FreeCAD Book Club - Discussion

[ian.rees]

A thought has been bouncing around in my head for a while, that I'd like to gauge interest in:

Sometimes, books (or other things that cost money, like technical standards, maybe the occasional tool) can be helpful when working on projects like FreeCAD, and sometimes we have discussions about how to distribute funds that might be donated to the FreeCAD project. I wonder if it makes sense to make a system where a person wants to donate money can do that by buying a book or whatever, for another person who might make use of it for FreeCAD?

As for mechanics - I like to keep things as simple and as transparent as possible. Maybe people who are interested in having a book (or standard, etc) could reply with what they'd like and why, then folks with money to contribute could pm a recipient to arrange an exchange of payment/shipping address/etc. Once an arrangement has been made, the recipient would edit their post to indicate that it's been taken care of.

To start off - I think that discussing UI design might be easier if the folks in those discussions shared more common vocabulary. There's a book called (in English - it's been translated to 16 languages according to Amazon) Universal Principles of Design, which does a great job of explaining a lot of design concepts, more general than software but there is a substantial part of it that is applicable - I've found it to be handy in discussions with other engineers and designers at work. It costs about $20USD; maybe a copy of that could go to folks who have an interest in discussing or working on our UI?

Edit: Changed title to indicate this is a thread for discussion - there's now a FreeCAD Book Club thread, for the actual exchange:

[chrisb]

The following rules are by far not concrete enough to develop the GUI of FreeCAD, and some of them are rather going towards product design, but even Apple followed Dieter Rams when developing their first iPhone. So I would like to share these 10 principles of good design.

Here is a nice proof of apple reusing more than the ideas of Rams: https://www.olybop.fr/wp-content/upload ... raun-2.jpg

[ian.rees]

Thanks chrisb, that link looks handy. Do you have a copy of Universal Principles of Design already?

[chrisb]

Thanks chrisb, that link looks handy. Do you have a copy of Universal Principles of Design already?

No, not yet, but I think I'll get one when I'm back home next week. I can't do much research if it's worth to buy in german or in english.

[triplus]

And at the end don't forget to ask the end users for their opinion. That is after reading the book and creating the ultimate UX. As likely you will need to make some adaptations. This is the part often lacking.

In addition a few years back it was mentioned in some discussion (about the UX) current FreeCAD UX was (at least up to a point) made by studying books on this matter. And there i guess is a problem if 2 developers read 2 different books and like one design approach and philosophy more than another. What to do then? Compromise?

[ian.rees]

Triplus - I think you should be first in line for a copy of Universal Principles of Design . It's like a dictionary, not a how-to.

[triplus]

My FreeCAD UX related efforts have more or less reached final stages before completion. I am still open to apply some minor touches here and there if provided in appropriate effort forum threads as feedback. Including based on some (personal) design philosophy (if that makes sense). At this point going to the beginning and reading a book about design in general wouldn't make much sense. I for example remember on how a year or two of effort and evolution was needed to properly start a FreeCAD UX related Python module. It now comes down to few lines of code and a 5 minute explanation. And i explicitly remember there was no book about that.

Anyway not to be off topic. Crowdfunding campaign for "FreeCAD Book Club" and for books to be distributed among some people working on some aspects of FreeCAD. Sounds good but it likely requires invested effort. In order to (try to) be successful.

[chrisb]

I had contact with Ian Rees via PM and I would like to have one of these. The English version would be fine as we communicate here in English.

[triplus]

The way it currently works is for whoever is interested opens a crowdfunding campaign on one of the crowdfunding platforms such as Patreon. And you would define a goal (like buying a book). You would likely give some rationale on why you need it and what you will do in return if you get it. And after be vocal about that a bit. That is announcing you started a campaign.

This page should be reworked and extended with links to such ongoing campaigns:

https://www.freecadweb.org/wiki/Donate

That should highly likely be enough and you should get a book. That is reasonably priced one and if you can establish it makes sense for FreeCAD project for you having such book.

P.S. If the personal campaign would fail (that is the funds would not be secured in a reasonable amount of time) a discussion can be opened and funds might be secured from the more general "FreeCAD foundation" account:

https://salt.bountysource.com/teams/freecad

[ian.rees]

I think that setting up a patreon campaign for a $20 book is complete overkill - this is the craigslist to your kickstarter.