[openbeos] Re: Patch: Prettifying the default decorator


On Feb 24, 2007, at 9:18 PM, Curtis Wanner wrote:




I'd be happy to help out and start up a UI think-tank. I think we may
need to start up a new mailing list, since the openbeos-cdt one seems
somewhat defunct - I don't even know if I'm part of it at the moment!
First of all, it needs to be clarified that UI Design is NOT graphical design. When you posted to this list you said something about UI design, but change colors here and there and creating graphical themes is NOT UI design. UI design involves understanding the users goals and tasks and helping them accomplish it in as transparent manner as possible. Graphical design only has a small part to play, most of UI design involves layout design, hierarchy considerations, user feedback considerations, etc. 

Darkwyrm has some good books listed on his site to read on the matter.
http://darkwyrm.beemulated.net/usability.htm
I'm currently taking a second course on UI Design which uses the Cooper book. Personally, I'd like to see several of his ideas adapted to Haiku and applications built for it. A second book that we are using and I recommend is "Practitioner's Handbook for User Interface Design and Development" by R.J. Torres. This book covers how the UI Design process should be done. 

Curtis
True, but at the same time, Design isn't something divisible into easy component parts. Design "should" or "shouldn't" isn't at all the way one should think about Design. It is an integrated complete process that isn't dissectable and cannot be accomplished formulaically. A great designer once called it "taking something from its existing state to its preferred state". Further, "graphic design" has or rather, must play a part as large as it needs to play, and not a tiny one. "Practitioner's Handbook" kind of scares me as a title for a book about design. Design isn't an art or a science, Design is Design.

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