[dot] KDE and OpenUsability Offer Summer Stipends for Students

[Dot Stories]

URL: http://dot.kde.org/1206119837/

From: Sebastian Kuegler <sebas at kde.org>
Dept: make-it-smooth
Date: Friday 21/Mar/2008, @10:17

KDE and OpenUsability Offer Summer Stipends for Students
========================================================

   Our friends over at OpenUsability [http://openusability.org/] have
just started a call for students of usability, user-interface design,
and interaction design or related subjects for the Season of Usability
[http://season.openusability.org/index.php/projects/2008]. Season of
Usability is a project that offers mentoring students that want to work
on usability aspects of various projects, including KDE. Students are
offered a stipend worth $US1000. KDE is involved in the Season of
Usability with three possible stipends, two for students who want to
work on the KDE 4 Human Interface Guidelines
[http://wiki.openusability.org/guidelines/index.php/Main_Page], another
project aims for improving the toolbox and palette interaction KOffice.



                    KDE 4 HUMAN INTERFACE GUIDELINES

     Working on the KDE 4 Human Interface Guidelines is actually a very
exciting thing to do. You will be able to work with some of the world's
most excellent programmers, embedded in the friendly community that is
KDE. Your work will be very visible, in multiple applications for
millions of users, worldwide. Where else can your work have this kind of
impact?

     Tasks within this stipend include providing content for the HIG,
creating guideline checklists for developers, collecting examples, but
also higher-level tasks such as identifying repeating interaction
patterns and designing solutions for them.

     The KDE 4 HIG students will be mentored by Celeste Lyn Paul
[http://weblog.obso1337.org] (seele) and Ellen Reitmayr
[http://ellen.reitmayr.net] (el), KDE's usability gurus.



                KOFFICE TOOLBOX AND PALETTE INTERACTION

     KOffice 2.0 has been designed around a palette pattern where tools
would be associated with shapes (e.g. text tool, rectangle tool, etc.).
The documents are built up from those shapes and information about the
shapes and settings for the tools are shown in palettes. The KOffice
team has noticed that this design has not worked out quite
satisfactorily and the common interaction elements in the applications
need improvement.

     This project introduces you into the world that is KOffice, the
worlds most comprehensive office suite. KOffice has the necessary
degrees of freedom to not copy other products, but to come up with
innovative solutions supporting workflows that may be different from
those people are squeezed into by traditional office suites. This is
your chance to gain experience in the productivity software world, and
of course become part of the community that is KDE and KOffice.

     Mentors are Celeste Lyn Paul [http://weblog.obso1337.org] (seele)
and Ellen Reitmayr [http://ellen.reitmayr.net] (el) and Boudewijn Rempt
[http://www.valdyas.org/fading/index.cgi] (boud), KOffice core
developer, maintainer of Krita and generally nice guy.



                                APPLYING

     Applicants are expected to have some experience in interface and
interaction design and/or usability analysis methods. Basic
understanding of those topics is enough, however, as the project is
meant to be a learning experience. The application deadline is set to
the 14th of April, projects will be starting in May and run into July,
maybe August. When applying, keep in mind that you do not need to be a
KDE user. For your work you can use a KDE 4 Live CD or other means such
as remote desktop access.  See the Season of Usability webpage
[http://season.openusability.org/index.php/projects/2008] for more
information.