Task-centric UI (was: Calligra Active's main screen)

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

On 08.10.2012 11:23, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> On Monday, October 8, 2012 11:07:12 Marco Martin wrote:
>> I think that is mostly a design problem, the two things are not really
>> against each other, in the end apps should either reuse the file browser as
>> a component (still figuring out how to do that) or be able to provide
>> custom components (and artwork) for the file browser when browsing the
>> files of type x.
>
> very good points we need to work out in more detail.
>
> my suggestion is that we table these discussions for the next release. the file
> browser is a great start, and i think we polish up the existing feature set in
> a number of ways. but let's focus right now on getting this out as it is ..

Absolutely! I didn't want to bother you guys with this before the release, but 
since it's on the table now anyway:
I've already thought about application integration as a future topic a bit. What 
came to my mind was Björn Balasz' presentation at the KDE UX sprint April 2011 
about task-centered interfaces. The general idea current application-centric 
desktop shells are not really compatible with users' mental models. A user 
doesn't think "I want to start Kmail touch", but instead "I want to write an 
email to Grandma". However currently she first has to think "Okay, what 
application do I have to start to write an email?".
The task-centered approach focuses on tasks and views applications only as tools 
for those tasks and does not bother users with them.
By intentionally pushing Okular Active as an application to the background and 
just letting users open their PDFs and ebooks without having to care about which 
application is used to display them, we already did the first step in that 
direction.
However, the approach goes far beyond that, as a more complex task workflow can 
also transition seamlessly between different "applications", and this is where 
it gets really exciting and this is where Free Software, with its collaborative 
nature, can really shine!
I already asked Björn if he wanted to work with us on this and even though he 
currently does not have enough time to work on detailed designs, he agreed to 
join us in general discussions while we bring his ideas to life.

Marco's points are important to consider in this discussion, and I think we can 
create something pretty revolutionary here which only a Free Software community 
is capable of. At the UX sprint we started thinking about "Lego-like" systems, 
where each "application" becomes an exchangeable component in a task workflow.

After the release we should start thinking about the big picture here, together 
with Björn.

 > it's already pretty sexy; hard to believe it's a "1.0" application.

Absolutely. I'm glad that Marco is such a talented UI designer/developer, and 
I'm glad that I kept pushing him to improve in the details (such as drag & drop 
visibility or tag representation). Marco, it's always a pleasure working with you ;)

Thomas