I dig, but the reactions to me suggesting this just blew me away.

@joshua;
Do you have a prospective UI that you can demo; something that adds color to the point so that we are more or less seeing your initial post in the light that you wanted it presented?

I'm just saying most apps that i've seen don't look the greatest. They're all very simple, where as I would prefer a bit more eye candy, and a bit more visually pleasing design. An example would be that Twitter client, and a youtube client from not lon

http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...8&postcount=59

Although I do think Witter's UI could be improved while using only built-in/themeable widgets, your mockup looks very slick. If future versions were to be based on that, it looks like it would have no real problems with themes. Obviously your custom graphics wouldn't be themeable, but it would work just fine nonetheless, since all elements are custom. That's all I was trying to convey earlier: if an app is going to use some custom graphics (beyond icons), it's best to use only custom graphics. Otherwise, some parts will change based on the theme while others remain static, inevitably leading to ugliness and/or usability issues.

As someone who makes themes, I obviously like apps to be themeable. At the same time I think the fully non-standard/unthemeable graphics wazd made for AlmostTI look fantastic, and work far better than the default widgets would for that app.

It's awesome that you're offering to help improve UIs for free, but as others have said, it's important to consider when and where it's really appropriate to use custom graphics. Some apps just wouldn't work as well with the default widgets, but IMO such apps are pretty rare. And obviously, there are plenty of ways to improve a UI aside from replacing graphics.

You obviously have design skills and a desire to make Maemo look nicer; have you considered making themes? (Not to suggest that you shouldn't keep trying to help out with specific apps.)

I'm trying to get my head around themes, I'd love to try building one, but I'm having trouble getting started.

Learn to theme, create a nice theme that looks just how you want it to look. Then all applications will look "fancier" and nobody's forcing anyone to create any unstandard, unthemeable user interfaces in their apps.

UI layout is another thing and I think application programmers would appreciate feedback on it. But remember that some apps are early in development. If someone has been working on something for 2 days, one cannot go and shout "the application is so ugly!". Rock solid feature first, look&feel second.

That would be the best option to make all apps shiny!

I think this partly boils down to cultural differences. In Linux(Gtk+, Qt for example), global themeability has always been the way of doing things. Instead of designing the graphics for the user interface elements the coder just uses generic widgets like buttons, toolbars etc. The look of these generic widgets is defined in the global theme. The advantage of this is consistency. You don't have to theme each application separately, they automatically inherit the graphic design. Why people are so allergic to the word "custom" is that the custom elements can't be themed like this. If you designed custom UI graphics with light colors, no matter how nice it looks, it'll look out of place if the user wants to use a dark theme.

In my opinion, this can sometimes make the user interface look a bit boring. Applications mostly look like each other and it's difficult to distinguish them from each other at a glance. It's difficult to use different kind of graphics for applications of different purposes. In my opinion it'd be nice to use a bit more colourful and blingy graphics in entertainment software while office software could look more conservative. But I still don't want to lose the ability to theme globally.

Maybe a middle ground could be the best option? Maybe more widgets so that you could choose from a bunch of button styles the one that best fits the look and feel of your application. A bit more variety could help make the UIs more vibrant while still having them themeable globally.

I'm all for good design, but apps with custom UIs that look different and work different to anything else on the system are one of the things that drives me up the wall on my occasional forays back into Windows.

UI design should focus on things like what elements to use and how to lay them out, not on unique graphics.

Interesting discussion you have going here people.

Has anyone thought about maybe just trying to improve the existing guidelines for UI or suppliment them? Most developers like to have consistent stanadards to work too and for inexperienced users a consistent look and feel reduces confusion.

Please keep in mind that the UI is there to accomplish an job: interfacing the application and the user. The primary task of any interface should be the ability to perform tasks with the application in as easy a way as possible. Various elements come together to accomplish this task with consistent visual cues helping (hence themes). If this can be accomplished with aesthetic panache and flair thengreat, but not at the expense of ease of use.

Afurther thought is that of accessibility. Consistent use of UI and stock objects means that tools to enhance accessibility can be coded. In some countries there is even a legal right to this accessibility (UK being a case in point).

Chris, I understand your frustration when you feel you can contribute but maybe I can suggest another approach to go in parallel? How about mocking up some nice 'Fantasy Applications' interfaces? Show off your talent with example screens, even if the app doesn't exist or make sense. Then show people what you have. Maybe some of you could look at the existing guidelines and suggest some examples of bst practice that take the guidelines but show how they can be used for more aesthetic effect?