Originally Posted by joshua.maverick

My apologies then, I guess I was just frustrated. I've tried to help out, but it rarely goes anywhere. I'm not the best designer by any means, but there has to be some way to "force" 3rd party app developers to make their apps prettier.

My two cents.

Originally Posted by kryptoniankid17

i agree with you. the n900 is a beast but the average cell user will most likely be turned away by look of alot the apps. even though these are functionaly great.

Originally Posted by ARJWright

You know something, while the Josh's mock up looks great from a functional end - and seems to borrow form Gravity (Symbian^1 version) - the second one seems to better follow the UI guidelines, and evne introduces a bit of a nuance with the bottom text box that needs to be considered for future updates to the UI guide.

In light of this respective thread (since I posted the above paragraph in the other), I would also be more inline with a theme that changes *most* of the look and feel of the UI elements, but then some better attention paid to the usage paradigm or user flow when designing applications.

Maemo 5 more or less relies on the idea that most of the interactions are linear and sub-actions are given thru simplistic (end-user perspective) means. If you will, craming the window full of features isn't good, yet leaving a page devioid of them isn't as well. Discoverability should be a defining characteristic of any application, especially in an environment which is emphasizing touch with fingers over touch with styli.

Now, looking at this app, I can see off the bat that there should be smaller buttons on the sidebar, and that a gesture-based interface needs to be utilized for interacting with it. This app has a similar user process flow as Fennec/Firefox Mobile. And the UI really should be similar because of it.

The "shiny" is another matter. Once the functionality of the UI is met, then let's get a theme and/or some custom elements on the screen - maybe even specfic for that app - which makes sense, and endears some positive opinions.

By the way, the sidebar button sizes might not be in the UI document. If not, its best *not* to take the same rule that Symbian^1 has for size, and functions. Working on an N97 everyday, I can tell you that those button guidelines aren't optimial.

Originally Posted by joppu

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!

Originally Posted by joshua.maverick

How do I get started? I downloaded theme maker, but those psds are a bit confusing, could you send me a psd of a theme you started?

Originally Posted by joppu

There's nothing confusing about the psds. You really just have to use trial and error to learn. All you need is already in the template so you wouldn't really benefit from any of my templates.