[Sugar-devel] Design Aesthetic (was Performance issues on XO 1 (Re: TamTamMini))

[Manuel Quiñones]

2013/11/19 Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com>:
> Renaming an off-topic fork of the thread.
>
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 12:45 PM, Daniel Narvaez <dwnarvaez at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 19 November 2013 07:08, Sebastian Silva <sebastian at fuentelibre.org>
>> wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> A platform is about the applications available to it. Sugar in my opinion
>>> has issues here as well. I tend to concur with Flavio that some aesthetics
>>> rework wouldn't hurt either. For what it's worth I always found interesting
>>> what the advertising firm that worked on Sugar published in their website:
>>> http://new.pentagram.com/2006/12/new-work-one-laptop-per-child/
>>>
>>> On the topic of aesthetics, it's interesting to see what even happens with
>>> adding a compositor (in metacity's gconf key) and changing some colors in
>>> style.py
>>> I recently noticed that in ancient versions (pre 0.82) the Journal items
>>> were separated with a thin line. This helped readability and gave the sense
>>> that each line was an object.
>>>
>>> Maybe I just went off topic (again) but now that we are sharing...
>>
>>
>> There would be a lot to discuss about UX but honestly until we figure out
>> how to work together I don't feel much like going on that topic. We are
>> unlikely to find common ground on something that complex if we can't even
>> sync on basic profiling (I'm referring to the rest of the thread, not to
>> this email).
>>
>> And even if we had productive discussion we would not have resources to
>> implement the changes. IMO there are some resources but they are too
>> dispersed because we are unable to work together.
>>
>
> Pentagram is not an advertising firm. They are one of the premiere
> graphic-design companies in the world. That said, nothing in the
> article that Sebastian linked to seems to jump out. What do you find
> interesting about it?
>
> Regarding aesthetics, Flavio and I have had numerous discussions since
> his post. It is a difficult area to reach consensus, but the argument
> that I made (even with {Pentagram when we were first designing Sugar)
> was that we should keep things simple and minimal -- not to impose a
> "Swiss aesthetic", but to leave room for each Sugar user to create
> their own look and feel. Of course, we have only recently been able to
> include tools to facilitate customization of the interface (made
> easier in my opinion in GTK3). Our users added patches to set the
> background screen, change the icons, etc. If we are going to invest
> resources in this area, I suggest we continue down the path of
> enabling Sugar to be an expression of the end-user's aesthetic, rather
> than that of a designer at Pentagram or anywhere else.

I can only add that Sugar pioneered the current trend.  Monochrome
icons appeared everywhere because they favour meaning, like traffic
signals do.  See Windows 8, Android, Twitter Bootstrap, IOS7.  Flat
design is replacing skeuomorphism in UIs too, because it favors
content.  So adding shiny gradients and shadows will be a step back.

That said, I think Sugar aesthetic can be greatly improved with subtle
changes.  A UI that favors simplicity needs to be well thought.  For
example, the line to separate the rows in the Journal that Sebastian
mentioned.  This is a very small and obvious change, so I hope people
get involved and speak loud instead of using a many years old Sugar
just because of this.

-- 
.. manuq ..