Author Archive

22 Jan 2015

How to make LibreOffice Customization usable

Libreoffice customization is quite powerful in terms of functionality but has some room for improvement regarding usability. This blog post starts the discussion about requirements with the current scope and shows some mockups that might be an

27 Dec 2014

How people utilize LibreOffice Impress

In the last couple of weeks, we have run surveys for Writer and Calc in order to gather user feedback on optimizations we were making to the toolbar and applications. So here are the results of our

20 Nov 2014

Results of survey about LibreOffice Calc’s toolbar configuration

Our goal is to unclutter the toolbars from functions that are rarely used and to add those that are more frequently used. In order to verify improvements that we were making to LibreOffice Calc’s we asked users

13 Nov 2014

How designers think about ‘Save as…’

The metaphor of a floppy for Save is one of the most controversially discussed and challenged icons. There are haters who argue that many younger people never have seen a floppy (except at the Save icons). And

8 Nov 2014

Standard toolbar in LibreOffice

Recently we run a short survey about preferences in LibreOffice. In this posting, we present the results and discuss our conclusions.

This article was posted first on 2014-Nov-08 at user-prompt.com (site closed now).

Introduction

Our goal is

26 Apr 2013

Tip the tool: How to label toolbar functions

Toolbar functions should be labeled consistently starting with a verb which is followed by noun or adverb. We present recommendations to label the functions on LibreOffice’ standard toolbar.

This article was posted first on 2013-Apr-26

10 Apr 2013

Semiotics in Usability: Guidelines for the Development of Icon Metaphors

Semiotics is the study of signs and describes the perception, comprehension and communication of symbols. In the field of computer science, semiotics is especially relevant to the design of icons. A perfect metaphor is the prerequisite to

31 Oct 2011

Motifs as an empiric source for personas

This is the last post about our LibreOffice survey done with UserWeave and we sum up the main findings. Find out about the users of LibreOffice and how motifs can help you to create

11 Oct 2011

LibreOffice user research – results vol.4

Do users want Ribbons? This post about the software preferences of LibreOffice users answers this and other interesting questions and is part of the results of our extensive user research.

This article was posted first

7 Sep 2011

LibreOffice user research – results vol.3

Impress is for people that want to impress and Base and Calc will become extinct? Read about the users and the usage of LibreOffice applications as part of the results of our extensive study of LibreOffice users.