[Tails-ux] University design / HCI students [was: Bits from …

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Author: sajolida
Date:  
To: Tails user experience & user interface design, segfault
Old-Topics: [Tails-ux] Bits from FOSDEM
Subject: [Tails-ux] University design / HCI students [was: Bits from FOSDEM]
intrigeri:
> Hi,
>
> I've spent the biggest part of yesterday in the design room at FOSDEM,
> because I wanted to feel like I was on holiday; a good way to do that
> was to go hear about stuff that gets me excited these days, rather
> than about more nerdy topics that I find slightly more boring every
> day.


I'm very happy to hear that!

> Still, I figured I should share with you folks some of what
> I heard there, so now that I'm back from holiday I could write
> a report :)


Super cool!

> I'm Cc'ing anonym and segfault, who are two developers (on top of Alan
> and I, who read this list anyway) who are likely to interact with this
> list in the future.


I don't see segfault in Cc: so I'm adding him back once.
The original post is here:

https://mailman.boum.org/pipermail/tails-ux/2017-February/003336.html

> Help we could get
> =================
>
> I think it's useful to have more options, on top of the kind of help
> we can currently get from UX / design people. Do we have a place to
> compile such contact information? Here are two ways we could get help:
>
>
> University design / HCI students
> --------------------------------
>
> <bernard@???> is setting up a program that puts in touch FOSS
> project with people learning design and HCI at some university.
>
> The basic setup is an evaluation of the usability of the current state
> of things. We would have to suggest specific areas that we think are
> worth evaluating, then we would attend (possibly remotely) sessions
> about the findings. I think this could be good for some features that
> we have *already* developed and would like to evaluate, e.g. when we
> have built them without much input from skilled UX people; it of
> course depends on the developers being ready to take the outcome of
> this evaluation into account.


>From the top of my head, here is a list of tools that we created and

could already be tested and evaluated:

As part of Tails only:

- The whole persistence life-cycle: creation, activation, modification,
deletion, etc. Taking a step back and rethinking persistence as a more
abstract concept outside of the current life-cycle would be very
interesting.

- WhisperBack and the workflow from our website and the "Report an
error" launcher on the desktop.

More stand-alone applications:

- OpenPGP Applet

- Onions Circuits

- MAT (We didn't write it but the idea came from here.)

If this is moving forward, I could be the contact person.

> This being said, nowadays we try to integrate UX right from the
> beginning when we change, or add to, Tails. So I've asked Bernard if
> it was an option to collaborate more thoroughly, e.g. when designing
> a new thing (several iterations of usability evaluation, from paper
> prototypes to the working implementation) or improving an existing one
> (evaluation of the initial status, of prototypes of the next one,
> etc.). He told me there's some flexibility and this should be doable;
> he seemed enthusiastic about me proposing this option.


That's cool as well. Though I think that when we develop new features
that are funded we should fund and build capacity internally first.
But help on other features or projects would be interesting as well.

> Open Source Design: jobs
> ------------------------
>
> (http://opensourcedesign.net/jobs/, I think)
>
> The Open Source Design collective has a web tool where projects can
> submit "jobs", i.e. design tasks they need to be done. One can specify
> whether the job will be paid or not. And then, designers looking for
> a FOSS project to help can pick a task and get in touch with
> the project.
>
> (If I got it right, that's how the Tor project found the person who
> created their Style Guide last year; I got the contact of the person
> who did the Style Guide by the way, and will meet him next month.
> Let me know if there's anything I should discuss face-to-face
> with him.)
>
> I would like us to try this out, e.g. to get a logo for Tails Server,
> so we get a feeling of how it works, and whether it's a good tool
> for us. segfault, what do you think?


^ Highlighting this for segfault.

Note that if we're going this far, I'd like to think of Tails Server as
something that could grow outside of Tails, so having a logo that's not
Tails-specific. Remember my idea of calling it "The Onion Factory" :)