“Free/Open Source software has grown considerably from its roots in the UNIX tradition of the command line interface and early X Windows-based graphical environments. As desktop use has increased concurrently with advances in desktop development, serious user interface and experience issues have arisen. Celeste Lyn Paul of User Centered Design, Inc. and the KDE Project presented, ‘A Quick and Dirty Intro to User Centered Design in Open Source Development’, Saturday at SCaLE 6X. Her talk emphasized the importance of including designers in the development process.”
“LW: Your own design stack, is it all Open Source or a mix?
CLP: For my work laptop, I run KDE. Image manipulation is a large part of my work, and there is GIMP and Krita for that. However, the one thing I just can’t live without is Acture, a specialized interaction design tool. It’s pretty new, but it’s a .Net 3 application, and there isn’t full .NET 3 support yet for Linux.”
OK people. Can someone step up and help her out? Either a Qt or GTK app she can use; preferable Qt since she’s primarily KDE user. I know nothing about this area of software, but am one of the hordes of folks who doesn’t want .Net stuff on Linux. I’ll put my money where my mouth is if someone is interested.
Never heard of it, anyone got a link?
Edited 2008-02-12 03:20 UTC
Yeah I did a quick search and couldn’t find anything about this program. Maybe it was misspelled.
Axure RP
http://www.axure.com/
Why would you think she needs help? She seems happy with using Axure. Does she really need an alternative?
In my opinion she doesn’t need it at all. This is what I call “buzz-software”. The discription says enought “a specialized interaction design tool”. The movie on the site is worst. It’s a buzzword machinegun with a deadly accent.
It seems that she thinks opensource software is important. So yes you whould help her by directing her to an opensource version of her last proprietary software. I know I whould appreciate it.
But if she doesn’t care and is happy, you are right.
Don’t presume to tell her what she needs or doesn’t need. It’s her toolbox, and she should use what makes most sense to her. Let her make her own choices.
The first three words and the last sentence make it clear that I’m not telling anybody what they ought to use. For some reason if there is an article about a good looking lady, people defend the person without a need. I don’t care what she uses. I just think that this is one of those software pieces people get dependent on without a real need. But if some-one is happy with it, by all means continue.
I have a strong personal opinion on that matter. I think learning a special language or program to make a non working prototype of something that still has to be developed is a waste of time. Same goes for UML. Instead of turning a problem into code, it becomes.. turning a problem into a abstract problem using objects or what might not so it can be turned into code. In my opinion a useless step. But I don’t care about people taking that step.
My comment had nothing to do with her being a woman, or even a cute woman, but thanks for bringing it down to the lowest common denominator. You gave your opinion, I gave mine, and that is all that’s to it. I am not defending her without need, I was defending her right to make choices, without being second guessed by people who have no idea why she made that choice.
Well actually I apologize for that women stuff, it had, I admit, nothing to do with it. Fact still is that you defend her without any need because I was not attacking her at all. I merely made my opinion about a particular program. Again, please continue to use the software that you seem fit, as I continue my opinion about “buzz-software”. (though I shall refrain from commenting off-topic and uninteresting opinions in the future
Edited 2008-02-12 14:14 UTC
And you know that because you’re a professional designer and knows a lot about the design process and what tools are needed, of course?
No, I don’t know anything
and that is why I sad that I thought it. But according to the site it is a new concept, and please don’t tell me designing a good application before was not possible.
Judging the programs software it is analogue to the developers UML. For which, as a professional programmer, I do have a grounded opinion formed after a lot own experience.
Designing is something creative, which, I >think< is a subject that should not be outsourced to a piece of software, because the end product will be restricted by the restrictions of that particularly software. Which is a well-founded opinion that can even by made by non-designers.
if everybody limited his/her opinions to his/her expertise, it would be very, very quiet. ( Although it would be an improvement I’ll admit. )
And to steer this conversation on-topic:
I do agree with the interview. I was just thinking about it after reading the InkSeine article. The opensource community has tons of innovating technical achievements. But in the area of user visible design there are as far as I know, no innovations made. In that area they mostly follow there proprietary colleague’s.
My guess to the reason of this is that design has more to do with art and creativity. It is hard to work via the internet with people you don’t know, each having there own ideas.
I creative design is a sacred part of the designer, not something he wants to see changed by some-one with another idea. Which is something that will surely happen seeing as that creative ideas are so divers. That scares designers away.
Edited 2008-02-12 15:03 UTC
And as a fellow professional designer you know exactly what tools she need, right?
She’d like to run this tool on Linux. However, she currently can’t.
Two choices:
1) We help her get it running on Linux
2) We help her find an alternative that works just as well for her.
Since I’m not gonna offer to help get .Net working on Linux I’m left with one choice to promote.
We really should be having this conversation with her rather than amongst ourselves, but oh well.
You’re not going to get it. This is a specialist bit of software that is not the sort of general functionality you’re going to find in a piece of open source software.
If she wants this to run on Linux, then the normal prerequisites apply for an ISV to consider this:
1. An installed base large enough to be of interest.
2. Development tools and development libraries.
3. A way to easily install their software on customer machines.
Given the nature and feel of their web site, and especially given that their software is written for .Net 3 already, I’d say that non-Windows platforms, let alone Linux, are not exactly top of their priority list.
She could, of course, get creative and run VMware, or better yet, run the application on a Windows machine and run it remotely as a single application via Terminal Services, rdesktop and SeamlessRDP on her Linux machine. This means no annoying dual-booting.
Greetings:
Yeah, it’s true, I botched the application name.
Axure (http://www.axure.com/) is what it is.
Ciao!
Jeffrey Bianchine
Author & Journalist
I tried a few var like Axture, ature, etc, then gave up. Good to know that it does exist. Thanks!