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On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 11:10 AM, Jane Wells <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:jane@automattic.com"
target="_blank">jane@automattic.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote
cite="mid:3cf2fb6b1001191218yf7650a7g305ba3a4f0ab95e5@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div class="gmail_quote">
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi
everyone. Almost 300 people have signed up for this list, which was way
more than I expected. I'm not sure how many of you are people who
actually want to get involved and contribute to the UI/UX work that
goes into making WordPress, vs. how many are developers or users who
just want to keep up with what's going on or offer feedback on other
people's design work, so I think the first thing this list should do is
help everyone get to know who's here. Lurkers need not do this, but if
you're planning to contribute to the UI work ahead, please email this
list and tell us a little bit about you: Your work background/current
job, specific design/usability/accessibility skills/talents that we
should know about/make use of, what you hope to contribute to WP UI,
your location/time zone, and maybe the one UI thing you would like to
address in WP if given the chance. My main goal here is to find out how
many people of all the subscribers are actually people who can
wireframe, make comps, run usability testing, etc, vs. simply wanting
to weigh in with opinions on the work of others (which can happen on
Trac tickets). This list is meant to be a working group.<br>
<br>
After people have had a day or two to introduce themselves, we'll have
a better idea of how many people are actually planning to participate
in this list for now, and can plan accordingly. I've got a list as long
as my arm of potential design projects we can divvy up into groups, so
knowing people's backgrounds and interests will help determine which
projects we hit first. We can also then decide on a day/time for a
weekly UI chat in IRC.<br>
<br>
I'm in the process of setting up a site for this group to use a la <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://wpdevel.wordpress.com"
target="_blank">wpdevel.wordpress.com</a>, and will start adding
people as authors once we have created teams and begun working on
projects and there are things to report. I'll need to know your <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://wordpress.org" target="_blank">wordpress.org</a>
login name to add you to the site. Usability people are welcome and
encouraged to speak up also, not just designers. Getting the plan up
and running for distributed testing is on the goals list, too.<br>
<br>
I guess I'll start. I'm Jane, and am the main UX person for WordPress.
I led the admin redesign of 2.7, and work closely with the core team on
UI changes. We never have time to get to everything, so there's still a
ton left to do. I work for Automattic, which donates a big chunk of my
time to the open source project. Before this job, I'd worked at
agencies, companies and research groups in almost every front-end web
job there is over the last 10 years. Though mostly UX stuff, I've also
done project management, content development, HTML, visual design,
testing, etc. Right now I'm a bottleneck for UI changes in WordPress,
and anyone who works in this industry knows that it takes a lot longer
to create a wireframe deck than it does to sketch an idea, so I'm
hoping to grow this group into a healthy contributor community so that
I can step back into more of a advisory/curatorial role rather than
slowing things down while I draft wireframes or conduct individual
testing sessions. I'm on the east coast, and would love it if the
weekly chat could be during the day sometime before 3pm, but if the
majority needs to have an evening meeting instead, I can work with
that. I traditionally do wireframes in Omnigraffle, but would like to
find a good open source tool (the ones I've tried haven't been great)
that we can all use for this if possible. I generally go for Photoshop
for comps, and have not found GIMP to be an adequate substitute, though
I'd love to move visual design to open source tools as well.
Suggestions are welcome.<br>
<br>
I'll be happy to answer questions, point to resources etc for those who
want to get involved. However, this is not the right place (yet,
anyway) to come if you are just getting started and want to learn the
design/UX trade as a new career move or something. I'd like to start
off with more experienced UI/UX people just to get some processes
nailed down. I hope that in the future the WP UI group will be an
awesome place to come to learn new skills.<br>
<br>
Who's next?<br>
Jane<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
wp-ui mailing list<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" href="mailto:wp-ui@lists.automattic.com"
target="_blank">wp-ui@lists.automattic.com</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-ui"
target="_blank">http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-ui</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<br>
Hey Guys and Gals - My name is Michael Kuhlmann and work out of
Sacramento for a Wash., DC-based publishing company. Recently, my work
has revolved lots of A/B split-testing to measure what works and what
doesn't and what doesn't matter at all, which is an arduous and
seemingly slow process. When it comes to UI/UX or any sort of design
aspect, I think the proverbial tenet "keep it simple, stupid" is still
the best approach. I'll also bet that the most challenging aspect of
this WP UI collaboration will be to not overthink design, because every
one of us has a natural tendency to assume that even novice WordPress
users are clueless -- which they are not (eg. "below the fold" kind of
stuff). At any rate, I think it's a great idea that our brains are
being tapped to produce a better WordPress experience and I'd be happy
to contribute in any way. <br>
</blockquote>
Mike<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.michaelkuhlmann.com">www.michaelkuhlmann.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.avenuek9.com">www.avenuek9.com</a><br>
@mfgmk (on twitter/buddypress.org/testbp.org/irc)<br>
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