Iterative design. It's a relatively simple process. You come up with an idea, then have a go at it. Analyze it, test it, figure out what's wrong with it, and if you're lucky, how you might make it better. Then you refine it, circle back, and carry on the cycle.

Iterative design is not throwing up 150 ideas and picking what you think is the best one. And it's not simply about adding new things (actually, many iterative steps may involve removing things). Good iterative design should involve thoughtful, considered analysis and judgement - not a straw poll of features getting voted up and down a list.

Every suggested change should be backed up with a good reason. What am I trying to accomplish? What is this piece attempting to do? Is there a statement that it's making? Does the thing I'm adding (or the thing I just added) contribute to that or take away from it? There are a dizzying array of questions you can ask during the design process. It can get daunting. Quickly.

In the Libre Software world we seem to be able to incorporate the iterative process into software development rather comfortably. When a new search routine is required for some functionality in a program, does the team canvas its members for multiple complete working prototypes and then choose one to use? I would think they'd take some sort of working prototype and then begin the iterative process refining and improving it. Why don't we do that with things like visual design more often?

There seem to be a lot of people (in the circles I run in anyway) that are none too happy with what Ubuntu seems to be doing lately. And while I don't agree with every design decision they're making, I do respect the fact that they seem to have chosen a path and are proceeding to refine it.

Yes. It would be nice if the starting point of that path was happily decided by everyone and his uncle. But that's simply not practical. Not everyone gets a say in that starting point. The tenets of Free Software do not guarantee you that - thankfully.

So what about the power of community? Where does it play in here?

We need to up our game when it comes to the thoughtful, considered analysis. We need to provide, discuss and discover the reasoning behind our analysis of things. We need to demand a statement of audience and then do our best to plunk ourselves into the shoes of that audience when formulating our analysis and criticism. Without an accepted target audience we're just shouting about how "We" don't like feature XYZ or "We" don't like the look of dialog XYZ. Knowing audience you can step back and remove a great deal of personal emotion from the analysis. I think this sort of ethos, even in specific projects can lift all Libre boats design-wise.

Perhaps you would step back and discover that Ubuntu is NOT targeting you. Maybe Ubuntu is NOT designed for me. I don't know their target audience (but I wish they'd tell me). However that doesn't mean they don't need all the valuable, thoughtful criticism they can get.

I think we need a better way of getting involved in the analysis part of the cycle. Not everyone can do the refining, not everyone can do the prototyping. But let's not ignore the considered analysis part of this. There needs to be better tools or a better system for seeking out that sort of analysis, and making use of it.

The Real Question

The question is, are you interested enough in the success of Libre Software to find out you're not the target of a given project and still provide that considered, reasoned analysis so crucial to the iterative design process? If so, speak up and let's start raising the tide.

While you should feel free to comment here, I highly recommend you bring your comments over to Librescope. We're trying to build a community of people interested in discussing Floss design over there.

Very proud of the way my daughter is playing soccer these days. No lack of effort for sure. I shot a couple of clips the other night with my Canon 7D using my 75-300 lens and edited them up quickly using Blender 2.5. The original was shot at 1280x720 at 60fps in manual mode with an aperture setting of 1/60 (thanks to Troy for that bit of advice) and then slowed down to 24fps on output from Blender.

I'm really thinking about getting a viewfinder loupe for my camera. I always forget my reading glasses when shooting and even with that nice 3" LCD screen, focus is clearly guesswork. It wasn't too bad on most of these shots, but it can be frustrating. I've been thinking about the Zacuto Z-Finder, Lcdvf or Hoodman products to help solve this problem (note: Hoodman's site is well.. extremely jarring in terms of design. Think Geocities meets Schoolbus. You've been warned. ).

If anybody has experience with these things and how they perform, let me know.

No Lack of Hustle from Richard Querin on Vimeo.

The recent Smashing Magazine post "Designers, 'Hacks' and Professionalism: Are We Our Own Worst Enemy?" is an interesting one. I urge you to read it. It brings up several different issues but one that struck a chord with me was the whole feeling about the commoditization of design.

With sites like 99designs.com which leverage design contests and with logos coming to istockphoto.com the apparent cheapening of the graphic design profession is unrelenting. On one hand I understand the 'world going to hell in a handbasket' sort of view, but the pragmatist in me tries to step back and see how this is not unique and not at all unexpected.

There is the sentiment that any fool with some graphics software and half a brain can hang his shingle out as a "designer". Whether they will be successful or not is another matter entirely. There is also the view that design work becomes undervalued and commoditized when clients see that they can get an acceptable logo for $50.00 instead of the $1000.00 the top grade designer may want to charge. Do you want to buy your shoes at Payless or head over to Gucci? Well if the buyer can't tell the difference (which is the designer's job to describe), then hell yes I'd expect him to head over to Payless. This is not ideal, but completely expected.

