5 ms·

As much as I love free software, LibreOffice interface feels old and ugly (to me, at least). It would be nice if there was more focus on the UX/UI design in ope

As much as I love free software, LibreOffice interface feels old and ugly (to me, at least). It would be nice if there was more focus on the UX/UI design in open source projects. Of course, most programmers are not UX/UI designers, and designers don't tend to work for free on open source projects.

Mekantis 6y ago
There's also the question of how open open source programmers might be to some UX/UI designer stepping in and trying to force their vision on the project.
pulse7 6y ago
Beauty/ugliness is subjective. For some it is "old and ugly", for some it is "retro".
- maxmouchet 6y ago
  I agree, and programmers (at least on HN) seems to prefer minimalist and/or retro interfaces. However I'm pretty confident that if I show such an interface to non technical people, they will feel that it doesn't look nice, compared to whatever proprietary app they use on their phone, Windows/Mac, ... I personally don't use Word nor LibreOffice (I use mostly LaTeX), but if we want free software to become more popular, there must be a focus on the design.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    I don't care how ugly it is. I care about how quickly people can get their work done. The ribbon is better for this because the things most often used are right there and easy to find. Sure rarely used stuff takes longer, but that is a good trade off.
    - stefankeys 6y ago
      Is there some way to move stuff in word so that it is more accessible. Just wondering.
      - nxc18 6y ago
        Yes, since ages ago the ribbon is customizable. You can create a new tab with exactly what you want in it. There is also a search feature now, so its not like you need to know where rarely-used things are.
  - phaemon 6y ago
    Well, the head of the design team is Heiko Tietze. His PhD is in Psychology and he's worked at various companies as UX designer/lead. So, why you'd you contact him and tell him where he's going wrong? I'm sure he'd value your insight and guidance.
  - ByteJockey 6y ago
    I don't personally mind people putting in a fancy ui, put whatever ui you want on it. Just also give me keybindings and let me hide whatever ui you make.
mhd 6y ago
On the other hand, professional UX/UI office software designers came up with the ribbon.
unglaublich 6y ago
No... the problem with desktop software is that creating a good UI/UX is a hard software problem typically solved by software developers instead of designers. Whereas, the accessibility and power of web technologies show that making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Your first point is correct, but as a ux designer (not what I do, but it is in my background), most web ui is terrible. It is done by designers, but they obviously have a background in art not user machine interaction and it shows. Once the page loads (takes too long Turing off users) it looks nice, but try getting anything done.
- ubercow13 6y ago
  >making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI I find this a bit questionable. What are some examples of this good UX and UI? Many HTML-ish UIs I can think of are not good. Slack, Discord, modern Windows apps such as the new settings app for example. They tend to suffer from poor reimplementations of native widget functionality, poor implementations of scrollable elements especially infinitely scrollable ones, low information density and too much whitespace often exacerbated by flat design, janky responsiveness often with high latency.
  - unglaublich 6y ago
    Apart from the remarks about flat design, whitespace and information-density, which are very personal imho, I would say Google Drive, Google Docs, Microsoft Office Online, GitHub source code editor, Visual Studio code, Atom, all do a good job.
    - jiggunjer 6y ago
      Good job? Maybe on a beefy first-world computer. The UX goes down the drain if you try to run a few of those apps at once.
HeckFeck 6y ago
I find it reasonably straightforward to use. I can find most things easily in the submenus. Though I'm on the side of classic menus in the infamous ribbon dispute.
jventura 6y ago
LibreOffice interface feels familiar (to me, at least), and I fell productive with it. My only complain is that the application itself is quite heavy and takes quite some time to start in my Macboook (late 2013)..
ubercow13 6y ago
LibreOffice has a ribbon!
- UncleSlacky 6y ago
  Yes, unlike Microsoft they offer you a choice of interface. I'm sure if MS had done the same there wouldn't be nearly as many complaints.
- staticvoidmaine 6y ago
  Thank you so much for saying this. I had no idea until I read your comment and immediately opened the view menu. I am blown away I didn’t know about this after over 10 years of using LO...
- agentdrtran 6y ago
  It's still pretty ugly and doesn't work as well as the office version, though.
grandinj 6y ago
(LO Dev) We actually have quite an active ui-design sub-group, which tries it's best to refresh the look and feel. Feel free to join in :-)

