Blog posts tagged
"Design"

Celebrate Ubuntu!

At UDS in Budapest we held a session on the idea of a toolkit for community members. It would allow anyone excited enough to show off and celebrate their use and love of Ubuntu. As you can see from the notes there were a lot of ideas and one of the first activities was to

Ivanka, quo vadis?

On the 1st of June 2011 I will be departing these shores on an extended honeymoon with my husband of almost 3 months! I am taking what I believe is officially called ‘a career break’. We will be traveling from the top to the bottom of the world on a motorbike. (Yes, one motorbike. No,

Here we go again!

Every 6 months the Ubuntu journey starts anew. Those of us entering yet another cycle assume that this all makes sense to the outside world but I like to post up dates on the wall in the office and write a blog post to give those new to the project, and some not so new,

A fresh new look for Ubuntu.com

Natty Narwhal isn’t the only thing new today in Ubuntu. Along with it, and as you may have already noticed, we have updated some areas of the Ubuntu website, including a fresh new homepage. What’s new? This overhaul of the website focuses on improving and refining the experience for users who are new to Ubuntu

A fresh new look for Ubuntu.com

Natty Narwhal isn’t the only thing new today in Ubuntu. Along with it, and as you may have already noticed, we have updated some areas of the Ubuntu website, including a fresh new homepage. What’s new? This overhaul of the website focuses on improving and refining the experience for users who are new to Ubuntu

Unity Benchmark Usability – April 2011

First and last impressions of Unity were that it was quite user-friendly, and pleasing in its design and ease of learning. The majority of participants left the session with very positive feelings and were looking forward to Unity’s release so they could download it. In short, participants in this testing session were...

Narwhal spotted at Lambeth Bridge

We always knew Google Maps was good! Google Maps did prove its accuracy; when we looked out of the window from the 27th floor down towards Lambeth Bridge there was indeed a visitor!

That’s it, we’re quitting

The “Quit” command in applications today is a relic from the days when the original Macintosh had no hard disk and couldn’t multitask. Modern applications have made this command increasingly annoying. Fortunately, though, modern PCs have also made it increasingly unnecessary. Mobile operating systems have, for the most...

Ayatana overlay scrollbars: something truly Natty

Natty will feature a world first – overlay scrollbars in desktop applications. The goal is to put content first and banish chrome, while still paying attention to the needs of the desktop environment – mouse pointers. These were designed and developed by Canonical as part of the Ayatana initiative, improving both focus...

Introducing Overlay Scrollbars in Unity

One of our goals in the Unity design effort is maximising immersion in content, and reducing the amount of chrome and clutter needed around that content. Unity’s new Overlay Scrollbars are a small but important detail in this bigger picture. Problem Today’s scrollbars are optimized for cursor driven UI but they became...

Thunderbird in the Usability Lab!

 I have just completed sessions of usability testing of Thunderbird. This time, I had the pleasure of working with Andreas Nilsson, who came to London to observe the sessions. It was very useful to get his feedback and to work collaboratively with him on the analysis and implications of the findings. In addition to

DanRabbit on the Ubuntu One Desktop

Hey Ubuntu One and Design fans! This is my first post here, and I have to say I feel priveledged to be able to write to you all. Recently I’ve been working with the Ubuntu One team on the desktop syncing apps, and trying to give them some special attention. I feel like these apps

Happy Valentine’s Day

The Natty Wallpaper contest – an important update!

Two weeks into our wallpaper contest we’re seeing lots of really interesting entries for the photographic part. As those of you who read the previous post about the contest will know we’re also reserving at least three places this release for non photographic wallpapers. The plan _was_ to use another site to manage...