It can be a difficult rationalization. Why should graphic design escape the same sort of trend as desktop publishing, journalism, writing or photography for that matter? What makes graphic designers so unique?

We have seen photography flourish as of late and yet there are still great photographers - in fact I'd say many more of them. Is the photography business as lucrative as it once was? I'd think not. Photographers have to work harder, be more creative and up their quality to survive. I find it great that so many more people are interested in photography - if I was a professional photographer I think I'd probably hate it.

And so it is with graphic design. I love the fact that design concepts start to enter the mainstream. It is no longer a black art. Sure, it would be more romantic if it was, but it's not. Is it hurting things for professional graphic designers? Sure. But again, I value the proliferation of skills over the health of an industry.

Granted I am not a professional graphic designer nor am I a professional photographer. It's easy for me to hold these views. And since I'm a shit programmer by any measure, I could just as easily say the same thing for programmers as well (and writers and desktop publishers). Progress and technology lower the bar. That enables more people to participate. I think that's a good thing, but that dilutes the market for those who've been in the pool the longest. I feel bad for them. Sincerely I do.

I am lucky in a way that in my own profession (structural engineering) there is greater liability. When I design a structure I am legally responsible for that design and its performance over the life of the building. This affords us signficantly more protection against the democratization of structural engineering (ha - now there's a far-fetched idea). This sort of liability is rarely there for software designers, and probably even more rare for graphic designers. I don't see that changing.

So where is the positive in all of this for our little FOSS corner over here? We already have a community built around voluntary contribution and knowledge sharing. We can take this time to weep about passing industries and shrinking job markets, or we can take a bunch of people who are already part of the Libre Software community and who are passionate and eager about design and teach ourselves great things so we can create even better things.

I think the first step is to admit we have a lot to learn. And perhaps we should just take that statement as fact since we may be the worst people to judge our own skill levels (as John Cleese put so well). Many would also say quite rightly that as far as design goes, Libre-land has nowhere to go but up. So let's start climbing.

Some things to chew on in no specific order:

We need to learn to provide quality criticism, how to accept it and how to use it. No more 'put up or shut up' nonsense. Listen to criticism, evaluate it, discuss it, elevate it.

We need to stop thinking we know everything about design when we clearly don't. We are smart. We can learn these things.

We need to encourage designers**, but hammer on basic design concepts. Audience, goals, colour, flow, etc.

We need to treat design seriously right from the start of our projects and stop treating it as a suit of clothes.

We need to look at the 'why' of good design going on outside of FOSS land. Why is something good? What is the concept at work? Not copying, not being unique for the sake of uniqueness. Let's try to understand the 'why' of good design and apply that.

** I am conflicted about design contests. I understand the problems with them - if you don't, I highly recommend reading this post. But I still think there needs to be a viable way for those eager to build their design skills to work on meaningful things. If you have ideas in this regard, let's hear them and get a proper discussion going.

If you've been reading this weblog for the last little while (thanks for sticking around btw) you'll know that while the posts are sporadic, as of late they've been hovering around various topics under the general umbrella of 'design'. And when you think of the Free and Open Source Software community, perhaps 'serious design discussion' isn't the first thing you'd think of - indeed it might be the last. But the libre software community is a large and varied place and I think there are in fact quite a number of people interested in 'elevating' the level of discussion about design matters in our community.

Enter librescope.com.

This site was borne out of some interesting initial ideas from Troy Sobotka and awesome execution by Jay over at kilobitspersecond. It's a place that is meant to hopefully foster the growth of art and design discussion over here in libre-software land.

Initially it is an aggregator for our feeds, and very soon as discussion hopefully builds, we will add other authors to the feed as well.

It is NOT a place for distro-cheerleading or distro-bashing. It is NOT a place for people to rant while they grind their axes.

It IS however a place for people to engage in discussion about art and design matters whether that be for Fedora, Ubuntu, KDE, Gnome or any other type of free software subject. Think passionate, engaging debate and discourse.

Comments will be moderated to ensure discussions are on-target and respectful to the members of this new community as well.

As I understand it right now (and remember this is a newborn idea at this time), there will be article writers and feed editors. Article writers will have their posts incorporated into the feed merely by adding the librescope tag to their posts. Feed editors will be able to tag relevant posts already sitting on the web that will also be aggregated on the site.

If you are interested and passionate about art and design as it relates to Libre software, and want to get involved give Jay a shout over at kilobitspersecond.

I think it best at this point to rip-off Troy Sobotka's words (they're so good it would be pointless for me to paraphrase any more than I have already):

Join us in trying to grow a little Libre coffee shop / art house / design corner of the internet over at Librescope.

