Librescope

Ara Pulido: Why we need artists

Jay — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 06:58:49 +0000

The Free Software community is a great community, but a bit narrow. Most of the people are geeks and there are many more men than women. Disclaimer: I would consider myself a geek. It is true that the older I get the less geek I am, but during my childhood, my early youth and my University years I was a true geek. And that was almost yesterday…

Artists is a very influential collective, they are one of the best PR any product can get. They influence people, the media and even governments. We need writers writing novels using Ubuntu, musicians making music using Ubuntu and video artists editing their films using Ubuntu.

Designers are also influential. Let’s face it, blogs by designers talk about more beautiful stuff that those of hackers. If you read Planet Ubuntu, a lot of the information there comes in the form of code. On a designer blog you’d rarely see the word branch if they are not talking about trees. Why Ruby on Rails got so much attention? Was because it was the best piece of free software ever? Probably not, but it attracted designers. Designers and developers starting working together using the same tools and they spread the word.

One of the examples I always use for the FLOSS community being too geek is PyRoom. PyRoom is a simple but great distractions-free writing application that, obviously, is coded in Python. I love the application and use it almost on a daily basis, but using the name of the programming language as part of your application is a clear indication that the technology you’re using is as important as the features your coding with it.

I am not saying that we need less geeks in our community, I am just saying that if we want to reach the 200M users goal, we need to have a wider community. And that’s why I backed Novacut on their Kickstarter project. Because they are focusing in talking to film makers as part of their design process. Because they have one in the team. Because I think they could help Ubuntu getting a wider and very much needed community. And they can fail, as anyone can fail, but I think it is worth supporting those brave enough to try. I am looking forward to seeing what Novacut brings.

As a side benefit I think that having a less geeky community will bring more women into free software. I’ve always defended that one of the reasons of the low ratio of women to men in FLOSS communities was mainly due to the geekyness of these communities. For social reasons (or a combination of social and biological ones), the proportion between men and women among geeks is far from the fifty percent. I am not trying to explain why: I am not a sociologist, nor a psychologist, but I think most people would agree that that’s the case. Bring more non-geeks to Ubuntu and women will be among them.

Ara Pulido: Why we need artists

Jay — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 06:58:49 +0000

Picture by theodevil

System Settings

Kerberos — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:22:12 +0000

I would like to present the latest example of what a massive clusterfuck desktop Linux is:

*drumroll please*

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/11/07/23/1631232/GNOME-and-KDE-Devs-Wrangle-Over-System-Settings-Name

Lets ignore the fact that it’s such a ridiculously minor thing and that only petulant children would waste more than 30 seconds coming up with some form of compromise. The true issue here is why on Gods green earth would you ever even conceive of having a system where you can have two items called ‘System Settings’ which are entirely unrelated existing on one system at the one time with who knows what sort of conflicts and problems? At what point did anyone think this could possibly be a good idea? Anyone who was even briefly acquainted with the term ‘Usability’ would facepalm at the slightest suggestion of this. But over to the Slashdot crowd:

The real problem is themselves, for not providing a menu system that allows for any other environment to be simultaneously installed.

So the real problem is that it’s not possible to duplicate absolutely everything. We should have two independent DE’s running at the same time, that’s the key! Reading the comments the first time around (and I am certainly not doing that again) nobody mentioned that hey, perhaps it’s a bad idea to have two separate system settings menus at the same time. Of course not. Technical solutions only, not human.

I can see how we got to this point. It’s like two teams building a tunnel who agree to meet in the middle and start at opposite ends, but who completely fail to communicate and miss by a country mile. But, of course, choice. So let me recap on a point I am sure I made a long time ago:

Multiple Standards Are Bad! The only time you should have two competing standards is if they have different use cases (xls vs doc) or one is being deprecated in favour of another (ipv4 vs ipv6). Having two standards for the same thing is universally recognized by just about everyone as a bad thing. Here’s a quick, and by no means exhaustive, list:

Multiple phone/laptop chargers and connectors.
Differing power plugs and voltages.
Almost any form of ‘proprietary’ connector.
Attempts by companies to ‘fork’ a standard, see MS Java and ‘IE only’ browser extensions.
Fluctuations in .doc which makes importing old files annoying.
The reason hibernate and sleep work so badly in Linux is due to a lack of standards.
Ad nauseum…

Choice in Implementations of Standards Are Good! I remember the dark days of IE before Firefox ruined Microsoft’s day. Having no choice in browsers lead to having one terrible browser. And while many people and enterprises are still stuck with IE6 thanks to standards proliferation I can enjoy the benefits of Firefox, Chrome and IE all battling it out to be the best browser they can be. I don’t have to use IE for IE sites or Chrome for Chrome sites because they all conform to the same standard (more or less).

