virtual UX

Acetylcholinesterase - End of Signal

This blog comes to an end because I have decided to leave Sun after 5, nearly 6 great years at the StarOffice/OpenOffice.org User Experience team. It has been a fun ride with you.

My special thanks go to Christian, Stella, Frank, Bettina, Lutz, and Götz for the surprising and beautiful coffeepot à la Don Norman. That's magnificent!

5 new blogs on the block. I'd be happy if you stop by from time to time for some inspiration.

OpenOffice.org User Experience - about improving the open source office suite
User Experience & HCI Design - about delightful software and web applications
User Experience Management - about product management and innovation processes
Interface Culture - about computers as new media
metascript - everything else is miscellaneous

Take care and all the best
Matthias

31 Dec 2007 | Permalink | Comments[0] | Tags: blog community openoffice.org usability
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Inhouse und Open Source Projekte – Usability verankern und Synergien nutzen

Von Ronald Hartwig, Maren Mäuselein, Christian Jansen und mir (Matthias Müller-Prove) gibt es einen Beitrag zur Mensch und Computer in Weimar.

Abstract: Usability Engineering kommt in länger bestehenden und sehr großen Projekten nur dann zum Zuge, wenn man sich an die Gegebenheiten der Projekte in Bezug auf das gewählte Prozessmodell anpasst und die Möglichkeiten in Zusammenarbeit mit den beteiligten Entwicklern auslotet.

Dieser Beitrag beschreibt zwei sich ergänzende Projekte im Umfeld von OpenOffice.org und einer Inhouse-ERP-Software, deren Benutzungsschnittstellen in einem gemeinsamen Vorhaben optimiert werden sollen.

> Weiter zum kompletten Artikel...

03 Sep 2007 | Permalink | Comments[0] | Tags: openoffice.org
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quality of written text depends on the tool

Steven Pemberton cites a study that has the following result (also at EURO IA 2006):

Writing with a pen and paper, people produce less text, but of higher quality
Writing with a computer, people write more text, but
- with a text editor they produce lower quality
- with a WYSIWYG editor they produce higher quality

Does anyone know the source?

Technorati Tags: text, writing, wysiwyg

27 Jul 2007 | Permalink | Comments[0] | Tags: media openoffice.org
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It is the user's itch that need to be scratched

The latest issue of interfaces contains an article on the OpenOffice.org User Experience Project. If you are not a member of the British HCI group, you can read “User Experience for OpenOffice.org” also on the OOo user experience website.

Quote:

The first rule of open source development is also the reason for an inherent usability problem: "Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch."
The result is a self-referential system – developers develop for themselves rather than for the average user or the target audience. Usability engineering is considered as superfluous extra. However, to provide a good user experience, it is the user's itch that needs to be scratched.
This article presents user experience activities in the context of OpenOffice.org. The author – co-lead of the User Experience Project – will discuss the status of building an open source community of usability professionals to improve the usefulness and usability of the application.
(read more...)

Technorati Tags: openoffice, Sun, user-experience, usability, opensource