Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
Oh Grace,
We have a whole world of designers to draw on, lets not limit ourselves to a bare-bones UX. I'm sure someone here (or more likely everyone working together) can come up with something that is functional, even function enhancing and that looks great. Xara helps artists create great art, and I think their tools should be beautiful as well.
Maybe if you can give the designers some idea of the process the user goes through to:
- discover what the program does
- find out can be changed,
- how they choose/select/signal to you that a change is requested ( can a user make more than one change at a time ie check a bunch of boxes and hit submit),
- what kind of feed back they can get to confirm what they are about or will do?
- how they exit the program
- what kind of warnings or advisories they might get
- etc.
I'm going to open a new thread for the app UX. Maybe you can give us a list of the things you need to show and what feedback you need to get from the user to make anything happen.
Lets really work our imaginations here. Does the application frame, chrome interface even have to be a rectangle?
As for colors, Greens, Golds Oranges could be good. Even for the most common kind of color blind users they won't turn to blue.
http://www.visibone.com/colorblind/ Great resource.
http://www.usability.gov/articles/newsletter/pubs/022010new.html#ColorsthatWorktheBest
I've copied this post to the from the Design a Logo for XaRT thead. If you are posting about UX design post here. Logo and logo colors post in the Design a Logo for XaRT thead
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
The form I suggested as a starting point was just a basic form from C#. The way things work, you design a form with inputs and then code what happens for that input. In the case of the registry tool - all we are doing is setting different items in the registry. The Xara programme reads this to guide it. So, what we a designing is the method of interacting with a user to tell us to change a registry item. And yes, looking at XaReg or XaReg2 shows you what registry entries we will most likely be changing.
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
2 Attachment(s)
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
I offer this skin as a conversation/design starter.
Please feel free to adapt or evolve this design or say, "Rubbish - here's how it should look" (but don't say it too loud OK? ;))) and then submit your own design. There are many ways to skin Grace's standard form and it will be fun to see how this thread evolves with each new contribution.
The way I see my design working is that you click on the gear teeth (which are actually tabs) and then the center panel changes to display that tabs options.
The user can tell what tab they are on, by the large title at the top, which changes depending on which tab you've selected. The submit or close button could be at the bottom of the circle or a smaller gear could mesh with the larger gear and contain the OK Cancel stuff.
Instead of check boxes I've used On Off toggles.
Attachment 96177
I've also included the file.
Attachment 96178
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
Wow. This is what you did a 3 in the morning?
I'm impressed! :)
Moreover, I like it. It breaks from the mold and actually harkens back a little to the fun that the ArtRage and Anarchy designers used to design into the KPT stuff. I think this design deserves to be passed around and riffed upon.
Part of "Functional" is "Fun", right?
-g
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
Being a very lazy programmer, the first thing I thought was Ï like it", the second was "how on earth would I implement it!:eek:".
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
Whatever we can do to help, Grace, say it.
Because this design is really growing on me, and I'd like to take some time today to polish and mutate it a little.
Think of the general reaction when this think flies! It would be one of your crowned jewels as a programmer!
-g
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
I like concept and since XaRT is for a very cool graphics app it would be way cool if the UI for XaRT was likewise visually appealing.
I think the coders can focus on functionality at first while the artists develop presentation concepts. The two can marry up down the road as it's a work-in-progress anyway.
I had an idea of using a gear in the letters a and/or R in XaRT, but since I'm artistically and time challenged I'll leave it to others to consider...
I also like the checkmark in the X of XaRT logo/icon concept.
Fun stuff...
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
The two can be mutually exclusive in their use and yet be tied together. We have some very talented artists here and I know it can be done (I'm just too lazy to help!).
No, the gear as a graphic for the UX and the checkmark as an icon can be unified, relationship-wise, trust it. Use of color, or geometry, it's do-able.
We can own this, at least as concept goes, and it's top drawer as far as I'm concerned. It can be a re-statement of the skeuomorphic that Apple and other designers are walking away from
Whatever the trend is, you buck it, and thus become either ahead of or behind the current trend!
-g
Re: Design a Logo for XaRT
Just to elaborate on the coding part. We will be using C# in the .NET framework. Think of it as a big tool box. So, to create a form I tell C# make me a form and I get what looks like any other windows app. I then go into the toolbox and drag a menu onto the form and fill in a few blanks. I want tabbed forms, I drag a tabbed form from the toolbox onto my page. Now, what Barbara has proposed is very nice, but it isn't in my toolbox. So, I am not sure if it is feasible. As an analogy, how would you implement those tabs as links in Xara Web Designer?