Hi, design folks,
I added three items to the UX review queue [1].
These are three Wikimedia Commons gadgets, enabled be default for all (including unlogged), and "user-centered" : the "How to reuse this file" buttons, the slideshow, and the large image viewer.
They most certainly need some design review, and I was hoping you folks could help with it, if time allows.
If I can be of any help, I would be happy to.
Cheers,
Hello, design list,
About two months ago I asked here, on the adivce of Sumana, about a a possible design review of Wikimedia Commons features - but got no answer.
Did I forget to provide some important piece of information? Or you folks do not have time/interest in looking into that sort of things? - which would be totally fine, of course, I am first and foremost wondering whether I knocked on the right door in the first place. :)
Thanks,
On 02/28/2013 07:03 PM, Jean-Frédéric wrote:
Hello, design list,
About two months ago I asked here, on the adivce of Sumana, about a a possible design review of Wikimedia Commons features − but got no answer.
Did I forget to provide some important piece of information? Or you folks do not have time/interest in looking into that sort of things? − which would be totally fine, of course, I am first and foremost wondering whether I knocked on the right door in the first place. :)
This is the right door. It was probably just time constraints.
Matt Flaschen
On 02/28/2013 04:03 PM, Jean-Frédéric wrote:
Hello, design list,
About two months ago I asked here, on the adivce of Sumana, about a a possible design review of Wikimedia Commons features − but got no answer.
Thinking of this email and the "lack of time" answers...
Would it make sense to have periodical UX sprints where we would focus on certain item(s) at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_experience_review_queue
Those sprints would be scheduled ahead and would be planned and promoted as group activities involving the developers of the features reviewed, members of this list and anybody else interested.
A bit in the style of https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/QA/Weekly_goals
but starting with one sprint per month.
This could raise the attention (and the fun) around this queue and our design related activities in general.
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thinking of this email and the "lack of time" answers...
Would it make sense to have periodical UX sprints where we would focus on certain item(s) at https://www.mediawiki.org/** wiki/User_experience_review_**queuehttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_experience_review_queue
Those sprints would be scheduled ahead and would be planned and promoted as group activities involving the developers of the features reviewed, members of this list and anybody else interested.
A bit in the style of https://www.mediawiki.org/**wiki/QA/Weekly_goalshttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/QA/Weekly_goals
but starting with one sprint per month.
This could raise the attention (and the fun) around this queue and our design related activities in general.
This sounds suspiciously like LevelUp or 20% time for design work.
To be blunt: things get left behind because that's how prioritization works. I think designers et al. should lend a hand to design review of items like Commons gadgets when and if they have spare time, but if they don't, it's a consequence of the fact that more important work is taking our focus.
In my view, the healthier solution is not to try and grab more time from paid design staff with schedule UX sprints, but to recruit volunteer designers.
On 03/01/2013 11:05 AM, Steven Walling wrote:
In my view, the healthier solution is not to try and grab more time from paid design staff with schedule UX sprints, but to recruit volunteer designers.
Agreed. QA sprints are a way to recruit QA volunteers (not the only one) and UX sprints could be also one way to recruit volunteer designers.
Maybe we can run those sprints at a community level, and if WMF designers have time to join - great. If not, no problem.
Then again there is another problem: can WMF be a blocker of the UX review queue if there are not enough resources to keep it moving? Maybe those sprints could be useful to find out whether an item in that queue is good enough, or to discuss and file bugs about specific issues.
For instance, in the case of the Commons gadgets waiting in the queue: wouldn't be useful to have a one week sprint to discuss and decide the quality of the proposals? What is the Commons community and the volunteering designers that joined share an opinion at the end of the week? No matter what is the outcome it would be probably better than keeping waiting.
I agree with Steven. We're spread thin right now so it's not trivial to switch focus (everyone on the design team already does multiple context-switches per week). Doing occasional reviews and providing input in our spare time will probably work, but I don't expect a focused design queue cleanup to be viable without sacrificing work on editor engagement, etc.
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 11:05 AM, Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 10:55 AM, Quim Gil qgil@wikimedia.org wrote:
Thinking of this email and the "lack of time" answers...
Would it make sense to have periodical UX sprints where we would focus on certain item(s) at https://www.mediawiki.org/** wiki/User_experience_review_**queuehttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User_experience_review_queue
Those sprints would be scheduled ahead and would be planned and promoted as group activities involving the developers of the features reviewed, members of this list and anybody else interested.
A bit in the style of https://www.mediawiki.org/**wiki/QA/Weekly_goalshttps://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/QA/Weekly_goals
but starting with one sprint per month.
This could raise the attention (and the fun) around this queue and our design related activities in general.
This sounds suspiciously like LevelUp or 20% time for design work.
To be blunt: things get left behind because that's how prioritization works. I think designers et al. should lend a hand to design review of items like Commons gadgets when and if they have spare time, but if they don't, it's a consequence of the fact that more important work is taking our focus.
In my view, the healthier solution is not to try and grab more time from paid design staff with schedule UX sprints, but to recruit volunteer designers.
-- Steven Walling https://wikimediafoundation.org/
Design mailing list Design@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
On 03/01/2013 02:05 PM, Steven Walling wrote:
This sounds suspiciously like LevelUp or 20% time for design work.
And what's wrong with a designer fulfilling part of their LevelUp requirement with things like this?
Of course, that is not to say any given person has to.
Matt Flaschen