Blog, dent, tweet or buzz about it and link to it to help us out. Thanks.

While recently on vacation down in Las Vegas (yes it was hot, and no I didn't win anything), I managed to pick up a copy of Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design by Michael Bierut. I have utterly enjoyed reading this book.

Not all of the essays are about design directly, and in fact you'll not find a single photo or illustration within its hardcovers. But it is chock full of great writing. And the fact that each essay is only two or three pages long has made this a perfect book for my nightstand and allows me to jump freely to and fro from essay to essay which I like.

While not necessarily an indicator of the typical tone or voice of the author throughout the book, I would be remiss if I didn't share what I think is a great passage. In essay No. 46 titled "I Hate ITC Garamond", lies this little diddy:

The most distinctive element of the typeface is its enormous lower-case x-height. In theory this improves its legibility, but only in the same way that dog poop's creamy consistency in theory should make it more edible.

Each essay is set in a unique typeface (this info is indexed in the appendix), and of course essay No.46 is set in ITC Garamond.

I'm probably 50 essays into it thus far and loving it. I highly recommend it.

ps.That cover shot was taken with my Nexus One under a halogen desk lamp with only a quick resize for posting. I am pleasantly surprised at its quality. You can click it for a slightly larger version - still not original size.

1. File compatibility

2. Lack of feedback on system behaviour

3. Use of jargon

4. Getting flash

5. Software centre

6. Adding a printer

Did you know that there is a visual identity guide for Ubuntu? I didn't. But perhaps I never looked.

It's currently at revision one, and you can find it here. It's nice to see this aspect of the design taken seriously. I wonder how many other Linux distributions have one.

There are a few things of note on the second page of the guide. It's a decent attempt at being inspirational and higher-minded, and those are not bad things in my book. Imagine that, trying to get your product to generate emotions, who-da-thunk it.

With all this whining I've been doing lately about audience and goal, I almost chuckled aloud at the last line of the first paragraph,

"We stand for the very best operating system in the world, created by the expert few for the global many."

I think the 'global many' is about as nebulous as you can get in terms of audience. And just try and tell me that 'the expert few' remark isn't going to make a large contingent of the Ubuntu 'community' howl that this is further evidence that it isn't being valued - When was the vote held on the content of this style guide anyway? Let's hope it wasn't.

Hmm.. reading along some more... what's this? Apparently the guide is meant to help people create a consistent identity that will communicate Ubuntu values. And as of revision one these values are: FREEDOM, COLLABORATIVE, PRECISE, and RELIABLE.

I'm no linguistics expert but maybe it should be Freedom, Collaboration, Precision and Reliability. And no mention of Light, or Lightness at all. The previously described concept of light doesn't seem to fit inside any of the above four. Maybe that's a value for the wordmark and logo, but not for Ubuntu itself - my head hurts.

But let's remember - revision One.

I went through the rest of it and a lot of it is spelled out quite nicely for a starting point document. I do wonder how strictly it will be followed by those outside of Ubuntu proper. There are a boatload of people out there who like to create Ubuntu-related visuals. I think a guide like this only helps them. But the "Free-means-I-can-do-whatever-the-hell-I-want" community contingent will likely spin this one off as too restrictive without thinking about the greater benefits of consistency and the potential for real, tangible forward progress.

I'm happy to see this document. With a little more focus and a well-defined [cough] audience [cough], that page Two could be a real zinger - almost dare I say it, a rallying point. Let's hope they push this out into the community - not onto.. but into. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Let it languish and it's wasted effort.

Two parts to this, not nearly as tied together as I'd like, but heck, it's been a month. First it's pretend time, then a few things to ponder.

Okay, pretend time. Let's pretend that you and I are designing a new Linux-based distro. So being good designers means that we're going to immediately try to hone in on a definition of audience and goal (right?).

Let's skip through the twenty coffee-laden, late night IRC meetings and pretend that we decided that the target audience of our distribution consists of 22-32 year old female stay-at-home moms who use laptop and desktop computers. The goal for our distribution is to provide an engaging, stable, virus-free platform which is exceptionally good at social networking and creative endeavours such as writing, photography and video editing for our target audience. (Whether that audience and goal are focused enough or well-defined enough is another matter entirely - and if you don't think it is, let's hear your ideas).

At this point, no matter how much fun it might be, we fight the urge to simply run off and design a pink logo for our new distro.

Now, you may not know me. But you'll have to simply take my word on it that I am not in fact female and nowhere near the 22-32 year old age bracket. So while I could in fact design this mythical OS myself, I would have no idea whether the design was progressing toward its goal. I would need to either get a broad cross section of the target audience working for me, or perhaps more practically, seriously research the hell out of it.

