I have finally managed to sum up everything about Design clinic, which took place about 3 weeks ago. It was a meeting in format of office hours, where I invited people from Brno Red Hat office to come and talk to me about whatever design problems they have (this doesn’t include interior design, sorry, guys 😉 ).
1.USB Guard
Daniel Kopeček contacted me about an icon for USBguard. The USBguard software framework helps to protect computer systems against rogue USB devices (a.k.a. BadUSB) by implementing basic whitelisting and blacklisting capabilities based on device attributes.
It wasn’t visible on black background and the icon used to look like this. Also he sent me some screenshots of what his project looks like. I changed the logo a little, so to solve the problem, and also suggested some improvements regarding overall design.
Then Dan told me they decided to have a new logo altogether, for this one is just basically a colored USB logo. We went as far as design brief, when he found someone even more willing to help.
Hello Mariia,
I no longer need the logo. I’ve unexpectedly received some design proposals from another UX intern which I thought was too busy with other projects to do the work
Hopefully they will come up with something good)
2. MoVirt
Tomáš Jelínek came in need of some UI advice. MoVirt is a data center virtualization solution which has 2 web UIs. It is an experimental mobile UI for it which aims to be a companion application. They are trying to find some use cases which are actually useful and making use of the fact that the app runs on a mobile device (e.g. they have some support for augmented reality, some support for monitoring, dashboard etc).
They have it in Play Store, so you can check it out. I have given Tomáš some advice, no action yet’s been taken, but hopefully will soon!
Here’s a little feedback:
Your advises were a good start – we definitely need to enhance the UI
…
I’m already communicating with a developer interested mainly in the UX and marketing side of the project (as an outreachy intern), so if it will work out I will definitely connect her with you – in that case expect more questions in future.
3. Opta Planner
Ondrej Skopek came to me asking for tips on how to improve OptaPlanner.
It is a constraint satisfaction solver. It optimizes business resource planning. Every organization faces scheduling puzzles: assign a limited set of constrained resources (employees, assets, time and money) to provide products or services to customers. OptaPlanner optimizes such planning problems to do more business with less resources.
For now the application looks very dated, which is surprising, considering they have a pretty nice logo and website. I have given Ondrej some advice. It’s all documented here, apparently (you have to scroll some to get to the comments, and while doing that take a look at current state of affairs). They are working on it and I really wish they implement the changes and make it look all in all nicer, because it’s a great application and it should look that way.
Thanks for the help. We’ve picked up on some of your suggestions and are currently working on them.
4. RPG – RPM Package Generator
Jan Šilhan asked me for help regarding RPG. It is tool, that guides people through the creation of a RPM package. RPG makes packaging much easier due to the automatic analysis of packaged files. Beginners can get familiar with packaging process or the advanced users can use our tool for a quick creation of a package.
As a tool designed to guide people, it has some features and graphics that can be improved. Sometimes it’s alignment, sometimes colors, in some cases – hierarchy. The feedback looks promising 😉 .
Of course you have helped me – thanks for your time. The student is already making changes to GUI according to your advises.
Honza also asked me to help him with DNF logo, which we are currently in the process of creating.
5. Tuned
Last, but not least, Jaroslav Škarvada came to get advice and design help regarding Tuned. Tuned is system tuning daemon, it can tune operating system according to selected profile (e.g. for low latency, high throughput, low power consumption…). Tuned is shipped in RHEL and activated by default. This project needs icon and better GUI.
I have to admit that sadly, no work has yet been done on this project. Being only an intern, I haven’t yet managed to squeeze it in and make any improvements. But I will definitely try to spend some time on it soon.
So all in all, the first design clinic went pretty well. Quite a lot of people (for an hour) showed up and some more contacted me via email. I can definitely see, that a designer is needed, as people were happy to learn I’m here to help. Some projects have been waiting for design improvements for a couple of years already, their creators not knowing whom to turn to for advice.
I am planning to have another open meeting next week.