The Liri environment
Liri aims to offer an excellent desktop experience.
Instead of forcing the user to know every detail of their computer, we expect them to turn it on, sit down and simply use it. We are able to achieve this through concise design methodology and the fact that all the applications built for Liri are designed from top to bottom to work together, offer consistency and stability, and deliver the features users want.
To develop an excellent application, you will need to understand the environment and why our users love it. With this understanding, have no doubt that you will be able to establish an application that takes adventures of core platform features and an interface that integrates seamlessly into the desktop experience.
A distraction free, content focused desktop
Liri was created around the core belief that the majority of people use computers to create and experience digital content that they care about and throughout their daily activities.
On a Liri device, the user is free to focus on their content and productivity because Liri performs many of the typical backend application management tasks that users are generally expected to handle.
Avoiding manual configuration
Liri is able to take much of the burden of adjusting and controlling the minor details of the system for the majority of users. This is achieved by promoting minimal configuration throughout the system and applications.
Providing settings is usually an easy way out of making design decisions about an app’s behavior. The same as feature bloat, increased user settings mean more code, more bugs, more testing, more documentation, and more overall complexity for the user.
Creating An "Out of the Box" Experience
Always design with sane defaults in focus.
Liri applications put a strong emphasis on the out of the box experience for the users.
It is safe to assume that if your app requires configuration before a user can be comfortable using it, the user may not take the time to configure it at all and simply use another app in place.
Ask the OS, Not the User
Get as much information automatically as possible. In place of asking the user for his or her name and location, ask the system for this information. This directly reduces the amount of tasks a user has to complete before they are able to have any amount of productivity, it also gives an extra layer of intelligence and integration to your app.
Is It Necessary To The User Experience?
Always contemplate on if the configuration option you are adding is really necessary or vital to the user. Avoid asking users to make engineering or design related decisions. Configuration options should be strictly regulated and assigned to either the initial setup of the app or personal preference.
Contextual Display
Keep things in context. Actively make design decisions that allow you to display preferences in context with the objects they affect, rather than tucked away in a configuration dialog.
If your app requires configuration upon initial use, or before it can be used (like a mail client), present this configuration inside the main app window much like a Welcome Screen. Once again, be mindful to only present configuration options when necessary.
Full-Screen Helps Users Focus
At times it can make sense for an app to offer an immersive, full-screen experience to help users focus on tasks and avoid distractions from the desktop or background applications.
Liri makes extensive use of this and compliments full-screen applications organically with ease.
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How Applications Display On Taskbar
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Customizing User Experience Via System Preferences
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User Help And Documentation Is Unobtrusively Available
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Multiple Users On A Single System
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Accessibility and Internationalization
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A Focus On Typography
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