Very interesting.. a bit too much time for showing them... With these pie charts, Renaissancers would be we believe that Renaissance is a thing good and requested from users... while in the net percentages are

99% against This Ribbon mimic tries
1% (mostly micro$oft people) for Ribbon-Renaissance

so, why in surveys percentage seems agree with Renaissancers?

Because:

- agreers are mostly first-time or occasional users (not using heavily OpenOffice)
- amongst agreers there are surely micro$oft people (or Renaissancers close friends)

Do you thinks, dear Renaissancers, users are so stupid? Users want using software (etimology say all), nor re-starting to learn

Do you think that showing percentage AD HOC of your survey (also AD HOC) you are now able to Ribbonize OpenOffice? You believe so, so bad...

We still to stop OpenOffice Renaissance

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stoprenaissance/

Posted by The Wizard of Oz on September 29, 2009 at 09:19 PM CEST #

I won't sign, because I want such an interface.

Posted by Łukasz on September 29, 2009 at 09:37 PM CEST #

The Wizard of Oz: This is funny, but nonconstructive: you're claiming that the project is not useful, but this is a lie (...and you even didn't proposed any alternative) - main goal of project is to create better UI. For example, first time i really was confused with some points in menu bar of OO.o.

Posted by Anonymous on September 29, 2009 at 10:23 PM CEST #

Sometimes nothing is better than something bad

Renaissance (a very Ribbon-clone project) may have very dangerous effects on OpenOffice
Renaissancers, in order to have open field in altering and destroy GUI, shows surveys with percentages that they like, while in real world and in the net, everywere, all people hate Ribbon (and Renaissance that is a Ribbon Clone)

present GUI is good (fully customizable) if real intent of Renaissancers is improvement of GUi, they can add one or two (or three) more thing to GUI, but improve the GUi is, clearly,not the true intent of Renaissancers

I every time ask: RENAISSANCERS, WHY do YOU LOVE SO MUCH RENAISSANCE- RIBBON CLONE? they never replied

Nor this surveys serves, in their minds, to make that occasional users and popular opinion believe that Renaissance is a good think, but behind Renaissance, I see the Micro$oft shadow...

Posted by The Wizard of Oz on September 29, 2009 at 10:33 PM CEST #

I hope Frank, in his analysis, would give the right importance to the answers to C1-C3 survey questions (Controllability). See them here:

http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/w/images/a/a7/Prototype_Extended_Feedback_s.ods

In *none* of those answers, 51% of the prototype users agrees on the fact that the new proposed UIs ease their work, support optimal usage of system functionality or provide a fixed sequence of steps to perform a task.

Posted by The Black Lobster on September 30, 2009 at 09:37 AM CEST #

-> Wizard of OZ: I'm sorry that you do not read or understand most of the communication about project Renaissance.

To set the record straight for any other readers who read blogs and comments to stay informed I would like to clarify some points.

"present GUI is good (fully customizable)".
Thank you for liking the present OOo UI. It is good and we in UX worked hard to make it that way. But we want to make it great and more appealing. Not just stop at good. Regarding it being customizable: yes and IT WILL STAY CUSTOMIZABLE.
The new UI, when it does evolve, will NOT be a clone of MSO2007. We are putting a lot of thought and research into making our own solution. The prototypes are a step in this search, not the solution itself.
I don't even know when Renaissance changes will be made and when they do, it'll be a painless and worry-free as possible so that current OOo users are not overwhelmed. It is a UX project. That means we care about the users.

"showing surveys with percentages that they like" and "showing percentage AD HOC"
The results of all surveys are always reported. We have no interest in keeping them secret. This is a community project and the UX community is helping find solutions. I put only 3 pie charts in the blog because three makes a nice visual and doesn't make the reader scroll too long. Of course the rest of the pie charts are interesting too, but I expect readers to click the link to view them all in the Calc file.

Kind regards,
Liz

Posted by Liz on September 30, 2009 at 12:43 PM CEST #

Thanks for published survey data. I think thta percentages are reasonable.
Just one question: how can you infer that there results support Renaissance Project and its specificities43?

