GNOME 3 Usability Hackfest 2010

From February 22-26, 2010 the GNOME community held a Usability hackfest in London, England.

Venue

The event was held at the Canonical offices in London, England:

• Canonical
  27th floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank
  London SW1P 4QP, UK
  +44 207 630 2400

Millbank Tower is near Pimlico Station (which is on the Victoria line) and near Westminster Station (which is on the Jubilee and District and Circle lines). The London Tube website provides information about the London subway system and has links to maps.

Sponsors

Much appreciation to the following sponsors who made this event possible:

Goals and Agenda

See /GoalsAndAgenda for the latest proposed goals and agenda.

Travel and Accommodation

Both Palmers Lodge and Hillspring Lodge are close to Jubilee Line Stations (Swiss Cottage and Willesden Green) so getting to Westminster would be no problem - 10 to 20 minutes on the tube. Both hostels are very busy during the dates requested but could possibly accommodate a small group. This would be better at Hillspring because we have small rooms left (a few 4 bed and one 14-Bed) - it may not be possible to get your own group rooms at Palmers. If people express an interest in this option, please speak up so arrangements can be made.

The following have also been recommended as good budget hotels/hostels to consider:

• The Premier Inn is not too far away. They have rooms for between £92 and £117 a night (excluding breakfast).

• The Mitre House Hotel London is not too far away. They have rooms for around £80 per night.

• The German YMCA has also been recommended.

• Also consider checking London HostelWorld.

For people looking for a hotel close to the venue, the City Inn Westminster – London Hotel is just around the corner from the hackfest venue. The prices of their rooms are a bit inflated due to the location - week nights range between £180 and £190 a night per room (excluding VAT, without breakfast).

Public transport

London has an excellent public transportation system. Comprehensive travel advice, including a journey planner, can be found on on the Transport for London website. Visitors are advised to get a pay as you go Oyster card or a Travelcard. These are valid on all modes of transport and are much cheaper than buying individual tickets.

Leisure and Entertainment

First night meal (Monday 22nd February)

The first night meal was held at The Queen's Arms pub from 7pm. This can be found on Warwick Way, just off Vauhall Road (about a 10 minute walk from the hackfest venue).

Recommended restuarants and activities

A Google Map has been put together showing recommended restaurants close to the hackfest venue and beyond. Further information about what to do in London can be obtained from TimeOut, Le Cool and Ldn. TimeOut produces a printed listings magazine each Wednesday which is available from most newsagents.

Feel free to contact AllanDay about social activities or for advice about where to eat and drink.

GNOME Beer Event (Friday 26th February)

Please consider attending the GNOME Beer event: LondonBeer/Version2.10

Trips

A couple of trips have been mooted:

• Decode: Digital Design Sensations exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum

• The London Eye

Attendees

Miscellaneous

The Dev8D Conference is happening in London from February 24-27. There should be opportunities to coordinate some time together to work on projects or socialize. Since the Dev8D conference runs a bit longer than the GNOME 3.0 Usability hackfest, some people may have an interest in attending this event on the 27th.

Below are some ideas for collaboration:

• Organize a day when the GNOME Usability Team or community meets at the Dev8D venue to give a talk or session or hang out for or hack. The 27th looks like being a good day to encourage people from the GNOME Usability hackfest to attend the Dev8D conference as it is the day after the GNOME event.
• The GNOME Foundation could provide some compelling speakers, presenters, or discussion topics on GNOME Usability or free software GUI usability in general.
• Dev8D attendees could provide an introduction to HE research specific projects
• OSS Watch will be running a workshop before the events that will provide an opportunity for learning about Wookie, the W3C Widget server that is now in the Apache Incubator. This means there will be people hacking on Wookie and widgets at Dev8D.

• Eye gaze control using cheap web cams is a hot accessibility topic so it would be good to see some joint hacking on GNOME Mouse Trap and University of Cambridge Inference group's opengazer project; http://bit.ly/6iZqbr and http://bit.ly/GL9tJ (thanks to @pepperbox for the idea).

References

• Gnome Shell

• Pongo

• Istanbul

• Better Desktop

• Getting From Research To Personas

• Ideas for Usability Hackfest

Output

• UsabilityProject/HIG/ThreeZero

• /CollaborationDiscussion

• Máirín’s photos

CategoryUsability