UI/UX Contributions #787
Comments
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I assume this is related to #596 (comment)? I'd be happy if we had a look at the website jamulus.io and do a few (design) improvements. The repo is https://github.com/jamulussoftware/jamuluswebsite/ Sure, the software Jamulus can and in my opinion should also be tested |
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Yes this is related to @Erioldoesdesign's comment. @ann0see I'll take a look at the website repo. Is there currently a platform for more informal discussion on proposed changes and development? |
Great!
Yes, there are the discussion forums on SourceForge and a Facebook group. Nevertheless, I think that GitHub is the place where changes are discussed. |
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@mulyaj @Erioldoesdesign @geheimerEichkater I think this depends on what you mean by UI/UX exactly. There are certainly a number of "cosmetic" improvements that could be made to Jamulus and its related applications such as the website and satellite projects (https://explorer.jamulus.io, https://lounge.jamulus.io) (see also #73) At a deeper level, there is as you imply probably a need to review the UI itself against the expectations of new and exiting users with a view to making improvements. That is obviously a much bigger undertaking, and in my opinion would probably require a fork of Jamulus to do properly, since the nature of the changes that might come out of such research would probably be too large to cope with in the current architecture. But I'm really just guessing at that. If there is some number of people interested, perhaps it would be best to form a "working group" of some kind to discuss how we might proceed, audit the skills available and generally sort out what think we might be able to contribute? Put is this way: working on open source UI is not a trivial undertaking :-) PS: Over the last 9 months from my own "observation" of issues on the forums and elsewhere, I've formed some hypotheses around user behaviour and created some prototype sketches of what a (possibly more usable) Jamulus UI might look like. I've not yet shown them here though because I'm still evaluating them against issues I see come up. The audience for Jamulus is still rather small and it's hard to know what the core demographic really is. |
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As far as I understand, UX != "fancy gui". It's more about ease of use, etc. So it would involve e.g.
I really support this. One of the main reasons I got involved here was, that I think Jamulus has a better UX than e.g. JamKazam or SoundJack because Jamulus uses the client-server architecture and connecting can be as simple as click on connect and go (no Port Forwarding, etc.) |
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@ann0see Yes, I think if we were to conduct research of some kind, then I would expect on-boarding to be a major factor, but we might also uncover other issues along the way. Such research would involve some planning though. I'm not sure how SEO comes into this exactly, but we can discuss. So in general, how best to start this all off? Would it be good to get together on a call first to discuss things in general? Let's see what the others say. |
Not sure if a call is the right thing (who would participate? Would we use a Jamulus Server everybody can join?) |
Yes, that is generally what I mean. It'd be good to get in a group to discuss this. |
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OK so we could get together on a Jamulus server and talk a bit about it. I'm in London and am pretty flexible time-wise. Let's see what other say, although we are coming up to holiday time too. @ann0see Those tagged on this ticket are probably the best to attend at first, since this would just be an "orientation" meeting. We could do more formal stuff with more people later perhaps. |
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Hi hi folks! wow! in all my time as a designer in OSS I've never seen such an enthusiastic discussion thread! so cool! Just so y'all know i'm helping @mulyaj with this OSS design contribution effort so I'm here to support them as a Designer that's been doing OSS-y stuff for a while so I'll be helping out from that perspective. I'll join calls and read threads and support them as much as possible. It's tough being a designer in OSS first time 😄 |
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Thanks @Erioldoesdesign! And good to know you've got some OSS experience. This is the first time I've contributed to OSS and you're right, it's pretty tough compared to commercial practice! @geheimerEichkater is the effective brand director for the project though so we need to keep him in the loop. Let's wait to see if he responds. |
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Hello to this round. Very honored to be considered the brand director ^^ |
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Hi @geheimerEichkater !
I think because this is the first time some of us connected with the project from a design perspective have "met" as it were, we can look at both at first as part of an initial "orientation" discussion. I'm probably most interested at this stage to get a feel for our collective interests, resources, availability etc. (particularly if we might be thinking of doing research). We can then think about how we might go about a more coherent design "strategy" based on that perhaps? |
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Is this Issue then related to this existing one: #73? |
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It may well be :-) |
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I will have some time in the next week(s). We could get into a call/meeting after Christmas? I’m trying to onboard a choir next year, so I can help out with research |
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That sounds like a good idea. What date would be good for you? |
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Depends on all the others (and @corrados of course). I'm quite flexible at the moment. |
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I'm going to be a bit tied up from the 28th for a week or so unfortunately, but I can have a go at suggesting some agenda points that can agree on in the meantime. Are will all in European time zones? If, so then how about Weds 6th in the evening? EDIT: Maybe we should just keep it pretty broad for now? So:
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Ok, yes, the 6th should work. (Although I'd also have time from now on).
I live in CET.
A few things could also be discussed or at least mentioned here (probably smaller points). The talk should then go into more detail. So we will focus on:
? |
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I'm from Canada in EST. I think we should look at our overall strategy.
