Computer: User
Open Source Interface Design   (+3, -1)  [vote for, against]
Open Source Click and Drag Interface Design

This is a generic application interface with moveable features that companies could put their applications in and then the users could move stuff around and let eachother use the result and there would be a popularity thing and the best arrangements would rise to the top and the designers would get paid by how much of a percentage of the design they did.
-- JesusHChrist, Aug 07 2007

Golem@Home http://demo.cs.bran...golem/download.html
[sbowles, Aug 08 2007]

This is brilliant!!!
-- sbowles, Aug 07 2007


Meh. "Moving stuff around" isn't the interesting part.

[Which part do I find interesting? Coming up with interface metaphors and direct manipulation techniques, especially for visualizations. The kind of work that e.g. Ben Shneiderman and his students do is creative, not erosive - you don't really gradually change from a list of numbers to a tree map or interactive chart.]
-- jutta, Aug 07 2007


The interesting part is the "popularity thing" and "best arrangements", as in massively distributed evolutionary computation. Brings to mind the Golem@Home project at Brandeis University where the researchers posted screensaver software that people could voluntarily download onto their computers at home and evolve robots on their CPU downtime and upload the results to Brandeis. That part of this could be like that part of the Brandeis stuff (see link).
-- sbowles, Aug 08 2007


//"Moving stuff around" isn't the interesting part.//

<intrigued>
So, which part do you find interesting, [jutta]? Workflow design? Different aspects of look-and-feel, other than position? I would say they're both interesting, to the extent that I'm willing to spend/waste time fiddling with them.
</intrigued>

"There are no uninteresting subjects, only uninterested people" - G.K. Chesterton.
-- pertinax, Aug 08 2007


Isn't that exactly what gnome does?
-- Galbinus_Caeli, Aug 08 2007


[Galbinus_Caeli] No, I think you're confusing 'user-configurable interface' with 'sitting on a toadstool fishing wearing a funny hat'.
-- marklar, Aug 08 2007


[marklar] Thanks, I get those mixed up all the time.
-- Galbinus_Caeli, Aug 08 2007


You think that's bad, my local lake is full of Windows Vista.
-- marklar, Aug 08 2007



random, halfbakery