I can also connect to any of these sites due to them all supporting HTTP. I don’t need a separate browser for MS’s own version of HTTP (fortunately) because there isn’t one and the only point of someone making another, competing, standard for it is if the aim was to replace it. The entire reason for the creation and promotion of ODF is to give consumers choice in their office application. Multiple standards do not provide choice, they limit it.

I seem to be drifting off topic here. But let me just make one fun point:

The only distinction between the myriad of supposed ‘user friendly’ distro’s is standards proliferation.

Multiple package formats, as opposed to multiple implementations of package managers. Check.
Cosmetic differences in filesystem layouts that cause issues. Check.
Variations in API’s for handling. Check.
Multiple ways of doing system notifications and widgets. Check.
Multiple system config file storage and editing methods. Check.
Etc.

Once you settle on a set of standards then the concept of a system repository becomes meaningless as you will have a system just like every other (successful) consumer OS ever made where software is not tied to a particular version of a particular distro. If there was a standard for binary-blob-or-otherwise drivers then you wouldn’t have this ridiculous ‘Distro X supports your hardware better’ situation. In fact once you take away the ‘incompatible for largely the sake of being incompatible’ then the only difference real between distro’s is the splash screen and maybe wallpaper they choose for whatever DE they are using.

But back to the original point. The very fact that you require large chunks of KDE to run certain apps under Gnome* (and vice vera) due to the utter failure to come up with a standard API (that both can separately implement) is the actual problem here (and as a result people are denied choice in DE’s). It has nothing to do with namespace collisions or any of that crap.

* Last time I tried to run Ubuntu none of the help in the games I downloaded would work as it required KDE’s help system.

+1 Design

Troy James Sobotka — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 18:41:00 +0000

Like, Do not want, +1; Perception of Data in Noise

The number of up / down voting mechanisms in the contemporary culture are legion. They create a sense of participation. Of Value. Of merit or demerit.

Within Eurowestern art and design, the notion of statistical analysis, averaging, and polling creeps into the cultural vernacular. "We are researching!"

Is all research research? Can voting and polling lead to solid design decisions? Does the notion of averages yield design dividends?

Of Models and Crafting Reality

The moment a model is applied, it implies a certain degree of buy-in. With Twitter, we create and enforce a model out of 140 character thoughts. With Reddit, we create an up and down voting mechanism that enforces a buy in of a polemical scale[1]. With +1, we buy into a slightly more complex polemic of participation versus none.

With a ruler, we buy into an entire Arabic numeral system and orthodox procedure of measurement.

Each of the above might seem trivial on some level, but it is the underlying, unwritten, and enforced models that are potentially troubling.

If given a wooden ruler to measure the psychology of human anger, it is not the inability of measurement that should worry us, but rather the chance that we might succeed[2].

The Model Sculpts the Data

We cannot underestimate pattern recognition as an important concept of intelligence and learning. In some instances however, this a priori knowledge has resulted in what appears to be reductionism; a fallacy of division from a vaguely Postmodern neglect of context and measurement model.

Does data hold weight if we ignore the arrangements and the subtle contexts not included? When does data, when isolated and displaced from context, undermine the data itself?

"[...] there is obviously a difference between us now, and us hacked up into a stew. Both contain all the same matter, but not the same pattern of arrangement. Thus, how matter and energy are patterned, arranged, within space and time is itself a defining aspect of a thing, and this pattern has causal and other distinct properties." -- Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness Without God, pg 130

Are we seeing "data" or "noise"? Are we viewing "objectivity" or under the "bias" of an invisible phenomenon[3]? Is our Eurowestern aggressive and insatiable passion for order and understanding stomping over the delicate complexities of contextual design insight?

The goal is not not discredit the value of research and examining, but rather the skepticism brings with a hope of the contrary; to work toward a culture of contextual analysis and a questioning of implied models of measurement. A borrowing of powerful Postmodern analysis models leveraged against the contemporary culture.

Let the design research and analysis reflect limited, constrained, and detailed context.

This hope becomes increasingly difficult when polemical plus ones, likes, and such models become a cultural norm. Perhaps doubly so when those cultural norms are tied to extremely successful companies. The mirage of a tenuous connection between market cap and a successful model is an easy pitfall to fall into.

After all of the metrics, all of the analysis, and all of the gluing together of the results, does such an approach do the art and craft of design justice?

What do your measurements say?

