Archives for the month of: March, 2010

Target Your Art

March 23, 2010 //
1

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.

Tags
Categories design, graphics, life, linux

What Ubuntu’s Design Team Needs to Do

March 19, 2010 //
6

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.

Tags
Categories design, linux, technology, web

The Benefits of a Thicker Skin

March 16, 2010 //
3

David Airey recently asked the question as to whether an all-positive feedback style system is better for design learning than the more typical critical appraisal. I think this question begs to be asked and discussed more in our libre corner of the design world.

While I make no attempt to be all-knowing or all-seeing, it seems to me that we in the libre end of design are pretty much all-positive all-the-time. I think this hurts us. Now, I’m not talking in the sense of beginner skill-building. I don’t for example think it’s at all useful to say “Hey Mr. Newbie Artist, that first attempt sucks, go home” - I’ve created enough suckage in my short time here to have left long ago if that were the case - However, when we’re talking about the more mature stages of design, and trying to push things ahead, I think a sharp tongued honest appraisal beats a syrupy praise-fest any day of the week.

How many times have you read something like “if you’ve got nothing positive to say, don’t say it at all.”? Or even more likely, “if you don’t like it, shut up or show something better”. Both aggravating and both missing the point. I think we have to grow some thicker skin and learn to pluck the wisdom where it presents itself, whether it comes served on a silver platter or as a quick swat across the chops.

I’ve been lucky over the past year or so to have someone who feels fairly free (I can only guess at this really) to tell me when he thinks what I’m doing sucks. There are a few reasons I think I’m lucky:

1. I respect the person, his work, his experience and knowledge.
2. I value, in fact, depend on his honesty when it comes to criticizing my work.
3. He is able to tell me why he thinks it sucks. It could be total bullshit in my mind, but it’s important he tells me his thought process.

You’re lucky if you’re faced with all three. However I’m pretty sure everyone who has ever created anything and made it public either has met up with, or will meet up with criticism and none of the above. Even faced with that, strive to pick up something of value from it. But heck, if it’s not there, it’s not there.

I’ve also come to realize a few things:

1. Praise feels good, but doesn’t help you progress much.

2. Getting criticized can hurt. But taken in the right frame of mind, it can push you ahead and make you think. Regardless of whether you change anything or not, it is valuable to think.

3. It’s your art, your design. You don’t have to pay attention to any of it. Though if you’re eager to learn and progress like me, you will.

I think we need more honest valuable criticism in libre design. If it can be bathed in sweetness and light, then great. But I think at this point beggars can’t be choosers. Give your criticism honestly. Make it valuable. And if you’re on the receiving end, fight off that urge to launch into defense mode, explore a little first. Get a discussion going. It will either improve your work or force you to figure out more specifically why you’re happy with it the way it is. There’s no downside to that is there?

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Categories Uncategorized

Ubuntu Rebranded

March 4, 2010 //
21

Ubuntu has revealed its new brand identity, and apparently it’s driven by the theme “light”. My initial thoughts are that while almost any step is likely a good one, I’m not overly enthusiastic about it. Maybe, and hopefully, that will change.

Perhaps the first point I’d make is that while Ubuntu has never really committed to a specific audience (other than ‘everyone’), at least the “Linux for Human Beings” tagline gave a shred of something to shoot for. With the new identity apparently being inspired by the theme “light”, I’m even less confident they’re looking for a specific audience. We’ve steered away from humans and turned toward the abstract concept of light. I’d be glad for someone to spell out exactly what this means in terms of audience.

Onto one man’s brief appraisal of the work:

The new wordmark:

The typeface is significantly nicer than in the original noodlefont wordmark.  It’s modern, with a nice big x-height, I can’t help but think it’s in the netherworld between something lightweight and something heavy. I think a thinner, lighter font would have served it better. It’s not unattractive, but not inspiring or committed either. People who know much more than me about type seem to cautiously approve.

