Henrik

Thank you for your interesting notes on GUI design. I agree with you,
that Squeak
in some flavor looks 'amateurish' (which is nice in a certain context).

Scott Wallace has introduced a feature for doing 'themes' in the most
recent 
stream of updates. Actually this indicates that Squeak is getting mature
that
people can consider looking at these areas. So the prerequisites for
coming
up with more 'professional' settings are here! (Even in the 3.2gamma
!!!)

I'll add some more comments below:

Henrik Gedenryd <h.gedenryd at open.ac.uk> wrote:
> Alan Kay wrote:
> 
> > But, Henrik, what is the "rational argument" for having color or even
> > gray scale or different fonts in the developer interface or any
> > interface? Or flowers on your desk? Part of UI is ambience.... If you
> > don't like rounded corners, then you should be able to turn them off,
> > etc.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> 
> 
> You are clearly talking about aesthetics. But when I taught graphic design
> for user interfaces, rounded corners was not part of any principle or
> textbook I ever saw.

But a least it is used in the most recent flavor of a leading (whatever
this
means) operating systems GUI.


> The basic rule is "form follows function" even if thate 
> is somewhat simplified. You are absolutely right that gratuitous color and
> so on are redundant and that's basically what is taught. 
'Form follows function' was to my knowledge the 'credo' of the 'Bauhaus'
style in the 1930ies. If this can be generally applied 70 years later
to software - I doubt. Especially after post-modernism.

You thinks perhaps too narrowly  of 'graphic design'. What about a more 
general usability sense? It is a convenient help to distinguish windows 
quickly by there color. And I think there are probably as well different
preferences (American, European, Asian, African). As a start we have
a 'magdeburg' and a 'paloAlto' theme. What about a 'stockholm' or
'tokio' theme?

This is why
> multi-colored windows are also well known to be bad design (not to mention
> colored window pane backgrounds!). 

Which school of thought says so?

> And so on. They like rounded corners on
> windows and menus are gratuitous decoration.
Your right. The basic theme shoudn't have them.


> When I buy a desk, it doesn't come with garish flowers that I can turn off
> if I don't like them. You *add* these things if that's what you like. The
> basic options are simple and clean, and if you want to clutter things up
> then you may do so.
> 
> But to think that user experience is about "whatever you like" or arbitrary
> choices is completely wrong. Many people think that UI is just a matter of
> opinion, and last week Don Norman said that when he coined the term "user
> experience" he didn't have in mind what people mean by it now. He would have
> a field day with the sausage scrollbars btw.

Could you give some pointers?


> There are well established principles for good graphic communication. What
> else would they teach in graphic design? 
Yes, I agree. But if I look for example what the institution which
teaches
graphic design here in Zurich considers to be good web design (no
pointers
at the momen!t) I think doubts by lay people are more than justified. 
As in software engineering "professionals" usually think beeing a
professional
just means copying other professionals (which is generally not a bad
idea but
hampers creativity. Real new things often come from outside)

"Dream up an ambience that you
> like"? Good books in this area are actually pretty hard to find. The book by
> Mullet & Sano is the best one out there, at least for computer-related
> things. I really recommend it.
> 
> There was a guy on the list a month or so ago that clearly knew graphic
> design and offered help, and the first thing he suggested that New York be
> replaced, which is an obvious point since it is well known that sans serif
> typefaces are the best choice for cases like Squeak.

If you could refind his posting that would be neat. We could contact him
again
as there is now a "official" (SqC) possibility of having multiple
themes.


> You are right in that Squeak does have an "ambience". And for anyone with
> graphic design training (etc.) who know how to "read" such things, Squeak's
> ambience reads "amateurism". 
That was my impression too. In the meantime I'm used to it and even
found out
that some people like it.

There have been several people who know these
> things who have offered help. But Squeak will probably always be ruled by
> the programmer's aesthetic.

Don't be bitter! This will change gradually as the conditions get better
for
non-programmers to to chime in....

And thank you for your modularization work and your recent posting
of comments for [modules].

Cheers
Hannes