Re: The Common Printing Dialog and PDF as standard print job format for GTK/GNOME applications

[peter sikking]

Ghee wrote:

> P.S. Would you or any of the GSOC going to GAUDEC 2008 in Istabul in  
> July 7th-12th?
> I have a BOF on 
> http://guadec.expectnation.com/guadec08/public/schedule/detail/15
> We could have more discussion after that in Print Dialog :)

I will be a the guadec on the 10-12th, and present about the dialog
on the 10th.

 --ps

 founder + principal interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



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Re: printing dialog update...

[peter sikking]

Hey Sean,

third time lucky.

> I've said it before on your blog, and I'll say it again:
>
> The drop-down for printer selection WILL NOT WORK!

there is no need to shout.

 From working on this project with the pros from the printer
manufacturers, I know that there are organisations where all
worldwide printers live in the same network zone. That is
10.000 (or was it 100.000) printers.

That pop-up list will contain the printers that are installed,
not all the ones on the network.

The (currently giant mess of) installation of printers will be
dealt with in the next phase of the project, including using
using different printers every day:



> The tags that look like links but aren't are still funny looking, too.
> There has to be a better way to do that which doesn't trample
> established UI expectations.

The tags need some polish, sure.

> The example preview widget is useless in so many cases.  Anyone doing
> booklet printing or many other kinds of professional publishing  
> drafting
> needs to be able to see side-by-side pages.

I did remind us all in the last blog entry that the print dialog
shown there is for general inkjet. The one for high volume printers
with booklet making will be dealt with later. One size does not fit all.

> Now, that's my comments and the minor things wrong with the design.
> There's more to it than that, though.  The whole approach is just  
> wrong.
> The idea of letting the printer manufacturers decide _anything_ about
> the UI is just terrifying.

But they do already at the moment. They fill tabs with options.
They decide whether a dialog is the one for a general inkjet or
a high volume machine. So what's new?

> LWe don't need those people deciding what tags and
> option sets to stuff into the UI

I say in general that engineers should not take
user interaction decisions, yeah.

> Instead of just stuffing a bunch of tags into the UI, why not come up
> with an actual user-study-based idea of what 90% of users need to do,
> come up with a solid (and tested) UI for them, and then add in an easy
> way to access the extra tags/options for users that need the extra
> printer control?

With user centred design is how the usability professionals in my team
started last year spring at the openPrinting Atlanta summit.

That came to a grinding halt when they realised that there are
5,000,000 use cases (no joke). Printing is generic infrastructure.

That's when they got me involved, to solve it architecturally.

We will use usability surveys to decide on the tags.
We will use usability tests to validate every bit of our design.

And that will terminate endless discussions with engineers whether
this new approach is going to work.

> Let some actual UI designers figure out how to deal
> with the WHOLE printing config process,

hey, that's me and my team. thanks for the support.

And for the rest. My team will design complete solutions for
the seven printer clusters:



I can only cajole printer manufacturers into working with interaction
and usability professionals when doing their own dialog config.

If they don't, and that will happen, the engineering types will
work as usual. They will start with one of the seven designs,
take it as the word of god, and change as little as possible,
in order 'not to break it.'

Fine, suits me.

 --ps

 principal user interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



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printing dialog update...

[peter sikking]

Hi all,

I did a complete redesign of the dialog.

teaser:

"How does the interaction architect that designs the dialog for
a certain printer model stay in control of good UI, without
being at the mercy of an algorithm or of the developer?
Here is how it works:"

read all about it:



 --ps

 principal user interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



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printing dialogs /2

[peter sikking]

Hi all,

a second round of openPrinting dialog design, to get you all exited.

teaser:

"...this led me to take printer selection and tags out of the content
of the dialog and make them part of the frame of the dialog."

read all about it:



 --ps

 principal user interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



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Re: openPrinting + the dialog...

[peter sikking]

Matthias Clasen wrote:

> What future versions of the printing dialog ? We have one now, and  
> I don't see
> hordes of volunteers who are eager to rewrite it...

Well, I was not proposing to rewrite the current one again.

I was also not proposing to write yet-another-printing-dialog,
that is part of the has-not-seen-innovation-since-1995 class
of printer dialogs as seen on any platform, except the mac.

That would be incredibly boring, and I would not volunteer to
be interaction architect on that project.

I am asking you to help the openPrinting project to reach the
following situation:

In a couple of years a 500.000 people company or organisation
is contemplating to move all their desktop systems to linux.
The question comes up: so does printing work, sort-of?
The answer: well, both technically and in user experience
linux is the most advanced platform on the market.

The current situation is a deal-breaker, ask any printer company.

It also does not need to be finished next month. It is gonna
take a year or more to roll this out. I just want to get started
with one or two of you to work on discussing how to realise our
innovative UI, the GNOME way. So that by the end of this year we
can have UI specifications ready for gtk.

I am counting on you guys,

 --ps

 principal user interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



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openPrinting + the dialog...

[peter sikking]

Hi all,

I am an interaction architect and active in the openUsability scene.

Some of you know me from my work on GIMP, see:



Others I have met at the last linuxTag. Hello again.

The reason I chime in here is the openPrinting project.
The goal of this project is to bring "printing that just works"
to every linux desktop. The project has wall–to–wall support of
printing manufacturers, linux distros and dektop platforms.

Some of you may know this project, Larry Ewing presented the
gtk printing dialog spring last year to the openPrinting summit
in Atlanta.

OpenUsability is also involved with this project, that means that
professional usability experts and interaction architects are
giving user interaction in the printing workflow a fresh look in
a structural way.

I am leading the interaction architecture side. Currently we are
concentrating on print dialogs, the printer installation side will
be dealt with later on in the project.

Here is in my blog the progress we have made up to now, in reverse
chronological order:



Now that we have mock-ups to show of the new concepts we are introducing
in the printing dialog, it is the right time to start working with
the UI toolkits like gtk on moving towards implementation.

I would like to get in touch with those of you who work(ed) on
the gtk print dialog, to ramp up a cooperation.

look forward to working with you guys,

 --ps

 principal user interaction architect
 man + machine interface works

 http://mmiworks.net/blog : on interaction architecture



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