Hi James,
I think that this is going for the wrong path. If I remember correctly,
I've never asked for a professional designed service or have mentioned it
on any public media. Also I don't recall that any of the current Synfig
project team members has done something similar or at last, I've not
information of that. On contrary, I've just been contacted by Ilmari
Lauhakangas (I have to tell that I didn't meet Iimari previously) through a
private email telling me that you were willing to help with the UI redesign
effort.
I found that indirect and personal contact a little weird ("why James
didn't contact directly to the community on the forums or at last directly
to me? o_O") . Anyway I decided to publicly contact you exposing the
current situation. But your first reply surprised me much because it seems
that you expect from me some sort of *nomination* to be the full
responsible of the UI redesign. That's not the usual way for collaborate on
a Free Project. Responsibilities are not assigned to external
collaborators. This works on other way. Usually new coming people start by
criticizing what the project members are currently doing on a particular
area and, the most important, propose an alternative. If the alternative is
good for the project it is quickly adopted. Usually the person who
criticized the work starts to collaborate with the current team continuing
offering solutions and asking for the feed back of the community to make
his work to be incorporated to the main development line. In that moment
that new person has self nominated responsible of that task. With the time,
he becomes the leader of that area and becomes the natural consultant of
that area of the project. It's weird that you coming from Sabayon Linux
project doesn't know that already.
Those are the reason why I explained in my second email that I strongly
believe that the best practice to collaborate to Synfig is to research
about the current situation of the development and get used to the program
itself in its current design. With the information I gave you at my first
post, you could already have understand the vision that Yu Chen has
collected on his links, and understand what do we are looking for. Synfig
is not a recent project. It has a lot of codes a features that need to be
taken in consideration for the design of the user interface.
Instead of ask for a meeting with me why don't just start by proposing
alternatives? If you want to help, step in to the forums and show us there
all our weaknesses. Criticize our work! We love critics! But please show us
the right way if you, as professional, are watching that we are getting
into the wrong way. Get in contact with the professional animators from the
forums or the mailing lists! First demonstrate your skills and show us how
wrong we are but don't wait to be nominated for something. That will come
later in a natural way.
Let me inform you about some facts of my bio. I've been working for an
north american automotive component industry for 10 years, and five of them
as a product engineer. So I know perfectly what the word "design" means. So
please don't get me wrong when I talk about the *beauty of the
interface*against the
*usefulness of the interface*. I've been working as product designer for 5
years and believe me, you cannot design a tool if you don't know what's it
used for. And Synfig Studio is just a tool. So or you get in contact with
the persons that uses the tool in a daily basis or you cannot do a good
user interface design.
Forget about meet me. Forget about personal emails. Research what is done,
propose alternatives and have fun. Those are the rules.
Good luck.
Cheers
Carlos
2013/2/3 James A. Laslavic <ja...@jalgraphics.com>
> Hi Carlos,
>
> I could be wrong, but it very much sounds to me like you have a very
> strong opinion about what design is, which is fine. I respect that, but
> unless I'm not understanding you correctly, I have a very different idea
> about what design is.
>
> Here's the short version of my concerns:
>
> - If your developers are not willing to take directions from designers
> but instead view it as a one-way street with the designers
> always accommodating the programmers, then I don't think we're going to be
> a good match.
> - I get the impression that you want to apply the same
> workflow/contribution model to your designers as you do for your
> programmers, without making any differences.
> - It also sounds like you're not looking for a full design service *or*
> consultation,
> but instead are looking for a production artist to do some of the work for
> your existing designer.
> - It seems like you think that the designers are only
> concerned/trained about decorating things to make them pretty, and need to
> be told to care about more, which is not true of me or any trained designer
> I know, and just isn't a good foundation for a work relationship (being
> called a "decorator" is an insult in the design world, not that I think you
> were intending to insult me, don't worry)
> - You have a plan of how to use me already and want me to start
> assigning things to me (e.g., become a skilled user) before having an
> initial meeting with me. Doing research is obviously a good idea, but in
> the design process, research typically comes after the initial meeting with
> the client.
> - You simply don't need me. You've got a designer, you've got a
> vision, you've got a supportive community, and you're clearly very
> confident in your direction. Totally respectable!
