GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program, and is free, open source software for photo retouching and image creation. It is a great example of user interface innovation in open source.
GIMP contributors can program new features, report bugs, write documentation, translate the product or its documentation, participate in a wonderful brainstorming site, work on the GIMP site, and more.
The GIMP UI brainstorm is a blog that is implemented as a visual brainstorm. Idea generators create images and email them to an email alias, and once vetted, the ideas are posted directly to the blog. As a proper brainstorm, comments are switched off.
The GIMP UI Redesign site is a wiki that contains background information and specifications for GIMP features. It is a great way to share technical details with the community.
The UI brainstorm is such a fantastic idea that Symbian has created its own version, aptly named Symbian UI Brainstorm, aptly named symbianuibrainstorm.wordpress.com. Please have a look and email your UI brainstorms for inclusion.
23 Comments
Oh dear. Gimp is not a very good example at all. In fact it’s often considered the canonical example of FOSS’s triumph of features over usability.
Gimp has a learning curve of the stark face of mount probable. There have been many initiatives to improve the UI over the years (it’s 13 years old). The UI evolution has been geologically slow, partly because GIMP appears to be a slave to the toolkit it once spawned (GDK+).
Paint.net is a much better example of how to cut back on the features and focus on usability.
Check out the new Sketchflow features in silverlite development studio
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/10/microsoft_silverlight_3_review/
The sketchflow idea sounds like an excellent way of collaborating on UI development. I love the idea of using crude renderings to foster the feeling that a design is open for comment and mailable.
May I make one constructive suggestion though. Maybe you should have another type of posting on a blog – lets say “screen of the week”. Where you post a screen-shot of a current S60 view and let commentors say what they like and don’t like about it.
(perhaps not in the same blog as brainstorm, since they serve different purposes).
I meant “mount improbable” of course :/
Stringer,
Great input: I really like the idea of “screen of the week”; please submit one for our first example.
With regard to Gimp being hard to use: I agree. However, it does have some interesting UI innovations. It’s the core app that has some trouble. However, the community keeps trying to improve it, and the organisers are very receptive to their ideas.
I’ll give paint.net a try, too!
Scott, I posted these comments to your email id and for the sake of this blog readers I am posting it again.
Few suggestions on UI,
* It seems to me that S60 is modeled on Windows desktop UI. Why not put all apps on home screen like the iPhone and Android. I had a terrible experience with Nokia phones even to do simple things.
* Let’s face it. Symbian UI is the worst among today’s smartphone platforms. Please take it as a challenge and improve the end user experience and delight us.
* If HTC can design a good UI why can’t Nokia??
* Symbian touch UI is the worst at its best. Have you guys seen LG, Samsung feature phones? they offer better UI than Symbian S60 5th edn.
Why don’t you guys open a thread on internet for this question instead of asking us to mail personally. I think Symbian is expert in making simple things difficult
.
Crux,
Thank you for your reply. Symbian Foundation does have an extensive–and free to the public–set of forums:
UI Council Forums: http://developer.symbian.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=28
UI Technology Domain Forums: http://developer.symbian.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=43
Please feel free to open threads about the Symbian user interface if none of the active threads fit your topic.
One thing to note: non-constructive criticism is less helpful than idea submissions. Symbian is open source, and all of the improvements will come from community contribution.
S60 was originally bringing the traditional (S40) to the smarphone world. I thought it worked extremely well in the first release 7650. The push joypad in to enter and back button to go back one screen was very intuitive and used throughout.
So I disagree that S60 comes from a windows UI heritage. It has however been extended beyond the initial intention of S40. There are too many menus and icons…so much so that Nokia have to add shortcuts to the home screen which really affects usability – it’s so busy and yet you can still dial numbers on it (to a newbie this is really non obvious).
BTW, When you guys are planning to replace the current S60 and when we might see new phones? Is late 2010 realistic for direct UI debut?
Is Symbian’s UI progress linked with Nokia’s hardware?
Hi David,
>When you guys are planning to replace the current S60 and when we might see new phones? Is late 2010 realistic for direct UI debut?
The plan of record remains that Symbian^4 will be hardened around the end of 2010, meaning that devices based on the Symbian^4 codeline can be expected to reach the market about that time. Symbian^4 is expected to include the following features:
* Qt optimised for the Symbian platform;
* A new “Orbit” extension library for Qt, which contains more than 50 widgets tailored for mobile user experience, and which will provide a replacement for the existing “Avkon” widget set;
* A new “Direct UI” interaction and navigation logic, combined with finger-optimised layouts offering excellent touch and hybrid-device user experience;
* The application suite re-factored and re-written to take advantage of Qt APIs, Orbit widgets, and Direct UI.
Elements of this combined offering will be available for experimentation ahead of their full integration in Symbian^4 and may be included in devices that ship based on Symbian^3. Symbian^3 itself contains important improvements in its graphics architecture.
For more info, see eg the discussions on the Symbian Council forums, such as the FRC forum.
// David W.
Ok thanks for that. Last year Nokia announced Qt toolkit will be supported on S60 from this year. But nothing happened so far. Any update on this??
You mentioned finger-optimized UI support in Symbian 4. Does that mean Symbian will be compromised in the short-term? I mean until that point handset vendors have to wait to have a full-blown touch solution from Symbian?
>Last year Nokia announced Qt toolkit will be supported on S60 from this year. But nothing happened so far. Any update on this??
See Qt for S60 Technology Preview Released
>You mentioned finger-optimized UI support in Symbian 4. Does that mean Symbian will be compromised in the short-term? I mean until that point handset vendors have to wait to have a full-blown touch solution from Symbian?
