Status OpenUsability student project

Hi,

I would like to let you give you some update on the
OpenUsability
sponsored student project that we announced in August.
Here's the
announcement again in case you lost the URL:
http://www.gimp.org/announcements/open-usability-gimp.
html

During the application period that lasted until the 10th of
September we
have received a number of applications from all over the
world. Fourteen
people applied for the position, coming from Europe, USA,
Russia and
India. Peter has lead the selection process and describes
this effort in
his blog: 
http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/pu
blications/2006/09/selecting-associate-for-gimp.html

In the end, Kamila Giedrojć was chosen and she has since
then worked
with Peter on the project. The next step is to create a
number of
representative usage scenarios. For this purpose we have
arranged a
small meeting (9 persons) next weekend in Essen, Germany.
There, Kamila
and Peter will get the chance to talk to people involved in
GIMP user
support and meet authors of the GIMP user manual as well as
GIMP
developers. We will compensate for the room and travel costs
from the
money that GIMP has collected from donations.

Will try to keep you uptodate on the proceedings, but don't
expect much
before the weekend. Still no connectivity in my new
appartment...

BTW, since Dave has retired from his job as the GIMP
treasurer, we
should seek for someone to fill in this position. Currently
I am doing
this job, but I would prefer if someone else could take
over. The job
involves thanking people who donate money, updating our
sponsors page
from time to time and of course keeping contact to the GNOME
foundation
who is holding the GIMP money for us.


Sven


_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

Moin,

just a quick note to inform you that the usability weekend
was a great
success. Based on workspace observations and interviews that
Kamila,
Ellen and Peter did over the last weeks, and supplemented by
feedback
from the GIMP documentation team and GIMP user support, we
managed to
come up with a list of usage scenarios that we consider
typical for our
target user base. The usability team will now continue their
work based
on these scenarios. The next step is an expert evaluation of
the current
user interface. We hope that the project will be finished
somewhen early
next year. That should be just in time to discuss the
outcome of this
project and hopefully to start with implementing the
proposals that will
be made.

We have spent less than EUR 1100,- on this, which is only
possible
because the Linuxhotel in Essen (http://www.linuxhotel.de/) offered us a
very generous community price.

At some point later in this project, I would like to get
more developers
involved. We should probably have a dedicated meeting for
this early
next year.


Sven


_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

Sven wrote:

> just a quick note to inform you that the usability
weekend was a great
> success.

Thanks. Inspired by the weekend I thought it was about time
I
joined this list. Sometimes (but not always) I will chip in
to inject some interaction concept into the discussion here.

I have blogged about the weekend from my point of view.

teaser:

"Along the way some hard choices had to be made by the
team about what
workflow to support, and what to leave to other
applications.
Moreover, essential functionality has been identified during
the
weekend and implementation of some of it started right there
and then."

read more:

<http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/2006/11/
creating-user- 
scenarios-with-gimpteam.html>

     --ps

         principal user interaction architect
         man + machine interface works

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



_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

Hi,
petermmiworks.net (2006-11-13 at 1251.21 +0100):
> "Along the way some hard choices had to be made by
the team about what
> workflow to support, and what to leave to other
applications.
> Moreover, essential functionality has been identified
during the
> weekend and implementation of some of it started right
there and then."
> 
> read more:
> 
> <http://www.mmiworks.net/eng/publications/2006/11/
creating-user- 
> scenarios-with-gimpteam.html>

One question: "creating original art, from 'found
images;'" is
creating original art like concept art or full
illustrations, be it
realistic, comic, abstract... (that is what I understand for
original)
using references; or do collages and other photo composition
(that is
what I would understand as "'original' from found
images")?

GSR
 
_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

GSR wrote:

> One question: "creating original art, from 'found
images;'" is
> creating original art like concept art or full
illustrations, be it
> realistic, comic, abstract... (that is what I
understand for original)
> using references; or do collages and other photo
composition (that is
> what I would understand as "'original' from found
images")?

The scenario for this actually includes the words 'collage'
and
'wild brush work' to catch the vibe. The results need to be
new
art, and we are sure that bitmaps, scans and/or vector
graphics
need to be imported/opened in GIMP to do this successfully.

     --ps

         principal user interaction architect
         man + machine interface works

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



_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

Hi,
petermmiworks.net (2006-11-13 at 1754.20 +0100):
> The scenario for this actually includes the words
'collage' and
> 'wild brush work' to catch the vibe. The results need
to be new
> art, and we are sure that bitmaps, scans and/or vector
graphics
> need to be imported/opened in GIMP to do this
successfully.

What is wild brush work? And is just painting or colouring
nowhere in
the cases (as separate case, it is clearly not)?

GSR
 
_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

GSR wrote:

>> The scenario for this actually includes the words
'collage' and
>> 'wild brush work' to catch the vibe. The results
need to be new
>> art, and we are sure that bitmaps, scans and/or
vector graphics
>> need to be imported/opened in GIMP to do this
successfully.
>
> What is wild brush work?

the words are used to catch the vibe, you know... >^}
not too subtle alterations using brush tools.
Alienating the resulting image from the found images
that went into the process.

> And is just painting or colouring nowhere in
> the cases (as separate case, it is clearly not)?

There are simply other applications that are better
adept to painting from scratch, one of them is called
Painter, I believe.

Second of all you have to realise that the user scenarios
are the essential description of the essential use of GIMP.
That's two distillations. But they focus our minds to get
things done. Lot's of in-between and borderline cases do
not need to be described. They would just bloat up the
user scenarios and make them useless as a tool for us.

Painting from scratch is simply not in the product vision,
the GIMP team has set other priorities.

     --ps

         principal user interaction architect
         man + machine interface works

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



_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

Hi,
petermmiworks.net (2006-11-13 at 1958.18 +0100):
> > And is just painting or colouring nowhere in
> > the cases (as separate case, it is clearly not)?
> There are simply other applications that are better
> adept to painting from scratch, one of them is called
> Painter, I believe.

There are other apps for icons too (a from scratch task in
some cases,
btw). Seeing that one and not seeing painting, colouring or
creating
textures looked strange among all the other more
photo-related tasks
specially when for past years people have being colouring
their
comics, creating textures for 3d art and so on with gimp.

[...]
> Painting from scratch is simply not in the product
vision,
> the GIMP team has set other priorities.

OK, thanks, good to know.

GSR
 
_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer

GSR wrote:

> There are other apps for icons too (a from scratch task
in some cases,
> btw).

We are sure that icons will be first constructed as vector
graphics
and then finished in GIMP.

> Seeing that one and not seeing painting, colouring or
creating
> textures looked strange among all the other more
photo-related tasks
> specially when for past years people have being
colouring their
> comics, creating textures for 3d art and so on with
gimp.

Again you are taking things too literal.

Not having your exact personal use case named one of the
essential
for GIMP does not mean we are going to forget about you.

We are covering thousands of specific use cases for GIMP by
the sheer number of linear combinations you can make from
the
essential use cases we are considering. That's the power of
the methods I use.

But to save GIMP from the dying like a dinosaur, we had to
set some priorities.

     --ps

         principal user interaction architect
         man + machine interface works

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



_______________________________________________
Gimp-developer mailing list
Gimp-developerlists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU
https://lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU/mailman/listinfo/gi
mp-developer