Interface Design and UX Thread - How our App Looks

[pauland]

The actual coders decided that we would like to start with a basic design and get the functionality there.

As a coder myself, I'd say that it's a mistake to not get that design done before making something that gets seen by the community (what the coders make for testing and never gets seen is immaterial).

My development uses the MVC pattern, so the actual look doesn't matter too much, but I can build the functionality without knowing what the UI looks like.

I guess you guys need to know what tabs/sections will be required and what options can be changed. The coders can build that functionality and the UI can be made to reflect how the user interacts against that functionality.

Get the design done properly. Reduce complexity by only implementing one tab/section/.., then build on it.

If you don't finalise the UI and functionality first, it will turn into a lot of grief to change it afterwards.

Better start with something you're proud of from the get-go.

It's not a race, is it?

[StevenWWinters]

Folks, the project is just getting started and the team is just getting organized, sorting out who has what skills, what needs to be done, how to divvy up tasks, etc. Aside from that, several different time zones are represented by those participating, which makes collaboration interesting.

I think that these are all good ideas and questions, and would encourage everyone interested to keep coming up with suggestions, but also be patient. Things will likely move slowly, at least for a while.

A standard Windows program, is generally the boring text boxes, check boxes, tabs, menus, dialog boxes, etc that you're used to seeing on most typical Windows apps. When I look at Barbara's design, I jump to, "Wow, that's pretty cool! How would I implement that?" Truthfully, I don't know how many of us have designed a "Kai's Power Tools" style interface, but I know I have not. There's a lot of detail to work through.

For my part, I've never actively participated in an open source project, so I can't say how this will go. I hope it's successful because I think it's a good idea. The main thing is to have fun in the process.