Users of Open Source software are not only the end-users, they are also the designers, administrators, and implementation teams (hence documentation is also a huge barrier in OSS). When designing open source applications or platforms, making the software usable for these users is also important. In the case if UI designers, choosing presentation layer frameworks which are compatible with standard mark-up languages is important. The Fluid Project is working across projects, attempting to identify user interactions that cross academic software and develop accessible open source UI components that will be mapped to design patterns (http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/ , http://designinginterfaces.com) . For site administrators and integration teams, documentation and set-up wizards will be key. Design patterns for these activities should be able to also be mapped to reusable components and documentation templates.
While these issues only represent a subset of the details surrounding the challenges to creating delightful academic software, I think they highlight some of the opportunity as well. I am optimistic that through the technical, UI, and advocacy work of the Fluid Project and participating community and open source projects, we will be able to impact change both institutionally and within the open source organizations. I expect and hope that through forums such as Terra Incognita there will be more occasions for those of us in IT management, those engaged in supporting the teaching and learning endeavor, UI design, and programming across our campuses to find ways to bridge the divides both organizationally and culturally, and to collaborate in creating user-delightful open source software. You can find links to a number of related articles on UI design and open source usability on my del.icio.us site, tagged as “OSUI” (Open Source UI). Happy reading!
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