OpenOffice Impress Design Proposals in Final Lap

The project called in all hands to improve OpenOffice's user interface by using Impress. The independent and optimally innovative designs are to be submitted as graphics files and published on the deadline date of May 4, 2009. The focus is on the information architecture, such as grouping of elements, and not on visual effects, such as gradients, shadows or transparency.

The ten-day period following the deadline will involve community review of the submissions. Designers will have a chance until May 15 to revise their designs. Further plans weren't established, but the end goal is to integrate the designs into a new user interface for OpenOffice. As the Project Renaissance call for proposals website declares, the mission is to "create a user interface so that OpenOffice.org becomes the users' choice not only out of need, but also out of desire." The call for proposals provides a submission procedure and a set of guidelines or principles, "although any ideas are welcome."

The project provides a design proposal template .odp file to use with the Impress presentation software. The overall task focus is to develop new concepts in Impress, although "you may use anything else that you are comfortable with."