Here's a post I made to the sakai-dg-ui list in response to a thread about using some fairly "heavyweight" design processes:

===

I agree with Kathy about being careful not to set artificially high barriers to entry wrt improving Sakai UI/design.

While Sakai faces many challenges with respect to its user interface, the main problems that MooseTrout sees are:

• inconsistent navigation, especially relating to use of links, buttons, and icons

The MooseTrout Sakai Skin is based on the following main principles:

• Effective use of depth, color, and visual spacing leads to increased usability.
• All tool "panes" should be designed like windows: title bar, menu bar, content area, and status bar. This will allow for minimization ("venetian blinding"), maximization, xmlhttprequest status cues, as well as a clear demarcation of what content on a page might be changed by xmlhttprequest-type calls.
• In order to increase ease of changing of colors, the smallest possible color-set has been used. That color set currently includes 5 shades of the primary color (yes, I would like to get this down by one or two if possible), two shades of a contrasting color, a warning color, and 8 shades of grey, as well as white and black.