Thank you all for taking the time to read...

[1] With that buy in, however, we fail to ask questions. What of concepts that defy 140 characters? Does a vote up imply the author agrees with the link to "a crisis in Egypt", a funny meme within, a parallel of their moral views, or some other reason that brings them to press it?

[2] It leads me to wonder what Milgram's experiment would have looked like had the designed model included a "Do not desire to buzz the patient" button. The model sculpts the data, and in this case, with dire implications. How did the design of the experiment's model influence the data, and in turn the data influence the derived analysis?

[3] Bias shows some interesting ties to perceptions of reality as highlighted in this bit of data on partisan influence on perception.

What Can Derrida Teach Us About Design?

Troy James Sobotka — Mon, 23 May 2011 20:55:00 +0000

If you are unfamiliar with who Derrida was, I'd heavily encourage you to at least dedicate a Twitterish amount of time to informing yourself.

Traditionally associated with postmodern thought, Jacques Derrida's work, as is true to the method he fleshed out to circumvent easy labeling, spans massive models and supersedes trivial classifications.

His work is as useful as it is destabilizing.

"One of the definitions of what is called deconstruction would be the effort to take this limitless context into account, to pay the sharpest and broadest attention possible to context, and thus to an incessant movement of recontextualization." -- Jacques Derrida on Deconstruction.

From Powerful Thought to Powerful Design

How does context influence design? When we make what appear simple and trivial decisions, are we not also forwarding a fabricated model? What innovation can we find by analyzing such models and focusing on the context of a given piece?

Sadly, too often in Libre it seems people are willing to supplant that context for universality and absolutes. "User" has supplanted a real person, and "usability" has become the chic wardrobe moniker for a naked emperor.

Bill Buxton most eloquently outlines the above ignorance of context in his book Sketching User Experiences. He relates an interesting design problem via navigating in a kayak.

Do you choose a paper chart? A GPS enabled device? A laptop? The image in the header offers us a glimpse of contextual design:

"[...]a third approach, one that the Inuit have used. [...] Tactile maps of the coastline, carved out of wood. They can be carried inside your mittens, so your hands stay warm. They have infinite battery life, and can be read, even in the six months of the year that it is dark. And, if they are accidentally dropped into the water, they float. What you and I might see as a stick, for the Inuit can be an elegant design solution that is appropriate for their particular environment." -- Bill Buxton, Sketching User Experiences, pg 37.

A Warning in Closing

I will close this posting with a thought that seems fitting while obsessing over numerical averages and a desire for standardization of the human:

"In the course of evolution nature has gone to endless trouble to see that every individual is unlike every other individual. We reproduce our kind by bringing the father's genes into contact with the mother's. These hereditary factors may be combined in an almost infinite number of ways. Physically and mentally, each one of us is unique. Any culture which, in the interests of efficiency or in the name of some political or religious dogma, seeks to standardize the human individual, commits an outrage against man's biological nature." -- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited.

Thank you all for reading.

Original image sourced from Deconcrete.

Is Emotional Design Versus Anything?

Troy James Sobotka — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:44:00 +0000

From Hand Wringing to Writing

Reading over Google Reader today, a share came up from Dylan McCall. It troubled me deeply as I found the conclusions to be somewhat reckless.

After a bit of teeth grinding, I pondered the posting by Mystilleef a little more. While my initial reaction was quite adversarial, I gave it a little more time to stew. Being Libre software, we need more darn communication and less confrontational approaches, so I thought I'd stick a quill in my closed hand and try to get an alternate side to the discourse started.

Emotional Engineering Vs Software Engineering

The argument goes that software should adapt and bend to users preferences and not the other way round. As such, "good" and "powerful" software should be configurable and littered with plentiful options to accommodate all known and unforeseen needs of users.

Here the premise starts. While there is a clear polemical model being established, this was not my issue. Had the post solely focused on the belief that multiple preferences and options were poor design, I likely would have agreed and moved along. However, it did not.

The Bone of Contention

Human preferences are affected by too many variables most of which are subjective, cultural and emotional. In contrast, the most efficient and effective way to accomplish a task is a purely engineering feat. It is measurable, quantifiable and observable. Somehow, many people have missed this important point.

And here begins the problem.

As anyone that is familiar with this blog would attest, the subject of audience and context crops up time and time again. Who is the audience? What are their needs? What is their background?

The above quote nicely rounds out a good number of pitfalls associated with Libre design. Even though the quote looks quite simple, there are hidden assumptions and, as Foucault would suggest, buys into a very particular épisteme. It is one that I believe permeates Libre culture.

