized. Could it be better? Yes. Should it be a priority? Nah.
- andai 9y ago
  What should the priority be?
  - jhasse 9y ago
    Fixing bugs and adding important features.
- pastelsky 9y ago
  If you're talking about tech folks, then maybe yes, but I see a lot of popular appeal for such tools comes from ease of use. My assumption is that a lot of designers would reject a tool like GIMP / Inkscape because it appears "clunky" and rather pick paid alternatives Sketch / Photoshop instead.
  - jhasse 9y ago
    I think GIMP could have the best GUI in the world and still no designer would use it since it lacks non-destructive editing.
narag 9y ago
iconography, spacing, using the right widget controls etc. I've used Audacity for simple stuff but for a long time. IMHO it's very convienent. I don't dispute it could be prettier, but usability is good.

chrisweekly 9y ago

+1 this, 1,000x this.

GuiA 9y ago

Building a solid design culture is extremely hard - in my experience having worked professionally as a designer and engineer, much more so than a solid engineering culture (which is already insanely hard). There’s a reason only a handful of organizations in the world succeed at both. I spent time volunteering for Gnome many years ago (2.x days), and it was extremely hard there, even though it had a reputation for being one of the most designer friendly open source projects. It was a struggle to push for design considerations with obvious benefits such as accessibility - let alone anything remotely resembling aesthetics. The issue with open source is that ultimately, the project maintainers tend to be programmers with programmers’ priorities and views on design. Good design requires consistent, thoughtful sacrifice and compromise, and someone at the top to enforce it. If the open source UI squad makes recommendations that the Gimp maintainers choose to ignore, then what?

TuringNYC 9y ago
Perhaps having "skins" capabilities would allow the best of both worlds...though it might end up like WinAmp with thousands of unuseably designed yet popular skins.
- wiz21c 9y ago
  I'm afraid it goes deeper than that. For example, you could decide to move some functionality from a sidebar to a context menu. this implies reprogramming the interface very differently; a skin can't do that. This also implies prototyping a lot. So basically the designer and the coder have to sit together quite a lot, that's not easy when you communicate via internet.

gsich 9y ago

(UI) Designers don't want to work for free. This is more or less the observation I made in regards for Open Source software. Having some side projects or helping OSS is somewhat expected from a programmer. From other professions not so much.

themodelplumber 9y ago
I did some free UI design for a game I found on the Pygame site a while back. At the time I was gainfully employed as a graphic designer, UI designer, and illustrator. The artwork was gratefully received and I had a fun time working with the software developer. Here's what I think made it go well: - High visibility: The game was featured in the website sidebar. So I thought it'd be neat to contribute. - Easy as HTML: Extract game zip file, edit Python files in a text editor, plug in my own filenames instead of the default ones. Start game, see my graphics. - Developer was very open and friendly. Just an IT guy with a hobby. - I knew about the Pygame website already because I followed FOSS stuff. I don't know how many UI designers are browsing sites like that, but my guess is not many. But imagine if they did: what are the chances their workflow would be as easy as it was for me? In a compiled language, forget it. I remember a few years back when suddenly it seemed like everything was on GitHub. My UI designer peers _hated_ this and many still do. So it's far from inviting in many ways for a UI person, though I don't mean to suggest they couldn't hack it if they wanted to.
- chao- 9y ago
  > ...suddenly it seemed like everything was on GitHub. My UI designer peers _hated_ this and many still do. What about it do they hate? I ask as a non-designer, to whom their perspective may be foreign.
  - untog 9y ago
    Github is a code management tool, so it isn’t too surprising that designers aren’t fond of it. Imagine code diffs, but for visual designs instead. Showing you which palette colors have changed, which margins have been tweaked etc. - Github doesn’t do any of that.

TheTruestKyle 9y ago

I would help

osrec 9y ago

Funnily enough, I'm in the process of assembling a team to do just this! As a way of giving back to the open source community (which has given my company a great deal over the years), I'll be asking all my devs to spend a paid week per year contributing UI improvements to open source software.

ericdykstra 9y ago

Good UI is overrated in utility apps. Audacity, for the people who use it, use it very frequently. It's a powerful tool with a specific purpose. The initial few minutes of confusing UI are trounced by the hundreds of hours people spend in the program after they have all the UI and keyboard shortcuts memorized. Could it be better? Yes. Should it be a priority? Nah.

andai 9y ago
What should the priority be?
- jhasse 9y ago
  Fixing bugs and adding important features.
pastelsky 9y ago
If you're talking about tech folks, then maybe yes, but I see a lot of popular appeal for such tools comes from ease of use. My assumption is that a lot of designers would reject a tool like GIMP / Inkscape because it appears "clunky" and rather pick paid alternatives Sketch / Photoshop instead.
- jhasse 9y ago
  I think GIMP could have the best GUI in the world and still no designer would use it since it lacks non-destructive editing.

narag 9y ago

iconography, spacing, using the right widget controls etc. I've used Audacity for simple stuff but for a long time. IMHO it's very convienent. I don't dispute it could be prettier, but usability is good.