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- The Labs Have Cooked Up Experiment 2
The Labs Have Cooked Up Experiment 2
Submitted by cassidyjames on Mon, 03/26/2012 - 23:06elementary Labs: it's where we test crazy ideas and random research. Today, we're happy to announce a brand new experiment!
Experiment 2: Wallpaper Selection
For our second experiment, we show the user two random wallpapers and have them identify and click on the one they like better. The wallpapers are randomly pulled from our large selection of potential wallpapers. The pairings themselves are random as well. The user is encouraged to repeat the test multiple times to compare many wallpapers. After thousands of user-submitted tests, we will use the results to rank the wallpapers as an aid in choosing the best ones for our next release.
It's really simple to do; just click on the screenshot you like better! You can even use your keyboard's arrow keys if you're lazy (or "efficient"). Just click the button below to hop over there and give it a try.
Warning
You may become addicted. Seriously, you can tell yourself you will only do one or two, but you just... won't... want... to... stop. It's okay, the longer you sit there tapping away, the more say you have in the ranking of the wallpapers! What are you waiting for? Hit that pretty button and give it a shot. Humanity will see you again in a few days. We promise.
When will the selected wallpapers be announced?
I'm writing the article right now. ;)
In my opinion, the elementary OS wallpapers should be abstract, but, more important: Calming.They should be soothing, pleasant for the eyes. Just like anything else in elementary OS.
As a photographer, I think some of the photos are way too "flamboyant" and over-saturated. Just look at the wallpaper shipped in Mac OS X, rarely could you find any one of them that has exaggerated white balance or saturation. The color of wallpaper is supposed to be somehow neutral, not too fancy, otherwise it would attract too many attention and make the user feel exhausted very quickly.
Your comment is in line with my initial posting. Composition is also off in some of them. Hopefully, the experiment will reflect people's preferences correctly. I think it's awesome that the team is reaching out to users directly for input through the experiment.
I agree, but considering that really most of the images seem over-saturated, i think it might be possible that this resulted from some sort of auto color correction or colorspace problems. Maybe it has to do with the screenshots.
Good idea of experiment. I like the concept of elementary : care about the final user and ask what he wants.
I have noticed that when the wallpaper is alone, I prefer something figurative, but when there are some windows, I think it might be a good idea to blur and dim the wallpaper.
Here is an example...
I know that a progressive blur is CPU/GPU intensive, but it is far easier to pre-process a blured and dimmed wallpaper and do a transition just like now when changing the wallpaper.
Oh yeah, I've proposed it almost a year ago too: https://blueprints.launchpad.net/pantheon-wallpaper/+spec/focus-blur I've implemented it today, funnily, before reading your comment. Here's a demo: http://youtu.be/tqEgGS11bio
It's funny that I got the idea the day it is implemented :)
BTW, I have created my account just for this (even if I really like elementary OS).
Your video looks pretty interesting. I'm interested in hearing feedback on whether or not people would like it, switch it off, etc.
Time for experiment #3!
I think it would be an excellent idea especially if there is an option of turning it on or off (on by default). Hope it's implemented
Nunca esperei tanto um OS. Continuo com meu Jupiter, e pretendo seguir com elementaryOS sempre, sou fã! Bom gosto incomparável!
good idea and some good wallpapers, but too much flowers (often more distracting than aesthetic) and other clichés that you can find on flickr weekend camera club group photostream. the tones are good though. i like the simplicity and style of the clouds in jupiter. more like that please!
As I've been telling everyone, vote with your clicks! If you don't like the flowers, don't choose them as the better wallpapers. :)
that's a very nice experiment and idea,1 problem tho,.....i can't stop!
Keep goin'!
I've enjoyed Lab 2, but a thought comes to mind: The Lab doesn't permit "abstentions" - i.e. what if you don't like either candidate? Too many of the pages come up and I simply don't like either choice. Too many involve "noisy" pictures, which while beautiful in and of themselves, aren't what I would ever consider choosing as a wallpaper. Of the ones that are graphical in nature, too many seem to involve that ugly, ugly, ugly Ubuntu off-purple. Call me old-fashioned, but as an Unix guy from the 80s, one of the many things that turned me on to elementary was the simple yet elegant graphical simplicity that started it all; so, even on the dos machines I still use as an engineer because SolidWorks doesn't run on Linux, I use the gray wallpaper with the elementary "e" - which I think is perfect. So, consider the idea of a Lab 2.1, wherein the lab rat can turn his nose up at the cheeses being offered, and don't forget to include the wonderful work you've already done as part of the experiment! As Henry Ford said, "If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse that ate less." It's all well and good to find out what people like, but don't be afraid to continue to set the standard and make 'em love you for doing it. That's how you've come so far in so short a time! Cheers, and continued success!