Posted by None on September 30, 2009 at 01:38 PM CEST #

Renaissancers, instead to publicize your Micro$oftical-friendship project (because with an OpenOffice Ribbonized Micro$oft have no fear users migrate from Ribbonized word to non-ribbonized OpenOffice, being first and second app both ribbonized), do you want ask finally to this important question?

Why do you love so much this project?

(because only lover are you and few micro$oft fans, experienced, heavy, wish users hate Renaissance)

SINCE:

- GUI improvements is not your final goal (because an improvement requires only add one or more bar or button)

- hear users is not amongst your goals (because you hear only users giving ability to show positive feedback, ignoring majority of users against project)

I suggest to stop suddenly any Renaissance, because I fear any further effort will be vane. Renaissance GUI never will come out in OpenOffice. This project is only a waste of time

Posted by The Wizard of Oz on September 30, 2009 at 01:54 PM CEST #

Hi everyone,

well said, Liz. I would like to address one concern which is heard very often and relates to the ability to customize the user interface. Several times I read statement similar to the one by "The Wizard Of Oz" who said that the "present GUI is good (fully customizable)". Really, is it?

If it is fully customizable, why am I unable to change the position of the status bar? Or at least move the zoom slider to the toolbars? Or why can't I just drag the application menu at the top and place it elsewhere (like MSO 2003 provides). Mainly because it does not make any sense for the majority of users. Either they just don't care about it, or they simply don't need it. Consequently, the current user interface is indeed not "fully" customizable, it is customizable to a certain extend. Something to keep in mind :-)

This won't change with Renaissance. The finally proposed UI - as you may now we are still in early stages of developing concepts - will also address the ability to customize the interface to an extend, so that it helps the users to better accomplish their tasks. For example, an advanced user might wish faster access to his very frequent used functionality, whereas for the majority of users this function might be less important. (There are more examples, but I'm sure you got the point.)

By the way, since "customization" is asked very frequently it has already been included in our Renaissance FAQ wiki page. For those who interested in knowing more, please have a look: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Renaissance/FAQ

(I just noticed a new comment...)

@None: I'm unsure if I get your point, since I don't know your background, knowledge (and not even your name ...). Since we did numerous surveys in (sometimes) special contexts with different kind of goals in mind, you might help us with a more specific question. For example, do you refer to the specialties of the Project Renaissance or a early stage concept presented in the prototypes? I would really like to "precisely" answer your question. Thanks a lot!

Have a nice day,
Christoph

Posted by Christoph on September 30, 2009 at 02:01 PM CEST #

Please go ahead and redesign the interface. Also please ignore the trolls. But I do believe you need to make a choice between these 2 options:

1) Start listening to your user feedback, or
2) Stop pretending you are listening to your user feedback.

Thanks

PS I like the IBM proposal. Vertical!

Posted by Friedrich on September 30, 2009 at 11:43 PM CEST #

This poll was RIGGED!

ok, just kidding :-)

Anyway good to know so many people find the new interface usable already. Congrats to the UI team!

On the flip side, sad to know, I fall into the minority group!

PS: Agree with Friedrich, i'm leaning towards Symphony interface.

Posted by Ajay on October 01, 2009 at 01:12 PM CEST #

Dear Ui-team,

Actually we made information about our migration from MSO 97/2000/XP/2003 to OOo.

And in the argumentation, we says 'same UI design than MSO <= 2003', the UI design of MSO 2007 can cause low productivity.

Is not a good idea to made a OOo with a MSO 2007 UI-like.

Try to offer more flexibility and customisation if more better.
I don't say than rennaissance project must stop. but try to propose other concept than a existant concept.

Posted by xinos03 on October 01, 2009 at 02:58 PM CEST #

why the prototype is only based on impress ?

Posted by xinos03 on October 01, 2009 at 03:03 PM CEST #

->xinos03: The prototyping is only done for Impress, because we're only just trying to find the right new concept. If the concept works for Impress, then it will be tested on the other apps and adjustments can be made to have a consistent "accessing functionality" concept across all OOo apps. BTW, a prototype as we define it is just for trying out various ideas, not a final design to implement.