>
> If I'm mistaken about these things, then by all means please correct me!
> However, I'm certainly not looking for an argument or anything like that.
> You are doing what you think is best for your community, and I respect
> that. However, it's got to be a good match for both of us, which is why I'm
> being extra careful before I commit to any of the projects that have
> contacted me.
>
> When I'm dealing with my regular (paying) clients, this doesn't really
> happen too often since they already are convinced of my design expertise
> before they approach me, but I'm finding that with my current offer to do
> some pro bono work for a project in need of a designer, people seem to be
> treating me differently. Perhaps it's because they see "free" as
> "unskilled" or something? Maybe it's a human psychological thing. As an
> open source project leader, I'm sure you encounter this line of thinking. I
> don't know if that's what's happening here, but it comes to mind. It's also
> possible that after looking at my portfolio, you simply didn't like what
> you saw, and only rated my work as that of a production artist *trying*to be
> more. Or maybe you didn't look at my portfolio at all. Lots of
> possibilities here. I'm okay with all of them because ultimately, I'm not
> entitled to your respect, and it's just as important for you to make sure
> I'm the right designer as it is for me to make sure that you're the right
> client, so to speak.
>
> Anyway, let me know if my overall interpretation of your message is
> mistaken. If you feel you have need of my services and want to have an
> initial meeting so that we can do a better job of getting on the same page
> and determining a direction, let me know. Otherwise, it's totally okay that
> we're not a match, and hope you don't take any offense by my caution with
> making sure I'm the right designer for the job you're looking to fill.
>
> Sincerely,
> James Laslavic
> Carnegie Mellon University, Class of 2013
> Communication Design / Ethics / Psychology
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 5:14 PM, Carlos López González <genet...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hi James,
>>
>> El sábado, 2 de febrero de 2013, James A. Laslavic escribió:
>>
>> Hello Carlos,
>>>
>>> Thanks for getting in touch with me. From reading your email and
>>> checking the links you gave, it sounds like you already have a designer, Yu
>>> Chen, who is busily implementing a comprehensive vision. I'm a bit
>>> concerned about trampling on his plans, and also, my original goal when I
>>> publicly offered to take on a pro bono client was for a project that
>>> currently lacks trained design talent.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, Yu is our designer for the user interface and as I mentioned he has
>> recently started to implement his visions to the real code.
>>
>>
>>>
>>> That being said, if I understood Ilmari correctly, it also seems to be
>>> the case that you're still looking for some design talent, and I'm willing
>>> to help as long as we can make the puzzle pieces fit together in a way that
>>> works to everybody's satisfaction. It would be good to have a meeting to
>>> discuss a clear division of responsibility (to avoid the problem of me
>>> stepping on Yu Chen's toes), and also to discuss your project's current
>>> view of design itself. I read one of the links about "design vs
>>> development," and there are a few things in there that also leave me
>>> somewhat concerned, so I'd like to talk about it to make sure that we're on
>>> the same page and are a good match for each other as client and designer.
>>>
>>
>> Before we can talk about divisions of responsibilities I would like to
>> show you some things before:
>>
>> First, when you're developing an application with low resources like
>> this, you have to optimise and balance the feature requests with the time
>> and the man power available. We can take long time (months) discussing the
>> design vision and the best way to give to the user the best experience, but
>> at the end it has to be implemented with current code by someone. Also we
>> can imagine a fantastic interface that doesn't respond to the current
>> existing widget toolkit so it would obligate to the coder to construct the
>> widgets from zero that, would mean more time and resources. So, when we
>> define the new user interface, we need to take that in consideration.
>>
>> Second, the main goal of the user interface is to make available to the
>> user all the features that the application has (or will have) in a simple
>> and intuitive way. To be possible to do this it is absolutely needed, in my
>> honest opinion, to have some knowledge of the software capabilities because
>> it is not just a question of make the interface *beauty* it is a
>> question of make it *useful or* in other word, *productive*. So the
>> reason why I recommended you to download and install the application and do
>> some exercises with it, to was to be able, at last, to talk the same
>> language when we chat about animation with Synfig.
