Talk given at Intel Developer Forum, September 2009. For a version without notes see: http://www.slideshare.net/nedrichards/designing-moblin-for-mids

1. SF 2009
Designing Moblin for MIDs
Nick Richards
Senior Interaction Designer, Intel
MIDS002

2. Today we’re going to talk about
Moblin

3. O HAI
i’m nick richards
Hi, I’m Nick Richards. I’m an Interaction Designer working for Intel in the Opensource Technology Centre. Prior to that I’ve
worked for a number of companies designing all sorts of things on Mobile, Desktop and Web.

4. This is my cat
Moblin
Moblin is all about sharing, sociability and friendliness so I thought I’d tell you a little bit about me so you can see a little bit
more about the context I’m coming from. This is my cat Linus. Yes, this does mean that I’m a huge geek.

5. What are we going to do today
Understand the design process
Understand the power of Moblin
See how you can take advantage

6. Are you a designer?
How many people here would describe themselves as a designer? Put your hands up and keep them there? Who does a bit of
design as part of the other things they do? Awesome. You can put your hands down now.

7. Do you know what Moblin is?
Moblin is a new, Linux based operating
system for netbooks, nettops, IVI and now
MIDs.
If you don’t, the good news is - is that I’m going to tell you.

8. Do you know what a netbook is?

9. This is a netbook
http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamhook/2830322349/
http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/corporate/imagebank/notebooks/insp_mini_wt_150ppi.jpg
You may have heard of them, they’re taking the world by storm. Check out Renee James’ keynote tomorrow for more exciting
news.

10. How about a MID?

11. This is a MID
http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamhook/2830322349/
MIDs already exist, lots of people - not just intel are making them.

12. Or a phone?
How many people here would describe themselves as a designer? Put your hands up and keep them there? Who does a bit of
design as part of the other things they do? Awesome. You can put your hands down now.

13. This is a phone
http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamhook/2830322349/
A MID is like those bits of a phone that people actually like using these days. MID means ‘mobile internet device’ so it’s a device
where the internet is the most important thing. This is very moblin. Sure, some MIDs may be able to make phonecalls, and
some not - but the internet’s the thing.

14. This is Moblin, for MIDs
Moblin
video available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsCpIeLLoT8 THIS SHOULD BE REPLACED BY THE MID VIDEO IF IT’S READY
IN TIME

15. What makes them different?
Netbooks
= Nomadic MIDs
(bagable) = Mobile
(pocketable)
Moblin

16. Building
Moblin
So, this is some stuff you should really be thinking about before you write any features. It’s mostly pretty easy stuff that anyone
can do, especially the sketching and wireframing.

17. It starts with a sketch
Moblin
This time we needed fewer sketches than before since we were taking a product we designed and knew well. Normally we do a
lot of sketching. Sketching is really important as it’s quick - so you’ve got a lot less attachment to the idea than when you’ve
spent loads of time polishing it up.

18. Then you go to a wireframe

19. Or two
Thus

20. Add some snazzy visual design
Thus
You’ll notice how this is smaller! This screen is pretty much pixel designed.

21. Motion is the key
Stay as simple as you can, as long as you can. Agility is vital and you can often pack in more concepts/

22. Some ideas work... less well
Often, the only way you know whether something works is to test it.

23. Then iterate the ‘info-motion’
Then you bring it all together.

24. What makes Moblin different

25. Myzone for Handsets

26. What’s it made of
Thus
mojito
gio
e-d-s
ofono
gconf
clutter
nbtk
css
.desktop files
gnome recent documents
magic
Moblin
This is what the myzone is made of. Lots of different stuff

27. A load of technical things
So as you can see we use lots of different tech to get to the place we want to be. Clutter! Linux!

28. Toolbar panels: Zones
You can do more than one thing at a time! Shock!

29. Moblin UX, a family of design
Netbooks & MIDs: Browser visual tab switcher & zones
You may be familiar with zones from the netbook -
we’ve

30. Notifications panel
A task oriented interface is provided by the notifications panel. We’re really excited
by this. It’s a different way of interacting with your machine and works really well to
Get Stuff Done.

31. Your application

32. Live life in widescreen
http://www.flickr.com/photos/petergiger/3931462820/
Portrait vs landscape

33. Always be in a consistent state
http://www.flickr.com/photos/theritters/3084728261/
The device may go offline. We may run out of memory. The application may be closed down or the user may lose interest. Save
automatically and often.

34. Storage is cheap; connectivity less so
http://www.flickr.com/photos/msittig/2630364973/
Partial offline states

35. Don’t rely on a keyboard
http://www.flickr.com/photos/msittig/2630364973/
Virtual keyboard is to be expected. autocomplete won’t work very well

36. Expected context of use
Thus
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wetwebwork/2565783762/
Mobile, moving. Personal.

37. A toolbar acts on a context
Moblin

38. A sidebar switches context
Moblin

39. Simple, simple, simple
Most of our work is removing buttons and cognitive
load.

40. Always have personality
If your app connects with people then they’ll forgive a lot. A little personality goes a very long way BUT - be warned - it’s hard
to localise.

41. Adapting your desktop application

42. Netbook UI
Thus
Moblin

43. New UI, please
http://www.flickr.com/
photos/ksyz/3817875682/
Look at this desktop UI being shoved onto a mobile
device.

44. MID UI

45. Moblin is for MIDs, netbooks, nettops and IVI
We’ve got world leading tech like Clutter
Design is very important for differentiation
Drawing it all together
Design principles for you to
steal

46. useful places to go
“Developing Moblin Applications”
Wed 5:15pm - MOBS003
moblin.org
clutter-project.org
designintheopen.ning.com

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52. kthanxbai
i’ve been nick@linux.intel.com
you’ve been a wonderful
audience