Posted by Liz on October 01, 2009 at 03:24 PM CEST #

"53% answered that they agree or agree totally that the current version of OpenOffice.org need a UI redesign. 32% answered that they disagree or disagree totally. This tendency supports the idea of project Renaissance."

Support by a margin of 3% indicates that this project might alienate a large portion of users. I think it would be good to consider starting project Renaissance over again from scratch. I don't think it is headed in a direction that will please the community. We're looking at nearly a 50/50 divide.

Posted by nate on October 01, 2009 at 08:30 PM CEST #

32% is a big portion of you users...

you risk to loose 1 out 3 OOo users if you will adopt a complete Ribbon-like UI and you will completely renounce to the current classic GUI...

try to find a solution like "old GUI as alternative GUI", "hybrid GUI", "retro-customization of new GUI into old GUI", "standard GUI tab" or whatever will allow user to keep using the current GUI instead of the Ribbon-like new one...

you should not forget about the 32% who had negative feedback to the new GUI (some other questions of the survey had even higher ratios of disagreement---)

you should not forget of the many users from all the world (586 right now) who signed the STOP Renaissance Petition ( www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stoprenaissance/ )

Posted by Tommy on October 01, 2009 at 09:31 PM CEST #

The "margin of victory" is actually 6% between proponents (53%) and all others (47% - opponents and those that were neutral). Conversely, the "margin of defeat" between opponents and all others is 36%. I could make a pretty compelling case for the latter statement being more apropos than the former but, really, neither should be construed as thoroughly valid on its own. Follow this link for a little more of what I mean:

http://blog.thebehrens.net/2009/09/30/a-comment-on-the-renaissance-prototype-survey-results/#comment-685

Posted by Mark on October 01, 2009 at 09:46 PM CEST #

I have a question for the Renaissance team.

you said you had something like 1800 surveys, right?

did all those survey come from simple external OOo users?

did some SUN employee, OOo developer or Renaissance team member complete the survey as well?

if yes, how many did it? which is the percentage of surveys from "internal users" (SUN, OOo devs, Renaissance members) in respect to "external" users?

obviuosly "internal users" had the right to vote just like "external users"...
however i would find those informations useful to better interpret the numbers of the survey

Posted by Tommy on October 02, 2009 at 09:32 AM CEST #

Hi Tommy,

thank you for your good question. Since the survey didn't ask for the background of each of the participants, we can only provide some assumptions. Basically anyone had the chance to complete the survey, thus Sun employees (working on OOo) or OOo developers would have had the chance to take part. I'm sure that nobody of the Renaissance team answered the survey, since it has been initially decided to gather other people's opinion (or let's say trend).

On the other hand, I'm unsure whether we can easily differentiate "internal users" and "external users". Since the survey has mainly been triggered by the prototype, and the prototype has been announced in blogs, only people who are very interested in OOo would have known about that.

Let's assume (easy to remember) numbers for users:
100 developers
1000 community members (very active)
10000 community members (active)
100000000 "plain" users

In this early stage, the users who took part in the survey might have mostly been community members who are active or very active. We know that these people have sometimes different needs and in comparison to the "plain users". This has to be kept in mind when looking on the first results. Since we wanted to get a "feeling" how people think about the prototyped interaction concepts, it's absolutely okay.

Back to your statement. Currently, I would like to differentiate the "internal users" (developers, community members with some activity) and "external users" (plain users), since the latter ones have no bias concerning the product.

I hope this helps a bit.

Have a nice day,
Christoph

Posted by Christoph on October 03, 2009 at 02:26 AM CEST #

so i assume u can't tell how many internal users completed the survey...
however i think a lot of them did since they certainly knew about the survey and were certainly more informed about it in respect to common external OOo users...

i suppose this could explain why the trend of feedback was more favourable here in respect to other forums...

despite this i see that Renaissance-lovers did not however reach such an overwhelming majority

the Renaissance oppositors collected an important result.

you should remember this and the almost 600 petition signatures when you build the next prototype.

i still think that the old GUI should be kept alive as an alternative GUI, an additional tab or an extension. this would make everybody happy