Human Preferences are Complex

True. One hundred percent agreement.

Sadly however, this is no excuse to cash out and leave design at the door. Do we give up because something is apparently complex to a given person? Is that complexity necessarily insurmountable by another person? Are we to assume that an averaging is an optimal solution?

Try to remember the last time you saw a wonderful magic trick.

Many magic tricks defy explanation. And yet, to the performer, that magic trick is nothing more than the result of solid design work and thought. To you, the audience, it results in a wonderful experience when executed properly. To the magician, it is often more about complex work and execution.

I will give Mystilleef full credit for being one of the few to see that there is in fact a cultural component to this. Aesthetics and visual perception are very deeply rooted in cultural starting points. In fact, the Eurowestern belief that there is a physiological consistency across all humans is in fact challenged by some seminal anthropological tomes on the subject[1].

So, in short, my first point would be to not avoid the subject of solid design merely because "human preferences are affected by too many variables." Rather, I'd encourage everyone involved in Libre software to begin to examine those variables and pay strict attention to them.

Avoiding the complexities has led us to the precise blight of design we see today in Libre software. Bad guessing. Poor judgement. Awful pursuit of mythical universality.

Most Efficient and Effective

In the second sentence we can immediately see two trap words. "Efficiency" and "effective" must always be evaluated within contextual information, even more so when we add "most" into the mix. If we were going to suggest how a graphical user interface is the "most efficient and effective" interface to control a computer, we have effectively ignored the context and circumstance as design considerations[2].

Absolutism has no place in design.

So on my second point, the presence of attractive trap words leads us away from the hard nitty-gritty of design. Context. Questions. Audience.

Purely Engineering

Thus far in our human history, the desire to see mathematical rigor in the fields of aesthetics and design has yet to come to pass. Even if we were able to fully quantify and qualify this complex interaction, we would likely find that the results would be extremely varied based on the complexities of the situations[3].

This isn't comforting for many. This is likely especially not comforting for a large portion of the brilliant minds that are attracted to Libre software.

At risk of horribly oversimplifying a culture, Libre software culture seems to have taken its current cultural trajectory from the historical minds that founded it; mathematicians, engineers, software programmers.

Those fields are moored in a heavy context of right and wrong. Yin and yang. Compiles or not compiles.

Design, aesthetics, and other such things are nebulous and subjective. They are specific to people, their environments, and their historical contexts. In a world that worships right and wrong, design is an awkward and sinister beast.

Design, aesthetics, emotion, and experience are all valid and powerful traits of a piece. There is no simple measurement or secret formula that deliver them. It isn't always simple to observe nor quantify the machinations and ramifications of such facets. They are not subject to the traditional engineering rules established by the harder sciences. They are the subject of emotional engineering.

On my third point, I'd likely agree with Mystilleef but perhaps in a slightly different way; it is all purely engineering. But let's not be too hasty to dismiss emotion and experience as vital parts of a Libre software project's architecture to be engineered.

Wandering off into Postmodernism and Foucault

However, these reasons should hive around usability and accessibility and again not individual preferences.

The attitudes and priorities of a given culture are reflected in their words[4]. The constructs. The accepted and unwritten knowledge. Who wouldn't want something to be "usable"? Another horribly appealing trap word.

Usability, when cast adrift alone, is a blind pig of a term. It presupposes context. It makes grotesque assumptions. And it dissolves in the face of diversity and snaps under the weight of scrutiny.

It is as vacuous as the term "beautiful" or "delicious".

If ever there were a purely mathematical approach to this magical word, it would be leveraged the world over and everyone would agree. But, in practice, this isn't the case.

If we can avoid pretending the word holds value and quit chasing the dragons it paints, we might stand to make some truly compelling software in Libre.

Let's cast out "usability" and let "people" stand where it rested.

Who are they? What are their desires? What are they attempting to accomplish? What are their cultural needs? What excites them? What engages them emotionally? Where and when are they living and what is relevant to them?

Why Bother?

For some, there is little passion or fascination for design and the emotion it brings. I'd like to believe that the majority of the audience that reads this blog is of a different temperament.

I'd sum up the answer as to why we should focus on individuals with a number: 18.

Malcom Gladwell makes a case for the number 18 in his presentation Malcom Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce. I would heavily encourage all readers of this blog to watch it. It is entirely topical to this discussion of "usability" and other universals. I'll leave you with an intriguing quote so that you might go and watch it yourself. The number 18 comes from the difference of a coffee rating among averages and groups. It is tied in with the rejection of universals and the embracing of diversity.

