Team Vision Discussion @DebConf 2022, Prizren/Kosovo
Observed symptoms
- Debian is relatively ugly (when you compare it to other distros)
- core values based on freedom and universality; no focus not UX and aesthetics
- built primarily by engineers with stability in mind
- no focus on UX and aesthetics
- People with a core design background, strong hands-on design skills and a motivation to improve Debian struggle to find ways how to contribute. From their perspective, the Debian ecosystem (incl. community talks) seem complex, tech-heavy; the mechanics of how design related improvements/contributions can be made is hard to understand.
- Debian does not support workflows that some end-users might expect from a modern operating system (at least not "out-of-the box"), e.g. synching, viewing, streaming, editing files across Debian based devices (compared to iOS devices interplaying smoothly in the Apple ecosystem)
Vision
- Debian provides a stable overarching out-of-the-box UX
- Debian supports modern use-senarios and workflows adhering to free software principles
- Debian makes it easy for designers with a non-techy background to contribute and improve Debian's UX
Area of Concern & Opportunity
- enable non-techy people to improve and contribute to UX/design matters in Debian
- enable designers to get started
- provide a welcoming environment
- get an overview of different types of design-related opportunities how they can contribute to debian
- graphic/visual/artwork
- themeing
- UI design
- interaction design
- user scenarios/process workflows (across packages)
- provide an overview of current design-related concerns, goals, priorities and projects within Debian
- overview of people and teams dealing with design related stuff
- overview of design-related projects
- map out an overview of system components, their inherent mechanics and development processes that are relevent to understand for design/UX contributions
- map out how to report a "design" bug
- enable designers to get started
- create a modern, easy-to-understand installation process
- compare to Elementary OS
- ensure visual consistency, branding and identity across desktop environments
- adhere to, promote and embody Debian values (i.e. freedom, stability, universality) in and through design
make sure different DE & WMs can be installed on Debian in parallel without breaking each other
- ensure that officially supported desktop environments adhere to standards so that they don't break things, e.g.
- avoid symptoms like double menues in Gnome, etc
- adhere to XDG
- make sure packages (e.g. libre-office) runs as intended on all installed/supported DEs
- notifications, menues, theming, etc
- what happens with packages that require Gnome, but Gnome is not installed?
create a modern out-of-the-box "look & feel" for all supported desktop environments
- how can the default configuration of DE's that are installed on Debian be made prettier?
- see delta between Cinnamon installed on Debian and native Cinnamon in MINT.
- pre-configuration/customisation of officially supported desktop environments (within their configuration space)
themeing / look & feel
- make it easy for designers to customise/configure an attractive out-of-the-box configuration of officially supported DEs (Cinnamon, XFCE, etc)
- see delta between Cinnamon installed on Debian and native Cinnamon in MINT.
- how can the default configuration of DE's that are installed on Debian be made prettier?
- useful out-of-the-box preconfiguration of supported packages
- behavioural/Interaction Design (.bashrc/CLI, etc)
- default installation, pre-configuration and interplay of packages towards enabling modern workflows
- add value to end-users through a smart composition and pre-configuration of packages (whereby the interplay of packages is larger than the sum of their individual parts), e.g.
- making modern end-user workflows function smoothly (cross-device support of workflows)
- reading on mobile, incl. storing/retrieving/editing notes
- syncing content for offline consumption/editing (notes,video,music)
- streaming content (to TV in bedroom)
integration with ?SolidBox (?)
- sensory data pooling (syncing GPS data, etc)
- backup (duplicity, rsync, etc)
- making modern end-user workflows function smoothly (cross-device support of workflows)
- add value to end-users through a smart composition and pre-configuration of packages (whereby the interplay of packages is larger than the sum of their individual parts), e.g.
Scope and Limitations
- Debian is a distribution, we do not modify any packages but ship them "as they are"
many (if not all) user touch points are mediated through DE & WMs, which are not really in Debian's domain/scope of concern
- design interventions should not create a burden in the debian ecosystems, i.e. on people/developers/teams etc.