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]]
"""
else="""
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]]