Posted by Tommy on October 03, 2009 at 10:03 AM CEST #

A small comment on the last post. I'm trying to follow to the information in the news section of the openoffice.org web site, but the first notice about any kind of questionnaires covering the new interface came to me from comments about the recently published prototype. I think it's a bit strange.
I'm sure, that visual interface of the OpenOffice.org should be changed. I like refreshments made in the Lotus Symphony and I'm sure this is the right way. Complete switch to something like Microsoft 2007 can be done as an extension, not as the only choice. At the same time I understand if someone likes his concept of visual interpretation of the OpenOffice.org and make it available to public at no cost we don't have rights to ban him (or his sponsors) for that. However, taking in account, that visual interface is so important question (just like include or not to include PIM into the package), it's may be reasonable to spend time and money not to interface itself, but to ability to apply themes to the interface, including the Microsoft office 2007 related one.

Posted by Andis on October 03, 2009 at 05:09 PM CEST #

I've restored the "No answer" items that has been purged by renaissance devs.
See how different look data (and pie charts)
http://wikisend.com/download/472828/Prototype_Extended_Feedback_s.ods

".....omitting the comments from the text boxes which sometimes contained personal information that cannot legally be made public.... "

Please! a simple disclaimer would have been enough. However, personal details can be manually removed.
To me it seems that your real concern is not to made public the content of comments, not personal details.
I would be very curious to see how people answered to F1 F2 questions and even F4 possibly.
As usual the impression is that your decision making process is very closed and obscure. It seems that your decisions are not backed up from any technical or scientific evidence.
The results of the survey clearly indicates a failure but you affirm that it is a success, so, what kind of
The impression is that some manager decide
It is not clear who decides what and, overall, nobody knows how should the community interact with you (developers? / sun managers? ) in order to be heard.

Posted by pablo on October 04, 2009 at 01:17 PM CEST #

sorry for the typos in the previous comment, hope the concept is clear enough

Posted by pablo on October 04, 2009 at 01:21 PM CEST #

i agree with pablo.

the real numbers he showed are different from the first .ods you published...

after that recalculation Renaissance doens't look that strong...

moreover you did not publish at all the results of the F1, F2, F3, F4 questions which were the most important and interesting of the whole survey.

please, let us know what users said about:

F1) What did you particularly like in the prototype's interface?

F2) What did you particularly dislike in the prototype's interface?

F3) Suggestions to improve the interface?

F4) Feedback on this questionnaire, e.g. have any questions been unclear or impossible to answer?

this way of managing users feedback is just reinforcing the petition against Renaissance which has now 609 subscription:
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/stoprenaissance/

Posted by Tommy on October 05, 2009 at 09:06 AM CEST #

some answers to my and pablo's questions would be very appreciated

Posted by Tommy on October 06, 2009 at 03:29 PM CEST #

Hi everyone!

Tommy, I also appreciate some patience concerning the answers :-) You will perfectly understand that if you have a day job, a private life, a family living several hundred kilometers away and being deeply involved in a software project like OpenOffice.org. You do, I'm sure. ;-)

If some things are very important or urgent to you, I can only repeat my invitation to meet us at the ux-ui discussion list. In the last blog posts and the corresponding comments, I proposed that several times to you and other community members who repeatedly raised questions. I'm convinced that the other UX team members will be happy to help, too.

@ Tommy, 2009-10-03, 10:03 AM CEST:
You said that "internal users ... certainly knew about the survey and were certainly more informed about it in respect to common external OOo users". And this may be the reason for a "more favourable ... trend of feedback". Could it be as simple that most of the people really tried the prototypes and completed the questionaire?

You also stated that "so i assume u can't tell how many internal users completed the survey...". Since I think that I didn't come through, I really think that nearly all people who completed the survey are "internal" (mostly active or very active community members, a _very_ small part might be developers) as you may call it. So it is rather surprising that so many "biased" people support the idea of a change (read "change", I don't refer to any concept), since they may just be happy with the product. Why should they desire a change if they already support the project?

@ Andis, 2009-10-03, 05:09 PM CEST:
Thank you for your comment - you raised a real issue we are faced to. Our intention is to communicate the right things at the right time to the right people. Therefore we started communicating about this project about one year ago (OpenOffice.org conference) and published information regularly on the usual communication channels (the history can be accessed in the Renaissance wiki and the blogs). In the current development stage, it is not planned to be published in the official news section (mainly being used for official release annoucements).

