Inspired by Google Summer of Code™, the OpenUsability Season of Usability is a series of sponsored student projects to encourage students of usability, user-interface design, and interaction design to get involved with Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects. Students experience the interdisciplinary and collaborative development of user interface solutions in international software projects while getting into FLOSS development.
If you are a student of design, usability, human factors, or other HCI-related field and you are interested in working on an open source project, you could work with an experienced usability mentor on a fun and interesting design project! As a bonus for working 10-15 hours a week between June 1 and August 31, there is a $1000 USD internship stipend at the end of the project.
The OpenUsability Season of Usability will be supporting 10 students to work on 10 open source projects during the June 1 - August 31 2009 season.
* Amarok
* Drupal
* Gallery
* GeneMANIA
* GNOME
* Kadu
* KOrganizer
* OLM
* SemNotes
* Ubuntu
Student applications are due May 20 2009. See http://season.openusability.org/index.php/projects for more information on the projects, student requirements, and how to apply. Questions about the projects or application process may be directed to students@openusability.org.
by Celeste Lyn Paul, Season of Usability Mentor
Showing posts with label season of usability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label season of usability. Show all posts
Gallery's First Sprint
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Last week, Google's Open Source Team hosted the Gallery project's first team sprint. Ten core team members, some from their offices at Google and some from as far away as Serbia, got together on the Google campus on October 22-24 to figure out the future of the Gallery project.
During the weeks prior to the sprint, the Gallery community embarked on some ambitious discussions about what we could do if we took advantage of new technology. We evaluated various PHP frameworks by implementing a basic UI in each one, reviewed feature lists, and examined as many available options as possible. Combined with usability work driven by Jakob Hilden that originated with the OpenUsability project's Season of Usability this year, these discussions and explorations paved the way for the sprint: major decisions and the beginning of a rewrite!
Once at Google we spent a lot of time discussing options, tinkering with code, and continuing discussions into the evening at bars and restaurants in Mountain View.
By Friday, we settled on code standards, feature lists, a new project management methodology using trackers on SourceForge and a shared task list in Chandler, and the Kohana PHP framework. We didn't quite finish the code yet, but it's all in our SourceForge Subversion repository in a temporary location, and we look forward to introducing Gallery 3 to the world in a few months.
Gallery Sprinters
(photo used with the permission of Chris Kelly)
More pictures and more details will be available on gallery.menalto.com later this week.
Wrapping the Season of Usability 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Inspired by the Google Summer of Code™ program, OpenUsability — an initiative to bring usability into FOSS development — developed and launched a similar but independent program, the Season of Usability. The Season of Usability sponsors students to work on usability, user-interface design, and interaction design and related projects with pre-screened Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects; each student is paired with mentors to help guide them on their project, with mentors chosen from a particular community's set of key developers and user experience experts. For their work, students receive a stipend of $1000 USD, kindly sponsored by Google's Open Source Programs Office, the Open Society Institute and Trolltech.
The second Season of Usability took place between May and September 2008, and has been deemed a great success by students, projects and sponsors! Ten students contributed to nine FOSS projects by doing user research, usability analysis or UI mockups. All projects were finished successfully — in average, the teams fulfilled 80% of their initial project goals. Given the fact that most mentors claimed to have set an overly ambitious roadmap at first, this is a very good value. We are especially happy that the Season of Usability inspired the students to further engage in Open Source — six of the ten students will continue their work on the project.
All students created project reports that are published on the Season of Usability website. Summarised, the following goals were accomplished:
Redesigning DrProject's Administration Interface
This project focused on improving the overall usability for project management portal software, DrProject, especially targeting a redesign of the web administration interface.
Along with mentors Paula Bach & Greg Wilson, Liz Blankenship, a student of Science in Information at the University of Michigan (USA), did a redesign of the web-based administration interface for DrProject. She documented her activities on her blog.