"The difference between coffee at 60 and coffee at 78 is the difference between coffee that makes you wince and coffee that makes you deliriously happy." -- Malcom Gladwell on Spaghetti Sauce

The emotional and experiential realm is upon us in technological design. It cannot and should not be avoided simply because the art and craft of tickling those nerves is radically different from the art and craft of the lower level software code.

It is my firmest belief that until we accept and embrace the need for emotional design, we will never get those magical 18 points of difference that Mr. Gladwell references. We will forever repeat the horrible and unfortunate mistake of aiming at the average between two targets and hitting neither.

We must embrace and focus on crafting subjective emotions and reject the notion of idealized universals.

To suggest for a moment that emotions cannot be crafted or engineered of course, is to suggest that a tear or a smile has never been shed over prose, during a movie, or while listening to a song.

It is still engineering.

Just of a different sort.

Once again, thank you immensely for taking the time to read. Thank you to Mystilleef for stirring the brain...

[1] The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception and The Hidden Dimension might be worthy reads if you are interested in the subject.
[2] If a person were administering a computer half a world away via a slow bitrate connection such as dialup, it is possible to suggest that a command line interface may be the most efficient and effective. In short, there is never an absolutist definition of "efficient" or "effective" without examining the contextual elements.
[3] Marc Hassenzahl has done a wonderful job of assigning a numerical model to some of these more nebulous concepts, but even then, it is a model. It may work in some instances, it may break in others.
[4] If you have issue with this claim or find it interesting, it is perhaps worth reading Michel Foucault's The Order of Things.

Jason Smith: Unity has love handles

Jay — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:56:54 +0000

Yesterday an awesome feature was finally completed and landed into trunk. I speak of course of Unity grab handles! First off, kudos out to the team that made this all possible, Sam, Neil, Gord, Jay, Didier, Duncan, Chase, Steve and everyone else who contributed to unity or utouch. Without you all working tirelessly this feature would have seen the cutting room floor. So here is how it works!

Step 1: Get a window

Jorge likes my face

Step 2: Three finger tap on window (press then release quickly) on a touch device

Drag handles appear

Step 3: Press a finger (or click) on any of the drag handles to move or resize the window

Resizing has never been easier

This makes doing touch manipulations of windows AWESOME. Moving windows, resizing windows, its all as easy as poking a button! You can even activate the drag handles with a keyboard shortcut (currently left disabled) for you mouse only folks. A couple implementation details for the curious:

Drag handles stay up for 3 seconds after initial show
Drag handles wont hide if you are currently using one
You may activate drag handles on multiple windows at once, and in theory once we can send multiple pointer events around, you could interact with both at the same time
The big central drag button works perfectly with the grid plugin

Jason Smith: Unity has love handles

Jay — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 15:56:54 +0000

Step 1: Get a window

Jorge likes my face

Step 2: Three finger tap on window (press then release quickly) on a touch device

Drag handles appear

Step 3: Press a finger (or click) on any of the drag handles to move or resize the window

Resizing has never been easier

Drag handles stay up for 3 seconds after initial show
Drag handles wont hide if you are currently using one
You may activate drag handles on multiple windows at once, and in theory once we can send multiple pointer events around, you could interact with both at the same time
The big central drag button works perfectly with the grid plugin

Ubuntu 11.04′s new default desktop wallpaper revealed

Jay — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 02:01:14 +0000

The new default wallpaper for Ubuntu 11.04 has been released.

Sporting ‘subtle changes’ with ‘new light refractions’, the updated wallpaper for the April release echoes evolution rather than revolution.

Writing on the reasoning behind the subtle changes Ubuntu’s Otto Greenslade says: -

“…as we move towards becoming more of a ‘household’ platform and with the great changes coming with Unity (launcher/dash) general users will get reassurance from the familiarity of the wallpaper and will also identify with it as part of our personality in new screenshots.”

For those unable to notice a different between this and the incumbent, here’s an animated .gif alternating between the two: -

This design, along with 17 other wallpapers (see here for those), make up the default wallpaper package for Ubuntu 11.04.

Ubuntu 11.04 adds 17 brand new wallpapers

Jay — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 01:51:23 +0000

The winning wallpapers that will form the Ubuntu 11.04 wallpaper pack have been chosen.

17 images make up the set – excluding the default desktop wallpaper which can be seen here – which, for the first time, sees illustrated designs offered up alongside traditional photographic wallpapers.

Pictures of each wallpaper follow – just click to view them larger.

Download

A package containing all the wallpapers can be downloaded from the link below

ubuntu-wallpapers_0.31.9.tar.gz