However, since this is a community project we are happy if the information is spread among those who are really interested in. Unfortunately, many blog postings / forum postings / news pages spread incorrect information like referring to a new final user interface (wrong), embedding selected pictures and commenting it shortly (bias the readers) or just linking to the Java based interaction concept prototype (missing information on goals etc.). So I would like to encourage you to spread the (full) word(s) to those who might be interested like you. :-)

The good thing is, that we know about these effects and we can take it into account when analyzing the data.

Concerning the "theming", I would like to ask you to have a look at the Renaissance FAQ. There we explained what theming is about.
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Renaissance/FAQ

@ Pablo, 2009-10-04, 01:17 PM CEST:
Pablo, that's cool! Why didn't you upload the document into the OpenOffice.org wiki? If you might have been unsure where to put it, just drop a mail on our mailing lists. Nevertheless, the "no answer" doesn't mean that the data is useless - especially since you refer it to be "purged". Each subject has an individual reason for skipping an answer. Maybe the question isn't well understood, there hasn't been any experience with the prototype to answer the question, no interest in that specific question ... Looking at the psychological literature (or asking psychologists), there is no common opinion how to handle those results. We currently assume that about 85 ... 90 % of feedback (>1300 subjects) is sufficient for providing a trend.

Concerning your "Please! A simple disclaimer would have been enough." I really had to smile, since it seems that you live outside Germany and the local law is very different to ours. It is true that we missed the opportunity to include a disclaimer and we still think about how to provide access to the data. You may be pleased to hear that I already read some hundred comments to identify personal information, but we are still uncertain if this is sufficient to comply with the law. And it takes a lot of time (which also delays answers here *g*)... The discussion to clarify things is still going on. And, we are still looking for someone with (computer) linguist knowledge who might help to parameterize data analysis software to faster identify trends withing the comments (especially for the bigger user surveys). Anybody?

Your "As usual the impression is ..." may be continued with "... nobody cares about the already available information with regard to Renaissance, neither is there any contact with the User Experience team on the official communication channels" :-) If you think I'm wrong, then please give me some clues how you tried to get in touch with the UX team and the Renaissance activity. Maybe we missed to communicate important facts, so it is even more important to get another point-of-view with specific feedback.

By the way, there is plenty room for community participation. Example: We still look for people who help us with data collection software to investigate real documents.

@ Tommy, 2009-10-05, 03:29 PM CEST:
I notice you say that "the real numbers he showed are different from the first .ods you published". Maybe you have different data, but to me it seems that absolute values (real numbers) are absolutely identical. Reasons for focussing on the rated feedback has been stated before.

Okay, that is all for now. I would like to discuss some things related to printing on our mailing lists. This seems to be a good opportunity to invite you, people who are very interested in Renaissance and its progress tojoin the UX team and to subscribe to our mailing lists. More information at:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/User_Experience/Community/How_To_Join

Bye,
Christoph

Posted by Christoph on October 06, 2009 at 11:22 PM CEST #

@Cristoph

now you say that nearly mostly all survey partecipants were "active or very active community members". do you really think that the numbers of the survey said that those "internal users" were in great majority in favour of change?
well, 53% or more correctly 49% (see pablo's table) doesn't seem such a big number.

when I said "real numbers" I was talking of the percentages of the survey that were not correctly calculated from your group and were fixed by pablo.
please, don't misunderstand my words for your purposes...

again, the most interesting part of the survey is still secret:

F1) What did you particularly like in the prototype's interface?

F2) What did you particularly dislike in the prototype's interface?

F3) Suggestions to improve the interface?

F4) Feedback on this questionnaire, e.g. have any questions been unclear or impossible to answer?

that was the real feedback...
questions like D3 (when executing functions I have the feeling that results are predictable) that were claimed as one proof of prototype success were completely useless... because in every GUI, even notepad, is predictable that the document will be saved if I click the save icon...

I wonder when we will be allowed to know those results.

In the meantime I'll let you know updated results from the petition at:

www.petitionspot.com/petitions/supportrenaissance

617 signature.

