Re: [libreoffice-design] Team organization
Hi Mirek, all, I agree that we should have leads to give an orientation to the design team. However I don't agree with "As Theodor Nelson writes (and Jan Borchardt reiterates [1]), "The integration of software cannot be achieved by committee, where everyone has to put in their own additions (featuritis again). It must be controlled by dictatorial artists with full say on the final cut. " " I have experienced some committees against "creeping featurism" when I suggested new features (gnu-core-utils for example). I have no clue of what is the proportion of "committees" in open source software who fight strongly against featuritis but in my modest experience there is always someone against any new feature in any "committee". Probably there is no difference on featuritis between average committee and average dictator. To be honest, I'm quite bored of gratuitous attacks against democracy, debate, vote, etc. If you can provide facts and data on this topic, I'll be happy to learn. In order to be constructive and concrete, here is how I think we should have leads : - leads should be elected for 6 months, - if for some position, nobody applies, then the design team self-organizes (for the best and the worse as usual ;) ) - leads give an orientation to the work of the design team, organize the debate without censorship, - if a particular point yields a lot of conflicting opinions, the final say goes to a vote after all rationnal arguments have been synthetized by the lead. Please comment any of these 4 points. Best regards, Laurent On 19/06/2014 15:47, Sophie wrote: Hi Mirek, Le 19/06/2014 15:35, Mirek M. a écrit : Hi Sophie, [...] Sorry to jump in with a side question about the other aspects out of the product. How can we reach your team when we need visual or design specifics for events or any action organized by the other projects. Are you too short in volunteers and we need to help you grow this part of the community or is it something you're not invested in? Yes, I would say we're short on volunteers, and those volunteers tend to be short on time. Motivation might be a factor -- I think the organizational chaos that there is now can be discouraging and I'd like to try to fix that. Yes, that's what I understand, hence my proposal to separate the project in two groups. Would it be better for your team that we have two separate projects: one dedicated to the product design, the other one to the designs needed by the community projects? I'm not sure. I guess ideally leads would cater to all TDF-related projects and would act as managers. ok, your the one who knows better here :) Right now, though, I'm afraid a lot of the design work will fall on the leads themselves, or just not get done. yes, that's what usually happen when we miss volunteers. Perhaps that's not relevant, though? Should we just have leads take care of all the projects and be responsible for finding the necessary volunteers? but the other project should support you here, it's really difficult to do all the work and try to find volunteers at the same time :) Actually, and please don't take it as a criticism, it seems very difficult to get some designs done for events or items and I really would like to help to solve this :) Yes, I know, sorry; though huge props to KJ, who tends to save the day. yes, thanks a lot to him and (I'm always afraid he feels exhausted by all our demands ;) Please chime in with any organizational ideas you might have. I'll think about it, and will see what we can organize with the NLPs and the marketing project to take a special action to help you. I'll report back on this list. Thanks a lot for your feedback :) Cheers Sophie -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-design] Team organization
Hi Mirek, all, good to see your initiative! Personally I think there are indeed two problems you try to solve: 1. Responsibility: It is good to have people taking responsibility, e.g. who can be asked concerning certain topics, who organize that work is been done within the team and who can identify and promote points that need to be changed in order to enhance usability as a whole. So I fully agree with your idea on assigning responsibilities. 2. Direction: The 'dictatorial artists' on the other hand I think is not such a good idea. Large projects like LibreOffice are slow tankers - it takes time to change things substantially. Direction should hence not be given by a (possibly frequently changing) person in charge, but by some kind of directing documentation (Styleguides, Visions, Personas, ...). This documentation of course has to be constantly updated, but decisions should always be taken in reference to this documentation - providing a constant direction in the development. I assume this is what you mean by > I feel like we don't have the basics down Just my 2 cents. Perhaps it helps to structure your thoughts. Keep up the good work! Björn Am Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2014, 14:48:35 schrieb Mirek M.: > Hi guys, > Sorry for my lack of involvement lately, I've been very busy. > > I've been thinking about our team lately and I'd really like to rethink the > way we work. I feel like we don't have the basics down, and that's a > gigantic