In most parts of Libre Culture land I venture to say we don't do either very well for our creative endeavours. I know that I personally don't (at least not nearly enough - though by reading, learning and writing about it I'm trying to change that.).

Perhaps even more telling is the fact that as a 42 year old male, for me to say things like "I think this distro rocks!" or "I think this distro sucks!" really means a heck of a lot less than I might think or hope it does.

So let's bring this back around to our Free Software community. Can we pay attention to the standard design practice of knowing audience and goal? After we choose an audience can we stop pretending that "we" are the audience and research the hell out of the actual audience?

Second, and perhaps more powerfully, a few questions.

It's great that so much Libre Software was built by people "Scratching Their Own Itch". It has been the driving force in building such a large army of so many smart and generous people developing so much great software.

What worries me is this: Can we rally groups of these smart people to design for an audience they are not a part of? Can we get Free Software culture to really scratch someone else's itch? If not, are we destined to results that ultimately cater, even subconsciously to the traits and desires of the developers themselves?

During this past week I was on vacation and started reading Seth Godin's latest book "Linchpin". One particular passage was very apropos to what I've been harping on about recently and I thought it would make sense to quote it here. In Linchpin, Godin defines art as a "personal gift that changes the recipient", and based on this definition, art can encompass all sorts of design work, visual or otherwise. He also states that "most of the time, most of us make our art for an audience.". He then goes on to give two reasons why it's vital to know who that audience is:

The first is that understanding your audience allows you to target your work and to get feedback that will help you do it better next time.

The other reason? Because it tells you whom to ignore.

It's impossible to make art for everyone. There are too many conflicting goals and there's far too much noise. Art for everyone is mediocre, bland and ineffective.

If you don't pinpoint your audience, you end up making your art for the loudest, crankiest critics. And that's a waste. Instead, focus on the audience that you choose, and listen to them, to the exclusion of all others. Go ahead and make this sort of customer happy, and the other guys can go pound sand.

I thought that advice was spot on for so much that goes on in libre software land. We have a tendency to want to please everybody, even when the power of Free Software is built on the concept of being able to tailor software to a specific need. By taking the risk and focusing on an audience, the result is bound to be stronger for it.

Here I go probably oversimplifying again.

There are two big problems with the design of Ubuntu (and probably most other big Linux distributions): the lack of a clear audience definition and the assumption that somehow we know what that audience wants and needs.

Clearly it's a bit silly sounding to attempt the second without knowing the first, but the danger is that we assume the first in order to do the second.

I refuse to accept "everyone" as an audience (on the grounds that it's impossible), so I'd have to say that Ubuntu lacks a publicly defined audience (please OH PLEASE prove me wrong here). I've heard many people say that Ubuntu is aimed at the person who is "new to computers". I've also heard many people say that it's aimed at "grandma", or even better, that it's aimed at the "average user" - whatever the hell that means. I've even been given a pointer to an irc log (here) that kinda sorta indicates that it's aimed at "young professionals" who are "web-saavy".. er.. but also everyone.

Even if we were to have a well-defined audience, I think we techie-Linux folks tend to make the mistake of assuming we know what that audience wants and needs. Worse still, we confuse it with what we want and need. This is all great if the target audience are techie-Linux folks. But if it's not, I fear all of our best intentions will still end up with a product aimed at ourselves. And unless that is the audience, it's a failure.

I don't doubt that there are many creatively talented people working on Ubuntu. But for the design team I think there are a few important things that need to happen:

1. Define the audience - publicly and succinctly. It ain't easy. You will alienate people. If you don't you're not defining it well enough. Don't you think BMW, Nintendo or Apple piss people off with their design work.. even within their own ranks? Aim high. Let's build a sports car or a minivan or a pickup truck. Pick one, but don't aim at designing a Porsche that can seat 8 and haul sheets of plywood. It doesn't work. It's been proven. It weakens the result when you practice scattershot design. Focus.

2. Define the goal. What are you going to accomplish for that audience? Again, document it - publicly. This gives your design team direction. It cuts down on goose chases and keeps things moving in a single (and hopefully correct) direction.

3. Be strong in your design goals, but be transparent. Please never let it be design-by-committee or consensus. You already have talented people. Do 1. and 2. and you will make those people much more efficient. But explain what you're doing and why you're doing it. Document the process in minute detail. This is the internet - it's built for this sort of thing. Don't do a complete identity rework and then have your head of design spend one single blog post defending it. This should have been explained to death. If you're proud of your design, the designers should be bursting at the seams to explain their work and convince everybody that will listen as to why it's great.

The last point requires relatively little risk and is easily accomplished however I don't expect the first two, as important as they are, to be accomplished. There is this silly notion of having to aim Ubuntu at everyone - such a fear of pissing someone off, that I don't think 1. and 2. are attainable.

I hope I'm wrong.