Renaissance devs should start taking care of users disappointed by the new GUI and start thinking how to manage this...

people who signed it, tried the prototype and decided it is a step back for OOo

Posted by Tommy on October 07, 2009 at 08:45 AM CEST #

#1 This looks more similar to adobe's interface than Microsoft's ribbon which was just a rip of of adobe anyway.
#2 It looks similar but its different, categorizing and grouping things is how we organize, its hardly surprising that organizing ui involves the same approach.
#3 What version of openoffice will this new ui be released with, I am looking forward to it?
#4 I find it funny how you get idiots who ignore statistics, brainstorming and testing from people who have degree's in ui development because they think they are some sort of genius who need not educate themselves to gain respect for their views and not disrespect for their subjectivity.
#5 Sometimes in democracies you have people who cant admit when the majority don't agree and thus you have scenarios where they shout "conspiracy" purely because they do not agree with decisions. I see this in politics and oss allot.

Posted by tretle on October 07, 2009 at 09:47 PM CEST #

@tretle
I find funny to see that there are people who are just able to insult other people because of their different opinions.
thanks for your contribution to the discussion.

Posted by Tommy on October 07, 2009 at 10:05 PM CEST #

@Tommy - have you read these different opinions? The majority are negative with absolutely no input or any alternative beyond "lets start our own survey".
They don't want to clean up the ui because it would involve a change in habits.
I don't think everyone that disagrees is an idiot either, I think people starting conspiracy theories about user interaction statistics while using caps lock LIKE THIS in the hopes that it somehow drowns out the opinion of the majority are.
Reading over my previous comment it seemed like a blanket statement but it was not intended to be.
And its slightly annoying that I keep hearing ribbon when in fact ribbon was not the first time this type of ui was used.
And people need to also understand that higs and user experience design needs to take more things into account today then when openoffice was first in development.
It needs to be both pointer friendly and finger friendly which I think this design does a good job of compromising quite well.
Sure you probably don't care if its finger friendly today but when the hardware gets cheap enough(which will happen soon) its going to play a huge role on the future success of the project.
You might find it insulting that I think some who have commented here are idiots(or maybe you thought I was implying all are) but I find it insulting that some who have commented here insinuated that there is some sort of conspiracy going on.

Posted by tretle on October 08, 2009 at 01:35 AM CEST #

What OpenOffice.org needs something better than what exists but it shouldn't be a whole sale clone of the Ribbon. If they are going to clone something, I'd sooner see them clone the way Office 2008 operates which is a combination of ribbon and menu rather than being all one direction or another.

Posted by Kawaii Gardiner on October 08, 2009 at 04:02 AM CEST #

Hi again!

@ treetle, 2009-10-07, 9:47 PM CEST:
Thank you so much for your comment, since it really encourages me to spend that time to communicate with other people in the community :-) It seems that you got a good understanding what we want to achieve and why it is (sometimes) a bit hard to get through...

Concerning your statements:
Re #2: How Andreas Bartel once mentioned. We have a number of features (or let's say capability) which is presented to the use. Unfortunately, the screen space (PC) and limited cognition capabilities (User). So there is some need to group functionality so that it fits to what the user is trying to do. In any case, we will end up with something which will re-use a certain area of screen space. This is a problem all software companies are faced to when complex products (which shouldn't be complicated).

Re #3: At the moment, some people talk about timelines and version numbers. To be honest, there won't be any substantial change in the next time, since there is still no decision on a definitive UI. If we have a (somehow) final approach, then the next step would be planning how to intergrate, what toolkit to use, ... So then it will be a matter of how much resources are required for the switch - currently rather unknown. But what we can say is, that if we have any ideas to improve the current design, then we will adress this in the near future. Frank was so nice to update the roadmap in the wiki - may this helps a bit:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Renaissance:The_Roadmap

Re #4, #5: From my point-of-view, in many times such reactions are the result of miscommunication und missing knowlege about goals etc. Thus, up to a certain point, I try to explain as much as possible what are the reasons for our procedure.

@ Tommy, 2009-10-07, 8:45 AM CEST:
Since you still assume the comments as a "secret", I'm very much interested in the following: What will you if we are able to publish the comments?

