Blog posts tagged
"Ubuntu Desktop"

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...

Free Culture Showcase

Get creative and submit your artwork to this year’s Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase. The theme is Freedom.

Can We Appropriate Design?

’Appropriation’ – the taking of a product and using it for one’s own purposes, in ways unintended by the product creators – is implicitly at the core of the philosophy of opensource, because openness provides for change, adaptation and innovation. Design specifications Last year, I conducted several research projects...

Bright, light and beautiful!

That’s what we want the Ubuntu desktops in Natty to feel like. We’re changing things a little bit for the coming release too. We’ll still feature some fantastic photography sourced from our Flickr group but this time we’re reserving at least 3 places for non photographic wallpapers, so things that are rendered or drawn. The

Hebrew and Arabic on track

Although I haven’t posted much recently we have still been working away. Besides the latest update to Version 0.7 of the core fonts, which posed some technical challenges, we have now finalised the Hebrew Regular and are making good tracks with the Arabic. You may remember the earlier post on the subject of the Hebrew

Design Museum exhibition London

Something exciting next year Bruno Maag from Dalton Maag has been asked by the Design Museum London to put on an exhibition of his work. This is a collaboration between ourselves and DM, the exhibition will be in two parts a substantial part of which will be featuring the Ubuntu font. Exhibition from 28th January

Surveying contributions

If you have ever contributed to an open source project or wish you had got round to it then please can you fill in this survey? http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/36WWXCF It isn’t a quick one, but if you have about 20 minutes to spare then your response would be very much appreciated. I will publish the results on

Looking at Ubuntu Brainstorm: Idea #25801

The Ubuntu Technical Board is currently conducting a review of the top ten Brainstorm issues users have raised about Ubuntu, and Matt asked me to investigate Idea #25801: Help the user understand when closing a window does not terminate the app. In other words, figure out to signal to the user that an application will