The logo - ahh.. the logo. I feel that the encasing circle weakens it. At that size I can understand why they would need to circle in order to make the placement next to the wordmark work better. But it’s a bit player now. It gives off the smell of  ’afterthought’ to me.

Like the aforementioned Jay, I think the spreadubuntu image unfortunately hits home illustrating exactly how bad the initial typeface actually was:

It’s almost as if they wanted to spell out what a big improvement this was. If nothing else, the spreadubuntu logo does just that.

The Colours:

While the colours on the branding identity page are inconsistent (Jay does a great job of showcasing this btw), I think they’re still unique and likely to be ridiculed en masse by the same people who ridiculed the brown. This is not a bad thing. I think the new colours could be used to good effect. I’m sincerely glad it’s not blue - not because I personally hate blue, but because the new tones are unique and provide a far easier avenue to differentiate the identity.

The Window Decorations:

Moving the window decorations to the top left will undoubtedly (and not entirely unjustly) make people scream Apple Copycats!

But they will quickly see that it’s a poorly executed copy at that. Besides the spacing issue, the button trough and buttons themselves are heavy handed and something reminiscent of a theme you’d see on wincustomize.com. The buttons are inconsistent in look as well, which is hard to understand. And where is the lightness? Perhaps if losing the trough is a no-go, then scalloping it between buttons would be a band aid. Still, the uniqueness and execution of the decorations in the current Karmic Dust theme is miles ahead in my mind:

The Bootsplash:

The bootsplash screen is in my mind, no better or worse than the current one. However for me, it’s all in the transition to the desktop. The bootsplash does however reinforce my belief that the logo treatment (circled superscript) doesn’t work well. Again there’s nothing that says ‘lightness’ to me. Maybe the actual bootsplash in action will change my tune. I still think the progress bar motif is uninspired. Troy’s wonderful boot animatic shows a completely unique and inventive alternative to the standard horizontal progress bar. Are finger’s getting cut off for reaching too far afield here?

The Web Identity:

As others have noted, perhaps the new look website is the biggest positive to be had out of this whole thing:

It’s not all positive, but if ‘lightness’ is somehow your mantra, then the site mockup serves it better than anything else I’ve covered here. It’s far from unique, but it’s a big improvement. It’s a lot more ‘serious’ feeling whatever that means.

You’ve got to wonder though that if you’re consistently told what you’ve done is a huge improvement over your current work, you walk away thinking you’ve either made big strides, or your initial work was tremendously shit. Personally I think it’s a bit of both. It’s an improvement, but there is a long long way to go.

Assorted Gripes and Pessimism:

Other than the window decorations, I’ve steered away from commenting on the Gtk related stuff itself. I’m becoming more and more worried about the rounded-rectangle, grey gradient, tango-esque, big-ass padding and even bigger-ass button style that is predominating our little end of UI design lately. That’s a whole series of blog posts unto itself. As the weeks and months roll by, I can’t help but think sometimes that we’re standing here patting ourselves on the back [**], cranking out cartoonish window decorations, and even more cartoonish icons when the big lumbering giant is doing completely different things with UI design. While we’re busy re-working what we already have with no clear goal, I’m afraid we’ll wake up next year with our hands full of all this stuff while the others have simply moved onward and upward.

Sorry to end in a flurry of pessimism, but we need inspiring design to beat the big boys. This re-branding doesn’t show much sign of that.

** For those that may have trouble following along. This is a link to a post that has a series of photos about Gnome UX Hackfest 2010. (It is not the official page for the event - which is here). Indeed there are a series of blog posts there describing the happenings at Gnome UX Hackfest. Please go there and read the series of posts if you’re interested. Make up your own mind about how you think Gnome UI design is going. If you disagree with me, please PLEASE post about it. You can even link back to me and call me an idiot. I really don’t care. I’m pretty sure the people who read my blog can follow links and have their own opinion. Several people in the comments to this post apparently do not, so I added this little note to spell things out.

Tags
Categories design, linux