Redesigning Gallery's Image Upload Tools
The goal of this project was to improve the image upload tools of Gallery, a web based software product that lets you manage your photos on your own website.
Mentored by Katrin Goetzer and Chris Kelly, Jakob Hilden did a comparative analysis and created mockups for a new image upload tool. His work is documented in Gallery's Wiki. After having finished his own Season of Usability project, Jakob offered to mentor two more design projects related to Gallery for a design course at the University of Michigan, School of Information.
Human Interface Guidelines and Design Patterns for KDE4
The purpose of this project was to finalize the Human Interface Guidelines for the K Desktop Environment.
Becca Scollan, a student of Science and Information at the University of Baltimore (USA), and Thomas Pfeiffer, studying Psychology at the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany) identified common interaction problems in KDE4 and created generic design solutions. Additionally, they complemented the KDE4 HIG by several guidelines. Their mentors were Celeste Lyn Paul and myself, Ellen Reitmayr.
Improving Jeliot user Interface and Workflows
This project focused on improving the user interface and workflows of Jeliot 3, an Open Source Java Program Visualization application that helps Java beginners to understand coding concepts. Sharad Baliyan, student of interaction design from India, identified possible pitfalls when newbies of programming make use of Jeliot, and created paper prototypes to overcome those issues. Sharad was mentored by Roman Bednarik, Andres Moreno and Niko Myller.
Toolbox and Palette Interaction for KOffice
The goal of this project was to improve the toolbox and palette interaction for KOffice, the office suite of the K Desktop Environment.
Supported by her mentors Celeste Lyn Paul, Ellen Reitmayr and Boudewijn Remp, Neha Pahwa analyzed the tool options of KOffice. She identified the major interaction problems and created first paper mockups for an improved tool interaction in KOffice.
3d Widgets for MakeHuman
The goal of this project was to design and test 3d widgets for MakeHuman, a free software for modelling 3-Dimensional characters.
Eugenio Passacantilli, student of Science in Communications at the University La Sapienza di Roma (Italy) designed and tested 3D widgets as a new concept to present options to users. Eugenio was supported by his mentors Stefano Fabri, Manuel Bastioni and Simone Re.
Handheld-Mode Interface for the OLPC XO Laptops
This project focused on designing a system of interaction for the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop with limited input methods.
Along with mentors Mentors Eben Eliason and Marco Gritti, Alessandro Vona, student of Science in Communications, analyzed different handheld interaction models to come up with an interaction design for the XO Laptop handheld mode.
Improving HDR imaging with Qtpfsgui
The goal of this project was to improve various tools and the overall usability of Qtpfsgui, an open source graphical user interface application that aims to provide a workflow for High dynamic range (HDR) imaging.
Supported by his mentors Roman Bednark, Giuseppe Rota, and Alexandre Prokoudine, Vladimir Smida created sketches for Qtpfsgui that will improve visual rather than parameter-centric working modes. Vladimir documented his work on his blog.
IM and VoIP with SIP Communicator
This project focused on the integration of multiple protocols in a single instant messaging application, SIP Communicator.
Mike Oren, PhD student in Philosophy at Iowa State University (USA), performed user research and a comparative analysis of different instant messengers. Mike was mentored by Raphael Wimmer and Emil Ivov.
A big "Thank You" to all participants and congratulations for all their good work!
Season of Usability 2008 Kicks Off
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Inspired by Google's Summer of Code, the OpenUsability project - an initiative to bring more emphasis on usability to FLOSS development - offers a similar student programme: the Season of Usability. The program is aimed at students of usability, user-interface design, and interaction design and has just kicked off for 2008. We're pleased to be funding 10 students focused on user experience research, UI analysis and design tasks in FLOSS projects. From May until August, the students will work closely with experienced professionals and get insights in to their way of work while improving the usability of many different FLOSS applications, ranging from instant messaging in office suites to web applications. Student participants receive a stipend of $1000 USD, kindly sponsored by Google's Open Source Programs Office, the Open Society Institute and Trolltech. We're proud to share more details on this year's student projects with all of you:
Redesigning DrProject’s Administration Interface
Along with mentors Paula Bach & Greg Wilson, Liz Blankenship, a student of Science in Information at the University of Michigan (USA), will redesign the web-based administration interface for DrProject. DrProject is a web-based project management system and Liz will perform user research, create design solutions and test them along usability methods.
