Design Development

From Printing

Contents 1 Initial design phase 1.1 Main rationale in printing 1.2 Exploring design solutions 1.2.1 The 8 rules of printing interaction 1.3 Printer type clusters 1.4 what about pdf? 2 Detailed Design Phase 2.1 Design process 2.2 the Input page 2.3 Specification 3 Testing 3.1 Testing Feb. 2010

Initial design phase

Main rationale in printing

To really start, we must answer the fundamental question: What does printing mean? To break it down to the basic, printing means bringing something on paper (or some other material), in a way that meets the user's expecations. So unless your job is to take care for printers, you just want to print. This also means that every other action involved in the printing process is subordinated.

Exploring design solutions

See peter’s blog for the strategies we are following. From the intial design phase of research and exploration 8 rules of printing interaction have been identified:

The 8 rules of printing interaction

1. printing does not exist
2. printing does not exist
3. levels of printing
4. wysiwyg is overrated
5. million use cases
6. unknown: good printing dialog
7. tabs considered harmful
8. tags not tabs

Printer type clusters

The design will focus on creating prototype dialogs for each of seven printer clusters. A survey was made of the printers and printer types currently available on the market and 7 essential printer types were identified. Each one of these clusters is in a fact an archetype, and is is representative of numerous similar printers currently in the marketplace. The prototype dialogue design will act as a methodological and practical specification, on which an interaction designer appointed by a printer's manufacturer, can base final dialogue designs.

The printer clusters are:

• General inkjet printers for personal use, sharing with a few persons and casual photo printing; example: HP Deskjet 3747;
• Photo printers for individual use or small workgroup; example: Epson Stylus Photo R800;
• Personal laser printers for office or small workgroups; example: Brother HL-5250DN;
• Workgroup laser printers; example: HP LaserJet 5200;
• High volume printers for departments; example: Canon imageRUNNER 8070;
• Wide format printers for architects, designers of all kind and creative types; example: Epson Stylus Pro 9800;
• Impact printers used with multi-part forms and in industrial environments; example: Epson FX-2190N.

CUPS

In addition, it will be accepted that all printing options which are supported by CUPS, will be included in the available printing options for each cluster.

what about pdf?

Creating a pdf from any application that can print is a close cousin of printing, but…

Detailed Design Phase

Design process

• Exploring the UI features for each printer cluster
• Rethinking printer dialogue controls
• Paper prototyping.
• 2010 update

the Input page

This page gathers the useful input filtered from our communication with stake-holders like the the openPrinting team, printer manufacturers, the two desktop environments, applications and end-users.

Specification

The development of the final specification for the printer dialogue.

Testing

See See peter’s blog for further info. about usability testing of the print dialog.

Testing Feb. 2010