Not clear to me why the README.md has no images of the design itself or its rationale but rather just some dudes bro'ing out on a patio. My intention is not to sound negative... there are good ideas happening here but the README.md is a poor first impression.
Maybe it's not in a place where its easy to understand what is different, but here's what I would change - not a damn thing. Inkscape is one of a rare breed of program where almost everything is clear and discoverable. I really vote evolution more than revolution.
I agree. I used Inkscape for a while, then decided I needed "pro" tools, so bought Adobe CS, and learned Illustrator. Inkscape is just more obvious, to me. There's certainly some bias for me paused on having used Inkscape before Illustrator, but I used Corel Draw for longer than either and never was as comfortable with it as Inkscape. There were others along the way, as well, but Inkscape just stands out as the most usable for me.
Certainly, Illustrator is more powerful and complex, but many aspects are just utterly opaque and require a lot of googling to figure out. I regularly choose Inkscape over Illustrator, despite having ready access to both. Unless I need to share my work with someone who only has Illustrator I just tend to get more work done faster.
Inscapes issues are not with its UI, but in some of its concepts, ie knowing the difference between an object and a path, perhaps making that more obvious, ie making the menues context sensative depending on what is selected. Too many menu options silently do nothing wjen tne wrong kind of item is selected. For a new user it makes discoverability slower as they often cant tell from the visuals what the item is.
I am one of the project creators. This was a last year project in our company innovation week (http://piweek.com/) but it never become a large project because it is hard to make changes to the
Inkscape UI if you are not a developer.
So it was just a first draft to see if inkscape developers will like our ideas and we could help them to improve the UX/UI for future releases. It did not work and we just left the project.
I'm not digging the use of such a prominent accent color (orange everywhere) in the interface itself. I think it might distract from the actual artwork. (I know they're just mockups, but I think the idea is probably going to stay if no one gives them a heads up)
does anybody of you feel that when this kind of UX/UI redesign project comes up it feels somewhat... bullshity (sorry for my words, but I could not find any better)? Especially when the README.md is a bunch of pictures of some dudes chilling out on a patio, etc. This gives zero confidence in the project.
A decent designer could improve inkscape ux while half asleep on a patio though they might be better off falling completely asleep and getting some rest.
I would not propose a project, even a trivial one, and slam a picture of myself bro'ing out. It gives no respect neither to the project, nor to the authors.