Hello all,
although we think the Achievo project management application and ATK
application framework are technically an feature-wise quite good
applications, in comparisons we often loose the battle over the
userinterface.
The boxy, flat, dull layout does not look inviting. And although we
ourselves, and the many happy users that we already have, find the GUI
less important than features, the layout is often the first thing
potential users look at.
Therefor, we would like to encourage all those creative minds among you
to help us get a smooth, professional, easy, aesthetically pleasing
userinterface. There's even a prize, so if you have any designer
friends, get them in the game and create something together.
Here are the prizes:
- any proposal that we like will be converted to a theme for Achievo
and/or ATK. (and of course properly credited in the documentation)
- for the best proposal, we set aside a bonus of 100 euro (about 130
USD at current rates), in the form of a gift certificate to be spend
at a webstore of your choosing (as long as they have a gift
certificate feature). Also, the winning design will become the
default theme for future Achievo and/or ATK versions. (as long as
it's better than the current one, which shouldn't be too hard ;-)
(we thank http://www.ibuildings.nl for sponsoring the prize)
To be able to compare gui's, we will take the most used screen of
Achievo as a basis. This is the time registration screen.
See http://www.achievo.org/img/contest_timereg.gif for how it currently
looks.
Now, forget Achievo's current layout. Use the example to see what
information should be on the screen (you should use all the fields,
items etc. you see there), and design something entirely different.
Add graphics, remove styles, revamp the menu, drop the topbar, add
icons, whatever you feel would make it look good. The basic requirement
is that the information on the original screen should in some way be
presented in your proposal. The rest is up to you.
Anyone is allowed to send in one or more designs. A jury will decide
what the best design is. The jury will consist of Sandy Pleyte and me as
main developers of Achievo, Boy Baukema (who revised the theme engine
and will adapt it to whichever designs you come up with) and Jasper van
der Hulst, our account manager for our professional clients.
There are a few rules and guidelines:
- The design should not infringe upon other people's copyright, unless
they agree to using their material in writing.
- Achievo, and most of the applications developed with ATK, are
business applications, so the design we are looking for should have a
'professional' look (but we also welcome fun interfaces, time
registration is a boring enough process already ;).
- Try to make the design scalable, so it will look good on both small
and large browser resolutions. The most common used resolution is
1024x768, but be aware that there's room reserved for the browser,
Windows taskbar etc.
- Copyright of all designs entered in the contest should be transfered
to the Achievo project, so we can use it at our discretion.
- Entries can be send to ivo dot
jpg, png or gif format, or an html file. If your design includes
imagery or icons, please send us a zip containing the raw material,
so we can convert it properly to a theme.
- Deadline for entering your design(s) is februari 28, 2005, so take
your time! (ofcourse we'll accept design proposals after that date,
but to win the prize, we should have received your entry before the
end of february)
Good luck and have fun!
Greetings,
Ivo