The idea is to choose the better of the two. Even if both are terrible, choose the one that's less terrible. That helps rank them all in some sort of order.
Interesting experiment. But I do think of a CURL script that can use multiple IPs to skew the results. Mind doing some verification?
Nicely designed experiment! Putting windows in front of the wallpapers was a great idea :)
How many wallpapers will be selected?
I'm assuming around 25-30 wallpapers out of 1000. xD
This test is great; however, it shows a bug: the battery indicator icon doesn't fit with the rest of the icon theme.
Old screenshot :P
The bug is https://bugs.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+bug/950264, it's been fixed a while ago and we're working on updating the overlay pics.
Oh... ah... there are really awesome ones, in some cases I just couldn't choose (but in the end, I solved it somehow... :D). Really nice work guys, as it all you've done... :) I can't wait for the stable release of Luna! :D
Love it! Feels like 'Face-mash' from The Social Netowrk...
Wall-mash? :P Keep up the good work guys, can't wait to see Luna!
Very hard to choose!
But you're right! It's addicting!
Beautiful wallpapers, it's hard to choose. Keep up the good work
Oh, now that's a real torture when you see two pieces of beauty at the same time and just need to throw your finger to the arrow keys randomly in order to be not forced to choose between them. :P
Hint: hit "up" arrow key in such cases.
No, please don't hit the up arrow. That is to reload the page in the case of something not showing up right. It ruins the whole concept, and should only be used when something is broken.
For starters I'd say this a well thought out kind of survey to determine which wallpapers are going to be packed with the final release. IMO you guys should just ditch those photoshopped 'bokeh' styled wallpapers :/ I don't think they're on par with the amazing work you guys have been making. And cool to see the dl locations for them all, more wallpapers to my collection ^^
We'll try and package all 1000+ wallpapers up somehow when we get a chance. :)
Regarding the digital wallpapers, vote with your clicks! A lot of people we showed the experiment to before it launched said they wanted more digital ones, so we looked for ones people suggested.
Hell yeah. Man this lab is actually kind of great. I would have thought you guys would have the whole "dim" background, or am I confused?
Great lab, probably going to show my parents and see what they think.
We like blurry backgrounds because they don't distract you from your windows atop of it.
What do you mean by "dim" background?
And yeah, get more people involved! We can always use more people voting.
about voting, is it going to involve only those who are registered and if it is... what about those who didn't register don't they have the right to vote. It is open source project.
Voting doesn't require registering or logging in. Just checked and haven't noticed spending 10 minutes clicking...
Really appreciate that you guys are looking for user input. I struggled choosing between some of the wallpapers. A good number seem to have been heavily processed. They looked HDR-ish to me. Some highly saturated. I think there's some amount of HDR-fatigue in the photography world, so use caution when considering (if my appreciation is correct). Also, there are a few photos that could have better composition. As the elementary crowd would probably advice, quite often less is more :-) So be aware of heavily processed photos.
If you don't like either, just choose the lesser of two evils. If you had to set one as your wallpaper, which would you choose? For everything else, vote with your clicks! If you consistently don't choose the type of wallpaper you don't like, that type of wallpaper won't be as popular. ;)
BTW, it this a modified bubble sort? :-)
Slightly more simple—or complicated, depending on how you look at it—than that. :) We track how many times each is voted for and how many times each is displayed. There may be other things being tracked in the background; I'm not sure. With the results, we can look at them multiple ways: in straight-up number of votes, the percent of the time it was chosen over another, etc.
You can see all the wallpaper goodness here: broken link is broken
It appears your link has been broken. Forbidden!
elementary team is on fire with blog entries lately! ;)
You can't stop us! :D
Yeah, we can stop ourselves just fine.
Watch, we'll suddenly have no more posts until Luna's release. xD
Heh. I have at least two more planned for the near-term. I could always space them out more, too...
I'm already waiting for them!