One hazard of talking openly about planned platform improvements in future releases is that, almost by definition, the previous releases of the platform are “compromised”. (That’s no doubt one reason why some mobile platforms tend to say little about the contents of future releases.)
So, yes, it’s true that the level of platform support for “full-blown touch solution” will be less in releases prior to S^4 than in S^4.
But there are options for manufacturers to build powerful touch solutions on top of previous releases. Not everything in a device comes straight from the platform. Far from it. That means we can anticipate devices with improved touch interfaces, ahead of the appearances of devices based on S^4.
// David W.
Thanks for that again.
One last question,
What is it that that stops Symbian handset vendors from using capacitive touch screens? Could you please explain to us the complexity of software support for capacitive touch screens? Is resistive touch support is easier than capacitive touch? Does switching to capacitive can have any impact on apps compatibility?
I have Googled for answers but not able to get satisfactory answers. You guys are deep into this stuff and could potentially explain this stuff to all of us.
Thanks.
>What is it that that stops Symbian handset vendors from using capacitive touch screens?
Symbian does support capacative touch screens. The Samsung i8910 HD is a fine example of this.
For a good discussion of the pros and cons of different types of touch screen, see this review of the i8910 by All About Symbian. Excerpt:
// David W.
>>>>It’s true that the level of platform support for “full-blown touch solution” will be less in releases prior to S^4 than in S^4.
Don’t you guys think that’s a big let down, especially for Nokia who don’t even have an alternative in the near-term?
I am saying this because Nokia is benchmarked against Apple, Palm and Android. Nokia is at the critical juncture in smartphone market and if their primary software supplier is behind the competition then who else can save them?
Hang on: I didn’t say that Symbian is “behind the competition”. I said that the level of platform support for full-blown touch solutions in our S^3 platform release will be less that the contents of our S^4 release.
I assume that similar statements will apply for (eg) the Apple iPhone releases. The contents of the iPhone v3 platform will be less (in some aspects) than the contents of the iPhone v4 platform, etc. However, what’s different with Symbian is that we talk openly about the contents of future platforms, well before the contents have been finalised.
// David W.
The important and exciting thing is that Symbian has a roadmap for innovation and improvement to the UI. We have some internal ideas in store too…
Also, look at Palm. They had a fantastic platform that was popular for a while and whose popularity slowed while they were hard at work on an innovative new OS and UI.
We are not in a game of catch-up with Apple, Google, and Android. It’s more like a game of leap-frog.
In addition to capacitive and resistive touch technologies, there is Acoustic Pulse Recognition, which requires a lower touch threshold than resistive but is much cheaper than capacitive (which, I understand, takes a significant proportion of the bill of materials).
I urge Symbian Foundation to do a case study on Palm. I am sure Symbian will prevail eventually but not without losing some market share to new rivals.
Palm hit penalty kick in injury time. Time for Symbian to do the same and surprise the market.
We consumers want you to succeed. Nobody wants you to lose because competition is always good and welcome. It fosters innovation whether it is open or closed source.
“Don’t you guys think that’s a big let down, especially for Nokia who don’t even have an alternative in the near-term?”
Oh there sure is. Google trolltech, Symbian, and Maemo all comes much clearer.
First Maemo 5 device codenamed Rover(“N900″)(you can find it’s specs in web if you search) will come probally in Nokia World September 1-2, next one early 2010 and Harmattan should be out first half of next year.
Nokia is moving to linux direction and that’s great imo at least before Symbian Foundation gets to Symbian^4. Thought i still do like Symbian so i hope they suprise me with Symbian^2 or lets say with Symbian^3.
does Symbian foundation UI is replacing the S60 UI only or Are we talking about this new UI taking advantage of Symbian SMP for multicore platform and a advance touch interface. Should we expect major changes in the way applications were written for s60? what about the compatibility of applications already written for s60 with new UI? Thanks.
@Anjani: Symbian’s pipeline is available here: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Proposals_pipeline
Symbian’s roadmap is available here: http://developer.symbian.org/main/source/Symbian%20Foundation%20platform%20plan%20090309.pdf
Compatibility is planned through S^3, but there is a code break planned for S^4. The platform is moving forward, and every once in a while, we need to make a clean break in order to realise great progress.
@tony: Symbian is technology-agnostic with regard to resistive vs. capacitive vs. other. Manufacturers can implement whichever they feel is best to meet their business objectives.
Thanks again for all the great comments!
@Scott – Regarding the OS being agnostic wrt a particular touch tech, sure – abstraction is what the OS is for
It’s kindof interesting, though, down in the nitty-gritty: resistive won’t do multitouch (AFAIK), so the zoom-in/out with thumb and forefinger needs to be considered carefully in an OS if resistive is to be supported well. I mention another tech, but, again, to support it elegantly would require some awareness of it’s limitations. Disclosure: I was involved with developing the touch tech I mention above.
Hi,
About that brainstorm blog: i think its need some voting mechanism. I dont want to post comments there, i want just make some clicks to express my consent with some posts. I think that will be usefull and allow determine most required improvements along od all suggested.
Thanks for your suggestion! For now, the Brainstorm is just that–a place to share cool and fun ideas. The next steps are coming: the UI Council is convening a workshop in a few weeks to go through the Brainstorms and select several for voting. Voting will occur on ideas.symbian.org, which is now open to all! I’ll post a blog entry here and a tweet on the Symbian Twitter account once Brainstorms turn into Ideas.