Maemo-Barcelona Long Weekend/UX meets Code

This wiki page is complemented by this discussion thread

About 50 community developers and user experience professionals work together during 3 days.

Contents

[edit] 3 goals

  • Improve the usability and visual appeal of great Maemo apps.
  • Improve the UX documentation for Maemo developers.
  • Get a critical mass of people interested in pushing forward UX meets Code activities online and face to face.

[edit] Way of working

All the activity happens in a big room (official capacity for 70 people).

The first thing we will do each day is have a talk by one of the UX specialists who are attending, and will share the basic principles behind the concept of the day (Concepting, Interaction Design/Usability, and Graphics).

Then, we will have an interactive workshop where we will break into groups and focus on the two main projects of the day, helping to improve the user experience as a community.

Finally, we will have breakout sessions, where developers and UX specialists can team up and you can focus on improving your application on a coding level.

The scheduling for the talks and the workshops has been added to the Long Weekend agenda at http://wiki.maemo.org/Maemo-Barcelona_Long_Weekend/Agenda#Agenda.

[edit] Projects

6 projects have been selected to get get special attention during the Long Weekend. The group will do its best to have a Before and After for them. Participants in the hackfest can join the discussion/work of a specific project or can you their time to work on their own projects.

Friday
concepting
Saturday
graphics
Sunday
interaction
11:00-12:00 liqbase Calendar gPodder Mapper
14:00-16:00 Video editor MaStory Xournal

List here other projects with developers participants in the hackfest. Please provide links to the project and your thought on what would you like to improve and what do you plan to achieve during the whole weekend. Add your names!

  • FM Radio, MediaBox - Martin Grimme - general UI overhaul for a better user experience
  • Conboy - Cornelius Hald - Fixing settings UI / Polishing synchronization work flow and dialogs / Making control file translatable / Getting ideas for next version
  • DiskUsage, Kandis, PackageView, WeightJinni, WifiInfo, MathJinni, DiceJinni, FindMine, PushIt, GiveMeFive, GPSJinni - Tim Teulings - Usage of tables with table headers and multiple columns vs. one table column with complex layout (general), general usability improvements (MathJinni, WeightJinni, DiceJinni, Kandis, GPSJinni) replacement suggestions for tree view (MathJinni), thumbable gaming interaction (FindMine, PushIt, GiveMeFive) and technical support for Gtk/hildon theming alignment and Qt know how (general) - all applications also available in maemo5 extras-devel!
  • zoutube - Zaheer Merali - general UI improvement especially the video player widget and see how other features like browsing other video sites would work from a UI perspective
  • MemVenatus(memory game) - Valério Valério - Getting ideas/concepts, simple graphics and animations - Qt developers are welcome :).

[edit] Participants

Please add your names and a link to your maemo.org profile. Please edit your profile adding all the relevant info about you and links to your website, blog, etc.

  • Martin Schuele - Principal UI designer for N900
  • Mox Soini - Interaction Designer, Concepting, Maemo-as-platform
  • Steffen Halme - Graphic Designer specializing in icons
  • Martin Gimpl - Graphic Designer, Concepting, Transitions, Graphics
  • Adele Simula - UX Graphic Designer, Concepting, Layout Design, Graphics
  • Sanna Nordling - Interaction designer, Concepting, Application UX design
  • Jussi Maaniitty - UX Management, Concepting
  • Juha Vartiainen - Interaction Design, Concepting, Application UI design
  • Jaakko Viitanen - Interaction Design, Concepting, Application UI design
  • Arabella David, Design & User Experience Program Manager @ Forum Nokia
  • Sanna Häivalainen - UX Specialist @ Forum Nokia
  • Tuomas Kuosmanen - Senior Designer @ Nokia
  • Patricia Montenegro - Lead User Experience Designer @ INdT
  • Alysson Santos - Senior Designer @ INdT - interested in the video editor
  • Annu-Maaria Nivala - Usability Specialist and User Experience Project Manager
  • Jan Krebber - Interaction Designer and Usability Specialist
  • Kirsi Rönkkö - Interaction Designer and Usability Specialist
  • Ulla Niemelä - Graphic Designer
  • Keywan N. Tonekaboni - Student with special interest in UI and Usability
  • R Yedra - PHP & Mobile Programmer/Developer @Pasarela Directa S.L.(GSMspain). Interested in concepting, graphics and interaction
  • Sebastián Colomar - General interest in end-user performance experience...
  • Victor Diaz - Master student in Cognitive Sciences and Interactive Media & Programmer & Designer
  • Vicky Vouloutsi - Master student in Cognitive Sciences and Interactive Media
  • Joan Mora - Master student in Cognitive Sciences and Interactive Media / Amateur Programmer

[edit] Help with specific technologies

[edit] Developers willing to help

Please list technologies you are using and working with here. This makes it easier for other people to quickly find a person to ask specific technical questions.

  • Thomas Perl: PyMaemo, GTK+, Hildon, PyGTK, Python
  • Andrea Grandi: Pymaemo, Python, UI design concepts
  • Aniello Del Sorbo: GTK, C, Debian packaging. Not an expert.
  • Jesus Sanchez-Palencia: Qt 4.6, libqt4-maemo5 (Qt 4.6 for Maemo5)
  • Zaheer Abbas Merali: GStreamer, Python, PyGTK
  • Valério Valério: Python, C/C++, EFL, PyGTK, Qt (not an expert).
  • Alberto Mardegan: GTK, Hildon, C/C++, Qt, Clutter (just basics).
  • Marc Ordinas i Llopis: C, Gtk+, Hildon, Hildon-desktop.
  • Martin Grimme: PyMaemo, GDK, UPnP with Python, V4L2 in Python, controlling N800 & N900 FM receivers, D-Bus services with GObject (C)
  • Michael Hasselmann: Qt 4.6 for Maemo5 (novice), autotroll
  • Edward Hervey: Video Editing, GStreamer, PiTiVi, GStreamer Editing Services, GNonLin
  • Cornelius Hald: C, Gtk+, Hildon, Eclipse, transifex.net, hildon-extras
  • Victor Diaz: C/C++, Python, Processing
  • <Your name here>: <Your technologies here>

[edit] How to get help

  1. Look up developers who work with the technology you need help with in the list above
  2. Approach the developers and ask them for help/advice :)
  3. In the neighbor room there will be a developer training track. Feel free jumping there to ask questions, too!


You can always get help regarding UX on IRC by joining #maemo (anytime) or #maebar (for the Long Weekend) on the server irc.freenode.net - there are usually one or two UX people online who can help you out!

[edit] Interested?

If you want to be invited please provide in this thread:

  • Your maemo.org profile making sure that there one can find info about or links to your current projects and your interests in Code or UX.
  • If you are more into Code, a link to the app hosted in maemo.org, either under Fremantle packages or OS2008 Downloads.
  • If you are more into UX, a link to wherever your work can be seen.

Forward this to your colleagues working on great stuff!

For budgeting and also practical purposes we will keep the number of participants around 50 people even if we get more requests. The criteria will be defined more or less by fast response, travel costs, community involvement and of course Maemo excellence in Code or UX.