>>
>> Current user interface has several design lacks but they can be
>> summarised in two:
>>
>> Multiple window interface is outdated and is user obstructive. Single
>> window interface with multiple document is our target. At the same time we
>> want to keep the current user configurability that the interface has. So
>> the user can decide with multiple options what's the layout he wants to
>> have to his better workflow without limitations from the interface itself.
>>
>> Many of the features of Synfig Studio are not visible. I'm not talking
>> that they are not intuitive because the icon or the menu entry aren't
>> intuitive. I'm talking that they are not exposed clearly to the user unless
>> it does the right click at the right place. Most of the commands the user
>> can do are obtained from the contextual menu through the right mouse click.
>> It is good for animators that are used to the commands and know where they
>> are when to use them, but its awful for new coming users.
>>
>> The solution of the first problem is addressed with the single window
>> interface and the mock-ups that Yu has designed. The second part (exposure
>> of the widgets) has been discussed but can be polished. I think you can
>> give us some ideas on which are the best practices on user interface
>> design.
>>
>> But to be productive, you first should step in and get in contact with
>> the community, the users (don't forget that they are our final clients) and
>> the application itself. Once you get used to that you are in a good
>> position to join Yu and work with him to polish the design, suggest changes
>> and question why one thing is designed one way and not other.
>>
>>
>>> If this all sounds sensible, then when would you like to meet? I figure
>>> a quick, informal Google Hangout for this type of initial meeting would be
>>> the most time-efficient and productive. I'm in Pittsburgh, PA (GMT -8), and
>>> could meet as soon as tomorrow evening. If that doesn't work, then just
>>> give me an idea of when you and anybody else who wants to be a part of this
>>> quick face-to-face are generally available, and I'll try to find a time
>>> that works with my schedule. In the meantime, if you haven't already, then
>>> you can check out my portfolio <http://www.jalgraphics.com/> to start
>>> to determine if I'm the right designer for your project.
>>>
>>
>> I'm in Spain UTC+1 and you're at UTC-5. I'll be busy all my evening so we
>> can only chat from 22:00 my time (what is 16:00 your time). Please ping me
>> from that hour if I'm online.
>> Best, Carlos
>>
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> James Laslavic
>>> Carnegie Mellon University, Class of 2013
>>> Communication Design / Ethics / Psychology
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Feb 2, 2013 at 4:42 AM, Carlos López González <
>>> genet...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi James,
>>>>
>>>> This is Carlos López (aka genete) current coder leader of the Synfig
>>>> project. By a contact email from Ilmari Lauhakangas I've been informed that
>>>> you're willing to help on Synfig Studio UX/UI redesign, offering your
>>>> experience on graphic design for human interaction interfaces.
>>>>
>>>> Currently we have one person (Yu Chen aka Jcome) working on that and he
>>>> has been working several months on collect the best practices from other
>>>> design applications as well as have created mock-ups for the different
>>>> parts of Synfig Studio. He has knowledge of the animation principles as
>>>> well as many of the knowledge of the correct workflow to exploit the
>>>> features of Synfig. You can see a summary of his work here:
>>>> http://www.synfig.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=3259
>>>>
>>>> Since a few weeks he has started to work on type actual code to make
>>>> those designs a reality. I'm mentoring his work to fill the gaps he could
>>>> have on the understanding of the core code of Synfig.
>>>>
>>>> In order to incorporate to the current design/coding cycle I recommend
>>>> to you to start by downloading and installing Synfig Studio and start by
>>>> getting used to the features that Synfig offers to you, in order to
>>>> understand the current designs that has been proposed by Jcome. Once you
>>>> can create your own animations you can make use of your experience as
>>>> designer to improve the current UX/UI design made by Jcome with suggestions
>>>> and improvements. The forums is a good place to start those discussions.
>>>> Its small community is very warmly and friendly.
>>>>
>>>> This email is copied to synfig-devl mailing list to keep the rest of
>>>> the development team informed.
>>>>
>>>> These links will be useful for you:
>>>> http://www.synfig.org/cms/en/download/stable
>>>> http://wiki.synfig.org/wiki/Category:Manual
>>>>
>>>> Looking forward to have news from you.
>>>> Best
>>>> --
>>>> Carlos
>>>> http://synfig.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Carlos
>> http://synfig.org
>>
>>
--
Carlos
http://synfig.org
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