Mekantis 6y ago

There's also the question of how open open source programmers might be to some UX/UI designer stepping in and trying to force their vision on the project.

pulse7 6y ago

Beauty/ugliness is subjective. For some it is "old and ugly", for some it is "retro".

maxmouchet 6y ago
I agree, and programmers (at least on HN) seems to prefer minimalist and/or retro interfaces. However I'm pretty confident that if I show such an interface to non technical people, they will feel that it doesn't look nice, compared to whatever proprietary app they use on their phone, Windows/Mac, ... I personally don't use Word nor LibreOffice (I use mostly LaTeX), but if we want free software to become more popular, there must be a focus on the design.
- bluGill 6y ago
  I don't care how ugly it is. I care about how quickly people can get their work done. The ribbon is better for this because the things most often used are right there and easy to find. Sure rarely used stuff takes longer, but that is a good trade off.
  - stefankeys 6y ago
    Is there some way to move stuff in word so that it is more accessible. Just wondering.
    - nxc18 6y ago
      Yes, since ages ago the ribbon is customizable. You can create a new tab with exactly what you want in it. There is also a search feature now, so its not like you need to know where rarely-used things are.
- phaemon 6y ago
  Well, the head of the design team is Heiko Tietze. His PhD is in Psychology and he's worked at various companies as UX designer/lead. So, why you'd you contact him and tell him where he's going wrong? I'm sure he'd value your insight and guidance.
- ByteJockey 6y ago
  I don't personally mind people putting in a fancy ui, put whatever ui you want on it. Just also give me keybindings and let me hide whatever ui you make.

mhd 6y ago

On the other hand, professional UX/UI office software designers came up with the ribbon.

unglaublich 6y ago

No... the problem with desktop software is that creating a good UI/UX is a hard software problem typically solved by software developers instead of designers. Whereas, the accessibility and power of web technologies show that making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI.

bluGill 6y ago
Your first point is correct, but as a ux designer (not what I do, but it is in my background), most web ui is terrible. It is done by designers, but they obviously have a background in art not user machine interaction and it shows. Once the page loads (takes too long Turing off users) it looks nice, but try getting anything done.
ubercow13 6y ago
>making UI/UX an easier software problem (HTML, CSS, JS) automatically attracts more designers yielding better UX/UI I find this a bit questionable. What are some examples of this good UX and UI? Many HTML-ish UIs I can think of are not good. Slack, Discord, modern Windows apps such as the new settings app for example. They tend to suffer from poor reimplementations of native widget functionality, poor implementations of scrollable elements especially infinitely scrollable ones, low information density and too much whitespace often exacerbated by flat design, janky responsiveness often with high latency.
- unglaublich 6y ago
  Apart from the remarks about flat design, whitespace and information-density, which are very personal imho, I would say Google Drive, Google Docs, Microsoft Office Online, GitHub source code editor, Visual Studio code, Atom, all do a good job.
  - jiggunjer 6y ago
    Good job? Maybe on a beefy first-world computer. The UX goes down the drain if you try to run a few of those apps at once.

HeckFeck 6y ago

I find it reasonably straightforward to use. I can find most things easily in the submenus. Though I'm on the side of classic menus in the infamous ribbon dispute.

jventura 6y ago

LibreOffice interface feels familiar (to me, at least), and I fell productive with it. My only complain is that the application itself is quite heavy and takes quite some time to start in my Macboook (late 2013)..

ubercow13 6y ago

LibreOffice has a ribbon!

UncleSlacky 6y ago
Yes, unlike Microsoft they offer you a choice of interface. I'm sure if MS had done the same there wouldn't be nearly as many complaints.
staticvoidmaine 6y ago
Thank you so much for saying this. I had no idea until I read your comment and immediately opened the view menu. I am blown away I didn’t know about this after over 10 years of using LO...
agentdrtran 6y ago
It's still pretty ugly and doesn't work as well as the office version, though.

grandinj 6y ago

(LO Dev) We actually have quite an active ui-design sub-group, which tries it's best to refresh the look and feel. Feel free to join in :-)