Open Source Design Pattern Library group meeting - 07-16-08

Agenda

  • Briefly review the current answers to High Level OSDPL discussion questions 3-9 (I've updated them based on edits suggested at our last large group meeting): http://wiki.fluidproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2883725) - If possible, please do your own initial review before the meeting, and either send comments to the mailing list or put them on the above wiki page in the "Discussion" section under the question you are addressing. (Reminder: these are the answers to the questions for our internal group, and we will be creating an abbreviated version of any answers we use on an externally-facing FAQ.)
  • Discuss where the most current version of the design patterns should live (e.g. Fluid wiki or OSDPL?) since the OSDPL is still in 'beta'
  • Walk-through of the current version of the OSDPL, with a focus on information architecture issues
  • Discuss the following information architecture questions that Jess sent out to the list last week:
    1. How does the design pattern library connect to the Fluid component library, UX Toolkit, and other documentation? and other Design Pattern Libraries?
    2. How will contributors interact with the library and what will they contribute?
      • those who submit their pattern
      • those who want to critique a pattern
      • those who want to use a pattern

Attendees

Allison, Daphne, Erin, Colin, Jess, Paul, Rachel  

Meeting Notes

  • Paul brought up the issue of whether we will ever present patterns in the OSDPL to end users of our applications, perhaps to explain why we created an interface in a certain way. He'll find the article he was reading that mentioned this and send it out to the group along with his thoughts.
  • Jess mentioned that the OSDPL meetings weren't on the Fluid meetings page. Allison said she'd add them there.
  • We briefly reviewed the answers to high level discussion questions:  http://wiki.fluidproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=2883725
    • We'll move forward with these answers but anyone should feel free to add comments to the wiki page (in the "Discussion" sections under each question) or send feedback via the lists.  The answers should grow with the community and project.
  • Since the OSDPL is still in beta, the most current version of the Fluid patterns should still be placed on the Fluid wiki (http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Open+Source+Design+Pattern+Library). When we release the OSDPL, we will probably want to migrate the patterns to the OSDPL and remove them from the wiki.
  • A reminder that the OSDPL is scheduled to be released at the end of July in Fluid 0.4. We discussed the fact that it won't be completely finished, but we'd like to create an initial version that is a good starting point which we can continue to iterate on. Allison to go through JIRA issues for OSDPL and mark the "must haves" for 0.4 as blockers.
    • One task we most likely want to complete before is an accessibility walk-through, making any easy fixes we can immediately and letting users know of other issues we find which we are working on.
    • The goal is for the pattern library to be "open for business" and ready to accept pattern submissions upon release. We don't anticipate receiving too many of them initially, and eventually we'll want to put them through some sort of evaluation process before publishing (e.g. the "Governance" Proposal Jonathan is working on).
  • Allison gave us a walkthrough of the OSDPL, identifying some potential focus for information architecture
    • The taxonomy for the patterns (left navigation vs. tags)
    • Identify use cases and do UX walkthroughs
    • General layout - what's most important and is it available and obvious on the home page? (E.g. "Recent comments" is hidden at the bottom of the right sidebar - Allison has since adjusted this, but improvements could still be made)
    • Pattern structure and layout (e.g. data elements, styling of the pattern pages)
  • Jess brought up the fact that emails being sent to her when she reset her password come from Allison. Allison explained that she isn't sending it personally, but that Drupal requires someone's email as a "from" address. It was suggested to use fluid-talk as a "from", but then it was pointed out that isn't very user-friendly to direct someone who's having trouble accessing a site to an entire mailing list. Allison entered a JIRA task to set up an alias for this.
  • Reminder of IA Questions sent to the list by Jess earlier in the week:
    • How does the design pattern library connect to the Fluid component library, UX Toolkit, and other documentation? and other Design Pattern Libraries?
    • How will contributors interact with the library and what will they contribute?
      • those who submit their pattern
      • those who want to critique a pattern
      • those who want to use a pattern
    • Please respond with your thoughts about these questions to the fluid-talk mailing list
  • Next meeting: Wednesday, July 23rd, 11am PDT/2pm EDT
    • Possible discussion topics
    • We will consider having individual working sessions on these items at this time rather than a full-group meeting