Redesigning Gallery’s Image Upload Tool
Along with mentors Katrin Goetzer and Chris Kelly, Jakob Hilden will be creating and testing an improved interaction design for the image upload of Gallery, a web-based image gallery. As a first step, Jakob will conduct an expert benchmark analysis of 3 upload interfaces like Flickr and Facebook, and compare them to Gallery’s upload options. The progress is documented in Gallery's wiki. Jakob is a student of Communication and Media Science at the University of Michigan (USA).
Improving Jeliot User Interface and Workflows
Along with mentors Roman Bednarik, Andres Moreno and Niko Myller, Sharad Baliyan will perform a user interface redesign and analyse cross cultural issues in Jeliot, a Java Program Visualisation application. Sharad, who studies Interaction Design at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad (India), will be helping make Jeliot more usable for teachers and students of Computer Science, who use this tool to visualise how a Java program is executed and interpreted step-by-step.
Human Interface Guidelines and Design Patterns for KDE4
Becca Scollan, a student of Science and Information at the University of Baltimore (USA), and Thomas Pfeiffer, currently studying Psychology at the Technical University of Darmstadt (Germany), will team up to complete the Human Interface Guidelines and define interaction paradigms for the Linux Desktop environment KDE. They will serve as a reference for developers and help them to develop more consistent user interfaces. Their mentors for the project will be Celeste Lyn Paul and yours truly.
Toolbox and Palette Interaction for KOffice
Along with mentors Celeste Lyn Paul, Ellen Reitmayr and Boudewijn Remp, Neha Pahwa will analyse the interaction paradigm of four core applications of the KDE Office suite - KWord, KPresenter,the image manipulation application Krita, and the vector graphics application Karbon. Currently studying Information Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology (USA), Neha's plan is to interview the developers to identify the major project goals and target users as a first step.
3d Widgets for MakeHuman
MakeHuman is a 3d modelling software, which Eugenio Passacantilli, currently studying Science in Communications at the University La Sapienza di Roma (Italy), will focus on for Season of Usability 2008. Along with mentors Stefano Fabri, Manuel Bastioni and Simone Re, Eugenio will perform a usability study of MakeHuman’s 3-d interaction elements that have recently been added. The progress can be monitored in the MakeHuman blog.
Handheld-Mode Interface for the OLPC XO Laptops
Mentors Eben Eliason and Marco Gritti will oversee this project with an eye to the final goal of producing specifications for handheld interactions for the OLPC desktop. As a first step, Alessandro Vona, student of Science in Communications, will analyse various handheld devices and their input methods to gain an understanding of some potential challenges as well as some potential solutions.
Improving HDR imaging with Qtpfsgui
Along with mentors Roman Bednark, Giuseppe Rota, and Alexadre Prokoudine, Vladimir Smida will optimise workflows and improve the usability of different tools in Qtpfsgui, an HDR imaging application. Vladimir is currently studying Computer Graphics at the Brno University of Technology (Czech Republic).
Instant Messaging and VoIP with SIP Communicator
Mike Oren, who is also working toward his Doctorate in Philosophy at Iowa State University (USA), will spend the next few months working on the usability of SIP-Communicator, an instant messaging and VoIP client. Under the tutelage of Raphael Wimmer and Emil Ivov, Mike will focus on integrating multi-protocol features into a unified UI. As this is a major issue with various multi-protocol IM applications, his work will probably apply to other IM apps like Kopete and Pidgin, as well.
Many congratulations to all of our student participants and many thanks to all of our mentors for helping to make the Season of Usability 2008 a success!