[dev] New UI Design

[Gloves (Jesse Padilla)]

I’m new to the Horde development community so please help me in the 
right direction if I am breaking any rules or etiquette.

*Background:*
I have been developing a web application suite to end all web 
application suites.  My partner and I have just started v2 .0 when we 
found Horde.org and found you are developing exactly what we were going 
to do on our own.  I would like to contribute to Horde instead of 
reinventing the wheel.

*A Problem I have noticed:*
You have a spectacular suite of web applications in the Horde project. 
There are brilliant features that I would never have thought of.  The 
problem I see is that the project has a programmer feel to it. This 
means Amazing features, well built and thought out however, lacking in 
the user friendly & intuitive interface.  When developing software it’s 
difficult and often times easy to forgot that other people who are new 
to the software are easily discourage from complex interfaces.  It’s not 
complex to the programmers because they built it and already have it 
memorized.

*Proposal:*
As a UI designer I would like to donate and implement my UI design to 
Horde.  If not exactly the same design, then a similar design that the 
community can agree on.  I don’t know if you are familiar with the open 
source phpBB project (www.phpbb.com) or not.  PhpBB v1.x was a web forum 
but had nothing to separate itself from the competition.  With it’s new 
2.x Sub Blue UI design it has more than tripled in popularity.  Of 
course it wouldn’t have been able to do this without it’s exceptional 
functionality and features.  I want the same for Horde. A well built and 
thought out UI that is pleasing to the eye, will sell your 
product/service making the project more popular among non-programmer people.

*Design:*
Static image displayed in a small browser window to show frames:
http://jessebox.com/downloads/181.png
Static HTML to show the flow, look and feel:
http://sjp-mail.pluginbox.net/www.original/www/frames.php
[If you are interested there is a matching UI for the administrator site]

*Pros and Cons*
+ Designed for minimal server side stress
+ Designed to hold unlimited modules (far left frame)
+ Designed for easy navigation
+ Designed to work in 1024 x 768 very easily and even works with 800x600.
+ UI Designed like an OS application not a web application.
+ Less stress & faster loading times for client side. (Only have to 
download small parts of the page instead of the whole page at a time.)
- Many people don’t like frames. (This may be due to bad browser 
compatibility experiences in the 90s? Other than that, I can’t think of 
any other reason.)
- More work is required to make this happen.
- Existing users will have to relearn the New UI. However it shouldn’t 
be difficult at all.
+/- (if you can list more pros or cons please list)

***Main Question:***
If you like this design or think I can contribute, how can I submit this 
new UI design and begin developing it or a design specifically for Horde?

Keep in mind I’m not a programmer and might need things explained a bit 
more.
Tell me if I left anything out, I really hope that I can be a positive 
influence in this project.

-- 
Gloves Q. /=D
jesse at pluginbox.com