[ux] Fwd: [tor-team] Internal Launch of Tor's style guidelines!

Ame Elliott ame at simplysecure.org
Fri Sep 9 15:46:23 UTC 2016


Thank you for making this happen, Isabela!

> On Sep 9, 2016, at 5:40 PM, isabela <isabela at torproject.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello people! Very excited to be sharing this :) thanks everyone for your help getting this stuff together!
> Cheers,
> isabela
> 
> 
> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: [tor-team] Internal Launch of Tor's style guidelines!
> Date: Fri, 9 Sep 2016 11:38:13 -0400
> From: isabela <isabela at torproject.org>
> Reply-To: tor-team at lists.torproject.org, isabela at torproject.org
> To: tor-team at lists.torproject.org
> CC: Ame Elliott <ame at simplysecure.org>, Philip Lammert <mail at phlammert.de>, Elio Qoshi <ping at elioqoshi.me>, Sara Sinclair Brody <scout at simplysecure.org>
> 
> Hello Tor!
> 
> The UX team is happy to announce that Tor now has its first draft of a visual style guide! Since this is a new thing at Tor we decided to do a short Q&A to introduce the project and our proposal for how we can use the style guide in the future.
> 
> *What is a visual style guide?*
> Style guides specify the look and feel of how a company or team communicates with the outside word. For example, styleguides.io collects examples of website visual standards that help maintain a consistent online presence. Style guides can include rules for how logos, fonts, and colors should be used, and can even extend to interactive behaviors such as alerts and form templates.
> 
> Style guides are not meant to be static documents. They can evolve over time as the needs of the organization change. However, a style guide provides a basic set of ground rules for designing user experiences, and provides a foundation for an ongoing conversation about UX design.
> 
> *Why does Tor need one?*
> People rely on the visual design of software and websites to help them determine whether software is trustworthy. A project that has many different components that all look different from one-another can come off as disorganized or scary. In our case, the lack of visual standardization across the Tor ecosystem is disconcerting to many potential new users. A consistent visual identity will make it easier for potential users to identify "real" Tor projects (and for Tor to shut down false claims of affiliation), in addition to making Tor seem more friendly and approachable to new members of the community.
> 
> As the Tor project prepares to embark on a serious re-vamp of its core website design (and other initiatives, such as one around fundraising), the style guide will help various contractors and volunteers create designs that look good with one another. It will also help volunteer designers and researchers identify places where current practice can evolve to be more streamlined or attractive, rather than having five designers chime in with five radically different approaches.
> 
> *What this is not?*
> A rebranding of Tor. Or an attempt to get every project at Tor to think the same or work in exactly the same way.
> 
> *Who worked on it?*
> This was organized by the UX team with the support of Simply Secure. The main people involved were:
> Scout, Ame, Elio, Philip L., Nima and Isabela
> 
> *How it was done?*
> The discussion to have a style guide started almost a year ago with Simply Secure. We were talking about building the UX team and decided that a Tor style guide would be a great first project. We reasoned that a style guide would provide an important foundation for all products to build UX improvements on. Later on at the Valencia Dev meeting in Feb 2016, the UX team meeting got ourselves organized to kick off this project. Since them we went through a lot of meetings and steps to build it up; you can review it all at our wiki page:
> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/org/teams/UxTeam/StyleGuidelines
> 
> *Where you can find it?*
> Soon it will be under a specific session for resources at the UX team wiki and referred to in other places. But for now you can find it here:
> https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/attachment/wiki/org/teams/UxTeam/StyleGuidelines/Styleguide%201.2.pdf
> 
> 
> *How this affects you and other things moving forward*
> We will have a session at the Dev Meeting in Seattle to talk about the guideline, discuss the below proposal, and plan what's next!
> 
> As noted above, the ultimate goal of the style guide is to create a consistent look and feel across the Tor ecosystem. To that end, we propose that the majority of projects under the Tor umbrella work to adopt its conventions around fonts, colors, and logo design. However, we recognize that this may be a lot of work. We thus propose that the process happen in several stages.
> 
>   * Step 1: Present style guide to the Tor Community
>   * Step 2: Define Tier 1 and Tier 2 projects - where Tier 1 will adopt the guide and Tier2 will be left open to do it or not
>   * Step 3: Start applying the guide for Tier 1 projects
>   * Step 4: Apply the guide for Tier 2 projects that would like to adopt them
>   * Step 5: Make sure that new projects know of the guide, and that new Tier 1 projects start out using it from the beginning
> 
> For now our suggestion is for Tier 1 projects to be all the official Tor websites (e.g. donation page, main page, and the metrics sites) and stable products (e.g. Tor Browser and Orbot). And Tier 2 to be anything that is still on Alpha or Beta (e.g. TorBirdy and TorMessenger).
> 
> We believe that this is something that should be decided with the broader Tor Community. *We are therefore proposing a style guide discussion at the Seattle Meeting*. Please join us there and help us define these Tiers and coordinate/organize an implementation plan!
> 
> Meanwhile if you have any questions or feedback you can also reach out to the team at ux at lists.torproject.org [ https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ux ]
> 
> Let us know if you have any questions!
> Isabela on behalf of the UX Team.
> _______________________________________________
> tor-team mailing list
> tor-team at lists.torproject.org
> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tor-team
> _______________________________________________
> UX mailing list
> UX at lists.torproject.org
> https://lists.torproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/ux



More information about the UX mailing list