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TDF Freelance Job Opening (#201512-01) – User Experience Mentor

The Document Foundation (TDF), the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free office suite LibreOffice, seeks a

User Experience Mentor

to start work as soon as possible.

We are looking forward to integrate user experience deeper into our development processes. The role, which is scheduled for 20 hours a week, may include any of:

Main goals

  • acting as a peer of other UX volunteers
  • working with developers to find out what is technically possible and makes sense
  • growing the UX/design contributions and contributor base via outreach, and searching for good contributions in various forms (mailing lists, g+, irc, blog)
  • research in bugzilla, searching for consensus for ux-advice bugs

Main tasks

  • mentoring new contributors in the user experience community, to introduce them the existing workflows
  • volunteer inclusion: both UX/design, and also developers interested in hacking user interface
  • growing the contributor base and doing community outreach
  • organizing remote UX meetings (via phone, video conference or IRC) and in-person
  • establishing and fostering coordination and communication between developers, the user experience team, marketing and design, acting as a gateway between these

Other tasks

  • conducting surveys to improve the LibreOffice user experience and presenting results to the community
  • working on improving existing LibreOffice Glade-based dialogues and drafting/developing new ones
  • working with others on concepts, designs, strategies to evolve the LibreOffice user interface, drafting new user interface elements
  • prototyping
  • identification of EasyHacks to lower the entry barrier to the UX community
  • triaging ux-advice bugs in bugzilla

Tasks have to be carried out in joint cooperation with our existing developer, marketing and UX/design community, and with our Development Mentoring Lead.

The role requires the following:

  • experience using LibreOffice
  • experience in interacting with the LibreOffice community or another large open source project
  • working closely with our volunteer community on tooling, processes and means of collaboration
  • a track record in user experience and design
  • advantageous: teaching/mentoring

The work time during the day is flexible, apart from some fixed times when availability is required (e.g. during meetings, which usually take place at 1400 or 1500 UTC once per week).

TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.

As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.

The job is offered on a freelance basis. Work happens from the applicant’s home office, which can be located anywhere in the world.

TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications, including curriculum vitae, your financial expectations, and the earliest date of your availability, via e-mail to Florian Effenberger at no later than January 8, 2016. You can encrypt your message via PGP/GnuPG.

If you haven’t received feedback by February 8, 2016 your application could not be considered.

LibreOffice: Advent Tip #7

odf-guidance.odt - LibreOffice Writer_003LibreOffice Writer was born – as StarWriter – to produce lengthy documents, such as thesis and relations, and as such offers a number of specific features in this area. Two of the most important are Templates and Styles, which facilitate the creation of good looking documents, and make it easier to reproduce a standard document once the layout – including Styles – has been defined and consolidated. LibreOffice offers an almost hidden feature to produce a Template, which can be accessed from the menu File > Send > Create Master Document. This opens a “save as…” dialog window, which allows to save the open document as a Template.

LibreOffice: Advent Tip #6

AutoText_001LibreOffice offers an AutoText feature which can be accessed from the menu Edit > AutoText, which opens a simple dialog windows. The example shown in the image on the left is the well known Lorem Ipsum pseudo Latin blurb, which can be used to mimic a document layout, but the feature offers a number of pre-defined standard strings (for instance: 1st Reminder, 2nd Reminder, etcetera), plus several Business Cards layouts, plus a number of template elements (for instance: Header Brochure, Header Newsletter, etcetera). In addition, you can import a document to create your own AutoText elements. To insert the AutoText, you can either recall the dialog window or type the shortcut for the AutoText entry, and then press F3.

LibreOffice: Advent Tip #5

noun_76831_ccToday, a very simple tip, for all those people who are using LibreOffice and own a mouse with a scroll wheel (today, most mice have a scroll wheel, or are able to mimic the behavior of a scroll wheel).

LibreOffice allows to zoom a document from 20% (very tiny) to 600% (very large), independently from the application (Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw), by pressing the Control key on the keyboard and rotating the scroll wheel. You go from 20% to 600% by rotating the wheel forward, and from 600% to 20% by rotating the wheel backward.

Of course, the zoom speed is strictly related to a number of factors, so might not be as quick as the user would like. Start gently, and increase the speed with time, considering that a large document or a small RAM may slow down the process.

LibreOffice: Advent Tip #4

LibreOffice has a comprehensive AutoCorrect feature, which can be accessed from the menu Tools > AutoCorrect Options… The command opens a dialog window with five tabs: Replace, Exceptions, Options, Localized Options, and Word Completion. Replace provides a list of symbols and words which might be entered using the wrong character or misspelled, and will be corrected automatically once entered. The list can be improved by the user, with the addition of other words. Exceptions provides a list of the words which do not follow the rule, and can also be improved by the user with the addition of other words.

AutoCorrect_001
Replace
AutoCorrect_002
Exceptions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Options are pre-configured, and are correcting some of the most common typing mistakes, such as two initial capitals, double spaces, and empty paragraphs. Localized Options (no screenshot) provides some additions to the previous tab, related to specific language issues. Last, Word Completion provides a list of words which can be autocompleted by LibreOffice once the feature has been enabled.

AutoCorrect_003
Options
AutoCorrect_005
Word Completion

 

LibreOffice: Advent Tip #3

LibreOffice Impress allows to create a nice Photo Album with a few clicks of the mouse. First, you open an empty presentation. Second, you access the feature with Insert > Media > Photo Album. Third, you press the Add button to select your pictures from your hard disk. Fourth, you choose your options (slide layout, caption, aspect ratio) and then press Insert Slides to create the Photo Album, and – in a few seconds – you get the final product.

Create Photo Album_002
Press Add to select pictures
Create Photo Album_003
Select options and press Insert Slides
Untitled 1 - LibreOffice Impress_004
Your Photo Album is ready in less than a minute

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