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+# In India
+[[!if test="included()" then="""
+
+I'm three weeks into a two month's journey through India and Nepal
+with Jonas, framed by our joined platform CouchDesign.
+
+We aim to establish personal connections with others interested
+in deployments and design of desktops.
+
+[[Read more...|151220_en]]
+
+In many years working with an Xfce installation from Debian,
+I have never tried to make my desktop environment personal,
+except from choosing a grey background. I wasn't content with it,
+but since I wasn't able to change much of the design anyway,
+I never tried. However, I've felt a wish to contribute to free
+software in the field of desktop design or user interface for
+a decade now.
+
+The free software movement needs designers to care for intuitive
+interaction as well as the human desire of beauty. The designer's
+role should not be limited to painting flowers on given walls.
+Proprietary software providers know this and takes care of consistent
+design. A well designed interface not only makes consumers trust
+the functionality, it actually can improve it.
+
+Extensive knowledge about aesthetics, color, letterforms,
+readability, layout and visual communication as well as experience
+with web design and CSS code is not enough to design a desktop.
+
+Neither do we need programmers to be designers, nor do we need
+a new breed of designers thinking like programmers. We need
+collaboration. We need programmers to understand what designers
+can do and designers to understand just enough of the framework to
+understand how they can work with user interface design and
+collaborate with programmers.
+
+We visit local distributions to understand their presumed special
+needs for localisation and branding, to learn or to get inspired
+from their example, and maybe convince them to or help them get
+back into Debian.
+
+We wish to make it easier to make distibutions in Debian. To make
+[Debian Pure Blends]. We want to make it easier to customize the looks
+and feels of the desktop, to make branding easier, to make localization
+easier, to make design easier across theming engines. Less frustration,
+more fun.
+
+This effort is about reuse of ressources. This is about collecting and
+preserving all the effort and love, that small distributors have put
+into their desktop distribution. It's fun to create something, but
+maintaining it, keeping it alive, is less fun, and harder to keep
+volunteers involved with. Many local initiatives have only a short
+livespan. This might be the simple nature of things, but through
+Debian the inventions, the hacks, the innovation created by those
+smaller distributions can be preserved and recycled.
+
+We need master themes, we need best practices, we need documentation;
+we need people with experience to join us in this effort. We might also
+need bridging tools or wrapper tools to take care of the glitches between
+programming languages. We don't yet know exactly what we need.
+
+So far we've been working with [Hamara Linux] in Manesar near New Delhi,
+a free Indian distro aimed at local new computer users and schools.
+The beautifully designed Hamara desktop is based on Trisquel. I compare
+their design elements with others. In the process, I learn more about the
+anatomy of a theme. In the case of Hamara, the design includes a
+slideshow during startup, a customised Conky widget design and a nice
+installation interface as well as a whole set of beautiful wallpapers
+for the user to choose from. We have been met with generosity and
+wonderfully engaged people there, and will return to Hamara Linu near
+the end of our journey, this time in their new hacklab in Pune, being
+established in January.
+
+We have traveled to Kathmandu to meet with FOSS engaged engineers and
+students in two technical universities. A local educational project
+squeezed in a short meeting with us. More than one subscribed to our
+mailing list! We met with Ankur Sharma from app design studio [Expresiv
+Studio], and he immediately grabbed the idea to work on a project
+involving design guidelines for software design.
+
+Everything was arranged by and would not have happened without the
+help of our local dear friend [Chandan Gupta].
+
+Our next stop is Hyderabad. Swecha, an organisation with a linux
+distribution of their own, has agreed to a three weeks collaboration
+period with us during Christmas and New Year. We are amazed of how well
+we are being received and are looking forward to collaborate and learn
+more from them, hoping that we can inspire others on our way to join
+forces and get creative.
+
+"""]]
+
+[[!tag design debian couchdesign]]
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