Gnome 3 Usability Hackfest

As the GNOME 3.0 approaches, the GNOME Community is going to hold a Usability Hackfest in London from feb 22-26. Those who are not aware about the usability project, it aims to make GNOME appearance more efficient and pleasant to the users. In this hackfest, they are planning to work and improve the design and usability of some new GNOME 3.0 components.

It is because of the great contributions from these hackfests and similar events that GNOME has become so powerful, efficient and easy to use. During this full week hackfest, the GNOME community is planning to have some design brainstorming and usability testing sessions to improve GNOME 3.0 and its many new GNOME 3.0 technologies.

• gnome-shell
• zeitgeist
• emerillon
• accessibility
• evolution
• file management (nautilus)

One of the idea is to set up a GNOME Foundation mobile usability lab on the Foundation equipment provided to be used at similar events, hackfests and conferences where there is a need to be a usability study. The plan to is to actually do some usability study in this hackfest and properly document how it is done. This will act as a template for other events.

Canonical is planning to do some testing before the hackfest, so that they at least have some data to work on. They are actually considering testing Empathy, a good IM, but still needs some work.

According to another one of the Usability ideas, applications can be made more efficient and useful if they have a better knowledge and understanding of the people who are actually using gnome or some specific applications. Such information can be captured using Personas. There is going to be some good work on this too.

If you are planning to volunteer in this hackfest then don't hesitate, you will get a lot of support from the Usability team in the form of directions and mentorship. It will be a good contribution from you to GNOME as well as a great learning experience.