issue that also reflects on our work. Part of the problem is that > the team doesn't have a clear structure -- we need leads to resolve > controversies and bring consistency to the whole of LibreOffice. As Theodor > Nelson writes (and Jan Borchardt reiterates [1]), "The integration of > software cannot be achieved by committee, where everyone has to put in > their own additions (featuritis again). It must be controlled by > dictatorial artists with full say on the final cut. " Not only that -- > having leads means having clear go-to people for design-related problems > and allows more effective communication -- the communication chaos that we > currently have would be reduced. > > I'm thinking we could have these positions: > * UX lead > * Visual design lead > * User testing lead > > The *user testing lead* would see to it that whatever needs to be tested > gets tested and that the tests are carried out well. The lead wouldn't have > to personally take part in tests -- as we have volunteers all over the > world, that would sometimes be impossible -- but they would have to make > sure that the tests get done and are sufficiently accurate to be useful. > The *visual design lead* would oversee all visual design related work. That > means making sure that all graphical elements that are needed get made and > follow a certain style. It also means creating visual design and branding > guidelines and style guides when they're needed. > The *UX lead* would care for the general UX of LibreOffice. That means > bringing attention to important UX bugs, watching over their progress, and > cooperating with the user testing lead, the visual design lead, and > developers based on what each bug requires. It also involves refining the > design process, from the bug report stage all the way to implementation. > > It should be noted that these positions would pertain only to the software, > not to related projects such as the websites, social networks, branding > material, etc., to keep the workload lighter. However, rules and guidelines > for the software would apply to these projects when relevant. To further > lighten the workload, larger projects (e.g. Android remote, color > management, etc.) could have their own lead as well. The project lead would > report to the three leads listed above. > > Having these three positions would change only the way we work within the > design team. The relationship of the team with other teams would not change > -- devs would still get the final say and leads would have no special roles > or privileges within TDF. > > Anyway, chime in with your thoughts -- in order to work well, we really > need to get the core structure down. > > Also, if you'd like to be a lead, please speak up. We have a shortage of > volunteers, so anyone interested is greatly appreciated. > > [1] http://jancborchardt.net/usability-in-free-software -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
Re: [libreoffice-design] Team organization
Hi Mirek, *, Am 19.06.2014 14:48, schrieb Mirek M.: [...] Having these three positions would change only the way we work within the design team. The relationship of the team with other teams would not change -- devs would still get the final say and leads would have no special roles or privileges within TDF. The Design team had two voted "leads": Bernhard and Christoph. Both got the role by their meritocracy in the Design team. They never saw this as an official position but as a responsibility. And AFAIK Mirek and Astron were their successors. [...] Anyway, chime in with your thoughts -- in order to work well, we really need to get the core structure down. [...] Also, if you'd like to be a lead, please speak up. We have a shortage of volunteers, so anyone interested is greatly appreciated. I won't call it lead but projectée. There should be some profiles for a projectée: - He/She should have contributed time and intellectual design work for 6 months. The best will be, he/she is a member (as it is told in our statutes § 10 Board of Trustees). - The person should have led more than one design project for LibO as described by the Whiteboards - He/She should be voted, not elected: There will always be only one person for one position to be voted. - It won't be an official position (so the projectée can't do dictatorial work) but he/she have a voice to stop things which will go in wrong direction. I personally don't think that we need leads because we have no contributors to be led. We have some merited Design members who guide us. I for my part will say thanks to Mirek and Astron who do a very good job here. As you said we need structural positions and I think you (and Astron) should go on to work on it. I can put in my personal 2 Cents as border worker between Marketing and Design. Maybe we find an instrument to work on it. Wasn't there an idea to make a Design meeting in South Tirol (with Italo) some times ago (two or three years)? -- Grüße k-j Member of TheDocumentFoundation http://www.documentfoundation.org/foundation/members/ http://de.libreoffice.org http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: design+unsubscr...@global.libreoffice.org Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/design/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
