Summit UX Summary

Owned by Daphne Ogle
Last updated: Dec 10, 2008 by Allison BloodworthVersion comment
4 min read

A summary of the user experience track of the Fall 2007 Fluid Summit in Toronto.

UX Walkthroughs

Protocol, heuristics, process and reporting seem to be working. We'll continue to reflect and iterate as we do the walkthroughs.

NEXT STEPS:

  • We'll continue working through the UX walkthroughs with an eye toward identifying pain points to focus component work on and delivering a "state of usability and accessibility" summary to the Sakai, uPortal and Moodle communities.
  • Synthesize all walkthrough results from individual evaluators for the summaries.  What should our timeline be for completing the walkthroughs?
  • Paul will drive definition of the form of the above mentioned summaries
  • Create summaries and share out with communities.

Pain point and Component ID and prioritization activity

Pain point synthesis and categorization identified several areas of focus. Wiki pages for these areas can be found as child pages off the Pain Points & Problem Spaces page. Four areas were chosen to focus on and working groups formed around them:

There was also discussion around these areas in the larger group.  Initially we hoped to assign design and development effort to the areas also but we quickly realized we weren't there yet. 

NEXT STEPS: 

In addition we identified the need to understand and create "the package" that is a component.  It's code, it's likely a design pattern or 2 as reference.  What else is required technically and from design perspective to allow folks to easily use components?  We recognized that ease of use of the components is VERY important.  In our typical learn by doing mode, we decided to identify potential integration points for the Reorderer component in both uPortal and Sakai to use as our test bed.  Gary & Daphne signed up to move this work forward.

NEXT STEPS:

  • Gary & Eric integrate Layout Customizer in uPortal for portlet layout
  • Gary & Daphne identify likely integration points in uPortal and Sakai and pick 3 - 5 to move forward
  • Recruit needed team members from the respective communities (developers, project manager if project is sizable enough, etc.)
  • Integrate (design & development work) - what's needed along the way?  what are outstanding questions?  what's the package?

uCamps

1/2 day at JA-SIG 2007 Unconference in November. 

NEXT STEPS: U-Camp Planning

in December

NEXT STEPS:  Jumping off the JA-SIG planning, we'll jump into planning this one next.

User Testing

With all the great work and discussion, we ran out of time for this and decided to get a jump on it right after the Summit.  Shaw-Han and Barbara have started a wiki page and will be in touch to move this discussion along and move the Reorder component testing forward.

NEXT STEPS:

  • Shaw-Han and Barbara to lead discussion of overall Fluid Testing
  • User testing of Reorder (in the context of the lightbox?) 

Kuali Student Overview

Paul gave a lightning talk on where they are and what the plan foward is based on Kuali Student UI Design Notes.  

NEXT STEPS:

  • Paul uploaded the document to the wiki (link above)
  • There will be a meeting in Vancouver in December
  • Continue conversations - perhaps folks on campuses with Kuali student teams can have a conversation with them

Design Patterns

Allison gave a lightning presentation on design patterns.  She talked about what a pattern is, who the audience for Fluid patterns might be, showed some example patterns and provided us with many thought-provoking questions.  The discussion continued the next day a bit with the whole group.

Everyone agrees this is a key deliverable from Fluid in conjunction with components.   Allison and Barbara will champion this.

NEXT STEPS:

UX Activity Planning and Management

This discussion will happen on-line.  The idea is to utilize some agile development planning methods to help the UX folks self-manage and prioritize our work.  A huge bonus to this approach is the transparency it affords to the folks doing the work and the rest of the community. 

NEXT STEPS:

  • Daphne to coordinate conversation to review idea with team
  • If people like the idea we'll just doing it and iterate as we go

Content Management Research

Daphne gave a lightning presentation on the problem, goals, and plan behind this project.  Much more discussion will happen virtually. 

NEXT STEPS:

  • Follow up with team to get a feel for interest, make sure we have common ground around the project
  • Recruit team
  • Synch up with Sakai Resources WG
  • Flesh out project plan.
  • Decide how many users and how to cover the diversity of our communities.