The file management and Navigation problem spaces will be initial areas of focus for design work.  We will identify, design and build components based on user needs in these areas.  We also plan to define new navigation structures for Sakai.

Initial Components

We will work on smallish, well understood components in parallel with our user research project.  The research findings can inform future iterations of these components as it will the design and development of various components identified through the research.

File Management

• Getting it in (likely done in phases) 
  • Upload
  • Include context automatically
  • Add personal folksonomy - Tags
  • Files from PC, resources in Sakai, other...
• Tag cloud browsing
• Search?
• Other

Navigation

• Tab Navigation
• Layout Customizer
• Page Navigator - navigating between multiple results pages - rating but is an existing component in Sakai and probably a quick design win
• Breadcrumbs (4/2b)
• Personal Beacon Icon Set / Enhancement of Favourites (4/2b)
• Detached Windows Launched from Portlet - included in scenarios, does this map to a component idea?
• Other?

Image Gallery

• Same as File Management
• Reorder used with lightbox (thumbnails can be moved among the collections)
• NOT COMPONENT -- understand relationship between resources and files uploaded elsewhere

Component Design Project Plan

This is a fairly generic plan.  Each component group will need to determine the appropriate for their needs.  For example, some problems may be more fleshed out than others.  Some may have existing research and competitive analysis to leverage.  Each component team will also want to flesh out project activities to the level of detail needed. 

In general, we will follow Fluid Design Best Practices for all of our component work. 

Planning

• Problem Statement and/or Vision
• Identify Component Coordinator (likely a combo role of PM / UX?)
• Recruit  multi-disciplinary team

Discovery

• Needs Analysis
  • User research - may be able to leverage existing
  • Usage stats
  • Training & support feedback
• Competitive Analysis

Modeling

• Use Personas (existing - perhaps enhanced or create new)
• Create primary scenarios
• Comprehensive list of use cases (use case matrix)
• Identify functional & data elements

Design

• Conceptual framework (technical feasibility)
• Iterative detailed designs (lo-fidelity to hi-fidelity
• Create design pattern

Implementation

• Iterative implementation per above
  • Identify low design / high dev activities early for implementation to begin
  • Allows for holistic design framework to be created
  • Break detailed design into iterations