With the strategy in mind, defining the specific UI issues and graphics problems would be a lot easier. |
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EST makes it a bit trickier, but with those time zones it looks like an EST time of between maybe 12:00 to 2:00pm would be best as that would be early evening in the other zones. |
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Early afternoon (your evening) works for me. |
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Hey folks! as someone helping out with this totally keen to come to the meeting on the 6th. I can only do these times though: I'll mostly be providing back up to @mulyaj if needed |
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So shall we try for 12:00 Toronto time (so 17:00 in UK and 18:00 Brussels?) on Wed 6th Jan? |
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Sounds great! my email is erioldoesdesign@gmail.com for calendar invites. I have a whereby room that i use for calls but also happy using jitsi or zoom etc. |
Should work for me. Jitsi would be simplest (if we need video). |
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Currently from our discussion in this thread, we are probably looking to make changes to the GUI; as @gilgongo discussed above a fork will probably be needed. |
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I would only see a fork as the last resort. In my opinion we should focus on improving Jamulus so that everybody benefits from the changes we discuss. That's just my opinion. |
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@corrados I think this is really just an initial discussion about experience design issues (both visual and non-visual) to see what we might be able to do. I don't think there's going to be necessarily a specific outcome other than just getting "aligned" on what we think the priorities are and maybe agreeing on some preliminary stuff. Various things (skin design, site design, overall UI, user research, forks, target audiences...) have been mentioned, so there might be a number of things we could do. |
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Feel free to update following list: Design changes
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Seconding/+1-ing @gilgongo If we can approach the meeting on the 6th as an initial discussion around what we think needs improvement and design investigation from both a visual and non-visual perspective that way scope and skills match can be better understood and there's a good chance of capturing other design issues for other OSS designers of the future. 😄 most designers have a 'specialism' (or they're a generalist like me!) but capturing and understanding what the OSS needs on a broader scale could help towards sustainability of both tool and community. Stopping before I get to long-winded and rambling. |
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Ok. So how will the meeting look like tomorrow? Content:
or:
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The first proposal sounds great! To add, we could also discuss ideas on how to best incorporate design into the current workflow. |
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looks great to me @ann0see let us know what jitsi link we'll be using tomorrow :) |
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Not sure if we can use https://jitsi.debian.social/JamulusUIDiscussions20210106 |
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Notes from the Jitsi call on 6th of Jan 2021 Short introduction:
Presentation of current design issues (do we already have a list of this?)
2.1 Discussion of design issues of the Jamulus Software (We should document them somewhere)
2.2 Discussion of design issues of jamulus.io
Discussion of solutions
Other notes:
*Theres a few actions (I think I captured them all?)
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Hi everyone, I've come up with a Trello board that we could possibly use for organizing our design goals. To explain the board, as a team we can define current issues (and future/potential issues) into an overall project. Within the project, user research should then be conducted to support the design decisions that are made. In reference to #73 as @Erioldoesdesign mentioned, we could get into a call again to discuss how we could implement this issue into an epic. Let me know your thoughts! |
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Thanks for organizing the board, I've joined. Curious where the next call will lead us, how to tackle progress. Is there any tendency as to when the next call could take place? |
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I'm available at the same time this week - we will probably have to check with the others. |
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I don't think I'm free next week at the same time but I think you folks got this 💪 I'll be around to support if y'all need it! |
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Are we on tonight in app half an hour? |
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If I find time (not too likely) I might be able to join later |
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Ok. I would have time now. Not sure about others. |
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My bad, I didn't think we were going meet today. Can we meet tomorrow or the day after at 17:00 GMT? |
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I wasn't online either. Tomorrow should work. |
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Hey everyone, @ann0see and I are currently in call right now. |
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Notes from the Jitsi call on 14th of Jan 2021
There are probably some other open points I can't remember. |
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I see I should be looking more deeply into this board more often. I have been thinking about how to improve the UI for a while and missed out that you are working on that here. I have been helping several groups getting on board and heard several comments repeatedly such as it is not visible when one should expect not to hear any sound. Having two level meters for oneself also threw several people. When pljones recently encouraged me to start programming I decided to make a "better" UI as an exercise before trying to be useful. The results are at repo dcorson-ticino-com/jamulusUI-01 (assuming my use of git has worked out correctly). All this does not, however, help at all for the nr1 problem that almost every new user has had, that is setting the input level correctly. They always set the volume way too soft, or way too loud and then complain that Jamulus has bad sound quality when the sound clips and causes distortion. I think we need to find a way to help people with this, maybe a wizard? One thing is for sure, people don't read what has been written as a guide and if they do, they don't believe it. |
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Great! I'll add you to the jamulussoftware/designers team so that we can maybe add you to one of our next calls and talk about your proposals. |
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Please consider the following new Issue: #899 in your discussions. |
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Since we now have a GitHub discussion in the organisation, can we close this issue now? |
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I have no objections. |
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Closed since we have another communication channel now. |
Hi there,
Have there been any plans/ideas on implementing design contributions? I'd be interested in approaching solutions from a UX (user research/testing) perspective.
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