[Shotwell] Shotwell, early draft

[Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo]

> Tor.
> 
> On 07/19/2010 01:29 AM, Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Thank you for the good feedback. I've now improved the mockup, addressing some
>> of the points in your feedback:
>>   
> 
> thanks for your latest mockup.  I've cc-ed the Shotwell mailing list on this message since that's a good place for design discussions to take place.  As you know the mailing list doesn't allow attachments, so I've uploaded your mockup to here:
> 
> http://i30.tinypic.com/2n1crwn.jpg
> 
>> • Images are now square, with a white border, to seperate image (e.g blue sky
>> images) with the blue selection color.
>>   
> 
> I personally find the white border to be a bit harsh since it contrasts starkly with the surrounding gray.  As you've probably seen, Shotwell 0.6 includes a gray border around each image, and I personally find even that to be a bit too pronounced so we may make it fainter at some point (this is http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/2156).

Yes, I've now made them in the gray color that is default for Shotwell. Still wonder about the rationale behind making the background color an option…this is the kind of setting that should be curated for the user by people like you, Adam ;-)

> 
>> • Image icons in the rectangles at the zoom slider.
>>   
> 
> Those look good to me, I think.
> 
>> *The Publishing Step*
>>   
> 
> For the benefit of those on this mailing list, I'll first repeat my previous comments which you're responding to:
> 
> > Adam Dingle wrote:
> > You've suggested putting the introductory publishing step in the main window
> > rather than in a dialog. It's not clear whether you're suggesting that *all*
> > steps of the publishing process would live in the main window, or just the
> > initial step. In some of those steps we display various Web pages from
> > publishing providers which have a white background. It's not clear to me that
> > those would look good in the main window which normally has a dark gray
> > background in Shotwell. If we did put these steps into the main window we'd
> > also presumably need to add a sidebar item which the user could use to select
> > the publishing view (since they could navigate to another page and then want
> > to come back to it). In any case, we could consider this, but it would be a
> > significant code change and I think it's not likely to be a high priority.
> 
>> If it's required for a user to browse a web page, it should be done in a
>> seperate window.
> 
> I believe you're suggesting that most publishing steps should take place in the main Shotwell window, but that the steps which involve Web pages should occur in a separate window - do you mean a dialog in Shotwell, or are you suggesting that we launch the user's Web browser to perform these steps?
> 
>> Can the publishing step be made with API Calls (?) instead of a
>> user browsing.
> 
> I believe you're asking whether we can avoid displaying these Web pages altogether.  The answer is no: some publishing services require that users log in through their Web site.  We've chosen to encapsulate the Web pages in a Shotwell dialog because we think this makes the publishing experience as seamlessly integrated as possible.
> 
>> I see that iPhoto also uses a web view, so maybe it's not
>> possible to do this without a web view.
> 
> iPhoto, like Shotwell, takes the user through a series of publishing steps in a dialog window; I assume that's what you mean by a "web view".  It might also be possible to make the Web pages appear in the main Shotwell window, but as I suggested in my original comments I'm not sure that would look great.
> 
>> too bad as it breaks the user flow inside the app.
>>   
> 
> In my opinion Shotwell's current approach, in which the providers' web pages appear in a Shotwell dialog, has an easier user flow than if Shotwell were to launch a separate window or browser to display those pages.  If you think that your approach would be easier for the user, I'd be curious to see a series of mockups which show what each step of the publishing process looks like in your vision.

Yes, the dialog approach is better than a separate window. But I was wondering if it's possible to make the look of the content in the dialog more customized to fit better in the app – so people experience it as a part of the app, not as a dialog from Facebook, if you know what I mean?

> 
>> *The Sidebar Navigatio*n
>> Before designing navigational elements, is a tree view beneficial for users? I
>> can see power users wanting this to be able to fast skip to a sub album. But how
>> often would people need sub albums? I think it mostly would cause complexity
>> among users not accustomed to tree views. So is this really essential for
>> managing photos?
>>   
> 
> Shotwell has had a tree view of events since its very earliest releases: this lets the user easily find photos from any given year and month.  I expect that the tag list will also become a tree soon since many users have requested this (http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1401).  We're also thinking about adding a geographic tree to the sidebar which lets the user browse photos by the location they were taken (http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1473) as well as a folder browser tree (http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/1594).
> 
> I can imagine some greatly simplified photo manager which has no trees at all, but that would not be Shotwell.

I'm using iPhoto as a reference here, which is a simple photo manager – which is really suitable for the average user. Isn't Shotwell aiming to be the photo manager for these kind of users? I always thought that, since it's supposed to be the default in Ubuntu after F-Spot. Making it too advanced might alienate novice users, to which this is the first photo managing app they'll use on Ubuntu.

On the other hand, novice users might not even use nesting in the events and tags – but they might create nested items by mistake, and then it would be a ux problem, making the app feel more advanced than necessary.

Just some of my thoughts :)


> 
>> I'm raising this question of user experience because I want the app to feel as
>> easy as possible for first time and novice users :)
>>   
> 
> I agree that that is important!
> 
> adam
> 




Med vennlig hilsen / Kind regards

Tor Løvskogen Bollingmo / Designer
Telefon	+47 98 46 24 88
Monument
M70.no
Designalized.com