obso1337.org

I have created a page for HIG Questions on TechBase to collect questions/requests for the KDE4 HIG and so I don’t lose any more good questions or requests for guideline. Any time you have a question about a guideline which does not exist or is missing information, please add it to the list and email the KDE-Usability Mailing List to discuss. A lot of content just doesn’t exist anywhere but in our (mine and Ellen’s) heads and bringing it up helps us identify what is important/useful/needed and needs to be documented first. We will have two interns during the OpenUsability Season of Usability and will be working in earnest on the HIG.

seele :: Apr.30.2008 :: Design, General, KDE/Kubuntu :: 3 Comments »

I can’t believe how long it took us to move. Since the Saturday before last, we’ve been taking a few boxes after work every night to the new place. Last Saturday we had movers help with all the furniture. The first dozen boxes were books and computer gear (even after donating half a ton of books and several old computers). There’s nothing like moving to get much needed spring cleaning done. To be fair, we have a house full of furniture etc., but I still have more “stuff” than I wish I had. Oh, and it is so awesome to have a balcony again.

So now that the network is back up and I have my electric kettle and tea box, I can get back to open source work. Between the sketchy ‘net connection, moving boxes, and abnormal buzziness with the Day Job, I haven’t had much time to pay attention to mailing lists or IRC (which reminds me, I think I owe a few people an email). I have three unfinished blog entries and need to continue working on KDE User Research Profiles. I know Okular has been working on their user profile the past few weeks and I want to put some cycles in to helping them out. Projects get ready, because I will resume calling out for completing user research profiles again next week. There were also those KGrubEditor wireframes I was working on for Artemis_Fowl…

Over the past month or so I’ve managed to get through the first two Hitchhiker’s books (Background: I had only ever read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and am now working through the rest of the series), but I’m losing momentum near the end of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Sure, it’s still funny, but it doesn’t seem to have the same substance as the first two books. I have about 10 more pages before I move on to So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. We’ll see how it goes. (I also have some more Gaiman and Peake to read afterwards).

We also took a break last Friday to go celebrate the Hardy release with fellow Maryland LoCoers. After the UDS in May, I will be focusing on ways to get the LoCo community involved in usability testing (in more ways than just acting as participants in tests).

seele :: Apr.29.2008 :: Book List, General, Life, Open Source :: 4 Comments »

Last night I went to watch a usability test session of Drupal (with eyetracking!). It is a group project my summer intern is involved with for her Research Methods class. She invited me to observe since she knew I am involved in open source. It’s nice to see design students becoming more aware and more interested in open source software. We even received a few SoU applications from students at my alma mater.

… now to finish writing about use cases and scenarios.

seele :: Apr.23.2008 :: Asides, Usability :: Comments Off

I’ve been spending some time the past few days reviewing applications for the KDE4 HIG and KOffice Toolbox/Palette projects Ellen and I are co-mentoring for the 2008 Season of Usability. There are so many more applicants this year and many of them are very good. It will be hard choosing only 3 (2 for the KDE4, and 1 for KOffice). Good luck to all the students!

seele :: Apr.17.2008 :: General, Open Source, Usability :: 2 Comments »

As Tokamak closes this week, Aaron reports on their serious discussion about Plasma users. Also, Okular is slowly, but surely, working on defining some use cases. Both Pino and Aurelien have asked questions about use scenarios, which remind me that I should probably do a write up about the differences between use scenarios and use cases very soon.

Rather than name another project to get started on their user research profiles, I will work with Okular and make writing about use scenarios/cases my homework for this week.

seele :: Apr.15.2008 :: Asides, KDE/Kubuntu, Usability :: Comments Off