Hi Isarra, thanks for the excellent questions. Here's my attempt to answer them:
The purpose of the statement of purpose is to gain clarity and build trust within the design group and with their principle stakeholders. With the statement itself, we seek to gain clarity and shared understanding about what design at the WMF is here for and trying to achieve (at a big-picture level). Through the process of defining the statement of purpose, we hope to build trust amongst the design group and with their principle stakeholders. So, the primary audience for this document is the design group itself, with the stakeholders of design being a secondary audience. Moving forward, that is once the statement of purpose is done, design can take a close look at where it is now relative to where it wants to be as defined by the statement of purpose. Design can then use that difference to help make decisions about how we get from here to there (for instance to help in making decisions about staffing, structure, involvement in product teams, how to approach design problems, and so on). Long story short, the statement of purpose is intended to be an organizing tool - to create clarity through everyone understanding the purpose, and trust by going through a collaborative process of definition amongst design and their stakeholders - so that they can execute better and with decreased friction. A little more background and history: As the Foundation has evolved over the years, there have been many challenges and pain points around figuring out how design should function and how it should be integrated into the various facets of the organization (from product development to communications). Through all of the attempts to address those challenges and pain points over the years, it's become clear that the role and purpose of design is not well understood - at least not in a shared and consistent way, which makes it nearly impossible to find the right and lasting solutions. A few months ago, the Team Practices Group was asked to help identify and resolve the major pain points - after doing research, we agreed in conjunction with the design group that we should pursue clarifying the purpose of design and validate it with their stakeholders. Does this answer your questions? On Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 12:24 PM Isarra Yos <zhoris...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm going to ask this here since the talkpage on-wiki is a flow board > and I find those very difficult to use, but I'm a bit unclear what the > purpose of this is. All the things listed sound good in theory, but the > language is ambiguous and very high level, to the point where it's hard > to see how it applies in practice. Essentially, who is this for? What > are the problems they are trying to address? What are they planning to > do, and what will this mean in practice moving forward? > > Thanks. > > -I > > On 10/11/16 18:40, Keegan Peterzell wrote: > > Hello all, > > > > Over the past few months the Design team members at the Wikimedia > > Foundation (user experience [UX] designers, design researchers, user > > experience engineers, and communications) have been working with Arthur > > Richards from the Team Practices Group to identify the high-level themes > > that motivate design at the WMF. These themes have been turned into a > brief > > statement of purpose, whose intent is to articulate the vision and > purpose > > behind design at the WMF. This statement will influence the future > > direction of design work. > > > > At this point the stakeholders are ready for a review of the draft > > statement. The purpose of this review is to gather a common understanding > > of its purpose, and to identify any key themes that may be missing from > the > > high-level discussion. On the wiki page for the statement, you'll find > > these themes and what they encompass in the "Background" section. If you > > have an observation, comment, or concern about what is listed there, > please > > bring it up on the talk page. If it is relevant to the review and > > understanding of the statement, it will be looked at for future drafts. > If > > there are comments about design and the design process in general, we'll > > hold on to those until a time when they can be addressed for the broader > > discussion of design in general. > > > > All that said, here are the links: > > * <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design/Statement_of_purpose> > > * <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Design/Statement_of_purpose> > > > > We look forward to seeing you on the wiki. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
