[Sigia-l] UI for the $150 Laptop (OLPC)

[Celeste 'seele' Paul]

On Wednesday 29 November 2006 22:42, Ziya Oz wrote:
> Celeste 'seele' Paul:
> > Then you will most likely fail successfully contributing design advice to
> > an open source project.
>
> I'll try this one more time: I do NOT want to fix OSS design problems by
> joining it.

Then let me clarify since we are going in circles: you have no interest in 
fixing OSS design problems, period?  Your initial message about the Laptop 
had indicated otherwise, hence my responses to this discussion.  If you've 
changed your position then youre just talking to yourself and I'm wasting my 
time.

You go on and on about your right as a design to critique and blah blah blah, 
and sure, you can do whatever you want.  Your (apparent) original intention 
was to do something about it, which requires some kind of interpersonal 
skills and interest/commitment to the project. Thats just the way things 
work.  You want something to happen you have to get invovled.  I dont know 
how that is any different from anything else in the world.

A friendly developer who might not know so much but has good intentions about 
user-centered design is 100x more valuable and will get 10x more done than a 
hot shot designer who thinks hes the coolest thing since Ajax.

> The state of OSS UI/UX speaks for itself.

Who are you trying to kid? You say that as if computer technology in general 
has always had model design. Look at the Desktop, computer applications, or 
the WWW ten years ago and tell me how great and wonderful their UI/UX was.  
You imply the design of most industy products is at some model level, which I 
find a bit delusional.  

The state is the way it is because there are no well meaning designers who 
want to participate.  It began as a hacker community and it is still viewed 
that way.  Only recently (in the past 5 years) had it warrented enough 
attention to get a few talented visual artists to "pretty" it up.

OSS cares about users but in a different way.  It isn't like we dont care 
about UI/UX/whateverbuzzwordyouthrowinthere, we just don't have enough 
designers to go around fixing the world.  Hundreds and thousands of designers 
have been working on industry products over the past ten years.  OSS has had 
a hundred at most.  If we had a fraction of the number of developers as 
designers, we would be singing a different tune. But we don't, and we make do 
with what we have to try and provide the best experience and ui as we can for 
those who want an alternative to all those industry products.

> If anything, this exchange illustrates once again the knee-jerk OSS
> reaction to the design community I cited in my original post: "either join
> us or stop blabbing on."

You would get that reaction from any project you gave a critique for, not just 
OSS.  Or else maybe you would get a /ignore.



-- 
Celeste 'seele' Paul
www.obso1337.org