History and Purpose: #
FreeCAD is a highly modular, complex piece of design software which has been developed for over 20 years by volunteer contributors from across the globe. Due to the nature of this organic growth, individuals have injected their own ideas and implementations without following a uniform design language for how the application should present itself to users as well as flow through its many features. As a result user feedback regarding aesthetic and usability were generally poor, despite a robust set of features.
This Design Guide is intended to present developers/designers a series of concepts and guidelines through which they may expand, extend and improve FreeCAD through improved user interactions and general consistency of appearance, structure, and behavior. As such, this should be considered a living document which may change to meet the needs of developers, designers, and users. It can potentially also help those who write documentation use consistent terminology.
This guide is the product of a Design Working Group consisting of community members; ensuring decisions made regarding the User Interface and User Experience are consistent with the needs of people who actually use FreeCAD in both professional and hobbyist environments. This working group will also be involved with review of interface/experience related changes to FreeCAD to provide input to developers and maintainers regarding the merits and consistency of features which may impact interaction and/or workflows.