Let's assume that I spend two days to remove personal information and rants against competitors, what will be my benefit (or the benefit for Renaissance) to do so? What is your plan to take an active part to improve OpenOffice.org? I know that transparency for us - the community - is important, but there are also other topics which I want to take care of.

@ All:
For everyone who wants to easily take part, there is a request to collect numerous usability issues in Impress. Please find more information in the mail [1] starting the thread [2.]
[1] http://ux.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=discuss&msgNo=4215
[2] http://ux.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?listName=discuss&from=2289234&to=2289234&count=6&by=thread&first=1&windowSize=1000

Join and improve!

Have a nice Sunday,
Christoph

Posted by Christoph on October 11, 2009 at 03:11 PM CEST #

@Cristoph

well, for those who missed it, we are talking about user comments on the survey on these questions:

F1) What did you particularly like in the prototype's interface?

F2) What did you particularly dislike in the prototype's interface?

F3) Suggestions to improve the interface?

F4) Feedback on this questionnaire, e.g. have any questions been unclear or impossible to answer?

as I said IMHO these were the most important and interesting parts of the survey (expecially F1, F2, and F3) and I was very disappointed when I saw you did not disclose the result of those questions.

that was, again IMHO, the most important feedback about users who tested the prototype...
so it's still unclear why you did not publish those results...

you asked those question so you should have the answers somewhere...
what prevented you to reveal those answers?
you could not catalog them? you could not understand them? you did not read them? please explain...

to me it doens't make sense to start a survey and then not to completely disclose the answers to those questions...

then, let's go to your question "What will you if we are able to publish the comments?"

well, first of all I would be very interested to know the ideas of other users of this OOo community...
it would be very interesting to know what they did like and what they did not like of the prototype...
maybe some users made some interesting proposals how to modify and make that prototype better...

since you said transparency is very important I can tell you I am available to try to help cataloging those F1-F4 answers (I bet there are recurring answers or similar answers) and then share the final results here on this forum...

Posted by Tommy on October 11, 2009 at 05:00 PM CEST #

any news about Renaissance? is a new prototype under work?

Posted by Tommy on October 16, 2009 at 08:43 AM CEST #

Hi Tommy,
I'm sure you saw the lastest Renaissance effort which is directed at OOo 3.3: Cleaning up Impress. Otherwise, no. Nothing new on Renaissance. We are analyzing user data and preparing for the OOoCon which is in two weeks, as well as supporting developers in other tasks.
Have a good weekend.
Liz

Posted by Liz on October 16, 2009 at 11:53 AM CEST #

I sincerely hope that the new prototype will take in consideration all the negative feedback about the Ribbon-like GUI and will let users have an alternative standard-like GUI or a way to retro-customize the Ribbon-like new GUI to a standard 16x16 icons look.

I will look forward for the results of the OOoCon.
I know that there will be some presentation from people who will present the reasons of all those who are opposing the Renaissance Ribbon-like new GUI project (an online petition on PetitionSpot has collected 659 signatures).

Posted by Tommy on October 16, 2009 at 12:12 PM CEST #

@Tommy, 2009-10-11...

Hi! I just wanted to tell you that I still know about your request, but at the moment there are many other tasks which are slightly more important. I'm sorry about that...

You "asked": "you could not catalog them? you could not understand them? you did not read them? please explain..."

As I said several times before, these the comments were given by people inside the community - a sub-set of the inteded target group of all people. Thus, a trend is already sufficient to us and - indeed - we read the comments. But (with regard to the amount of work) it is an absolutely different story to fully "revise" the comments so that they can presented (e.g. there are *many* different spellings and words for our competitors).

However, I would like to thank you concerning your kind offer to collect / analyze the comments. From my point-of-view, this would be far more helpful for the next surveys. So my proposal is, that you just have a look at the comments (after we have uploaded them) and join the UX team to help us as we progress. That would be great - the links have been posted several times, so I'm sure you already bookmarked the "UX - how to join" ;-)

Have a nice Sunday,
Christoph

Posted by 95.208.215.154 on October 18, 2009 at 05:39 PM CEST #