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[Michael Rudolph]

2008/11/4 Sebastian Kügler <sebas at kde.org>:
> On Tuesday 04 November 2008 01:07:10 Michael Rudolph wrote:
>> So what I think would be a good thing and what I'd like to do and I
>> was under the impression, that Aaron shared this conviction, is to
>> engage people in discussions around the topic of humans and computers
>> interfacing with each other. The ways of the plasma was one, probably
>> clumsy, attempt to do so. I think Celeste's offer to discuss the topic
>> of user research could be such a discussion, too.
>>
>> So the question remains, how can this be done? (when even Celeste, who
>> is a well respected member of the community, can't get the discussion
>> going) This is of course assuming you all agree, that it could prove
>> useful to have more people with a working knowlegde of HCI.
>
> It is about developer buy-in, actually, as developers implement the design
> that should be influenced by HCI designers. It's a mutual relationship. KDE,
> being traditionally a rather technical community has only just begun tapping
> into expertise in other areas, user interface, free knowledge, and so on. So
> the community is expanding (not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively,
> becoming a multi-discplinary bunch.
>
> With that movement, the development processes have to adapt to it. How does
> one integrate proper design into the engineering process? And especially how
> does one do that in a voluntary-driven organisation?
>
>> I'm still rather clueless about how I can help plasma.
>
> Really, I think you're doing great. It's only not as easy as it might look
> like from the outside. Having high-level documentation about design issues is
> an asset. There are many small things that can help integrating development
> and design processes, pretty much al require patience and
> --
> sebas

Hi Sebastian,

aarghh, the email got cut off and it reads like after the last "and"
you would be providing the magic formula for how design and
development could be integrated. Now we'll never know. :-)

Funnily, just yesterday this came by my desk:
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000343.php
It discusses the roles of designers in teams and how they can be
artisans or, excuse my french: assholes. Frankly I don't know which
category I would be falling into. And part of the problem seems to be,
that we have a very weak infrastructure for non-code contributions.
There are mailing lists and IRC channels, but the real work gets done
elsewhere, therefore it is deeply rooted in our culture that what's
going on on mailing lists is cheap or "just words". I'd really be
interested to learn what came after that "and" and what you think
might be a solution.

Anyway, your kind words motivated me enough to pick up the slack at
the ways of the plasma. Perhaps this time around I can produce
something tangible.

michael