[wp-design] Re: Shuttle Way Forward

Tue May 2 18:07:01 GMT 2006

First off I'll also say that that is really great news to hear because 
I, like Joen was bummed out a bit. I'm also really glad for the 
clarification, because I really think it was needed. I've put my 
thoughts below. Hopefully I don't talk too much shit so please excuse 
the noise if I have (it's been a long day).

Joen Asmussen wrote:
> Just a short note to let you know that I'm really happy you wrote 
> this. It puts all my important fears / issues to rest.
>
> I hope to respond indepth at a later time. If not, then I'm glad we 
> sorted this out.
>
> Joen
>
> Matt Mullenweg wrote:
>> Joen Asmussen wrote:
>>> If these mockups do not become part of the official Wordpress 
>>> release at some point (no matter when, 2.5, 3), then what the hell 
>>> has this year-and-a-half of work been good for? This is FREE work by 
>>> people who do it for the love of it! Is it being scrapped, or picked 
>>> at like some cold christmas dinner?
>>
>> I'm sorry if I miscommunicated: I wasn't saying it won't be 
>> incorporated, but rather that it'll take time, just as getting to 
>> this point has taken time. Historically I've been the one coding 
>> admin improvements for WP, and I know it'll take me a bit to get to 
>> everything, that's all. If I had to guess, I'd say 2-4 months for 
>> things to really start looking like the mockups.
>>
>> If the changes were purely aesthetic, it'd still be a big task, but 
>> there are fundamental changes like the new sidebars and changes to 
>> the ways some of the tables are displayed. The changes will touch 
>> almost every file in the admin, inevitably introduce bugs, and really 
>> constitute a release and testing cycle all by themselves.
>>
>> The mockups are really just a starting point for work that's going to 
>> take months. Shuttle isn't done, it's just getting started. ;)
>>
>> And even when it's "done" there'll still be things that need fixing:
>>
>> http://photomatt.backpackit.com/page/394123
>>
>> (BTW, Michael's notes above are ultra-useful and would be great 
>> broken up to individual issues on Trac, if any of you guys want to 
>> contribute similar things in the future.)
>>
>> If you guys prefer, I could hold off any changes until everything is 
>> completely finished, but honestly breaking it up into a bunch of 
>> small tasks is infinitely more likely to get done.
As far as I can tell it's more or less there. There are a couple of 
elements that could be looked at. Specifically the way in which we can 
hide/show the sidebar. One really nice way that I've seen a very good 
implementation of recently is Snook's new site, check it out 
www.snook.ca/jonathan , it's right at the top. Apart from that, it's the 
usual tweaks that would come about if we were coding this, little 
tweaks, spacings, etc. So what I'm trying to say is until you've decided 
how you'd like to implement the sidebar (ie it could be something that's 
held as an option, which I'm more in favour of to be honest, then we can 
see what additional elements need to be tweaked, so run like the wind 
and get coding is all I can add :). The list is good however it was 
mainly looking at the mockups we had and what eventually made it into 
version 2.0 The mockups have moved on since then, so maybe a new list 
could be made for elements people are not too keen on etc.
>>
>> For future attempts like this, I've learned the following things from 
>> Shuttle:
>>
>> * Work should not be done in private
Not really sure what you mean by that? You mean designing so that 
everyone can see?
>> * Design by committee doesn't work, better to break up tasks and let 
>> individual people focus on one section
Very true, however this wasn't really commitee to be honest. This was 
special because you had 3 (plus 1) people with VERY different styles 
working towards something that none of which could have achieved on 
their own. I think the mock ups are stronger for this contribution from 
everyone, however it is better in such situations that one takes the 
lead and gets stuck in there, with comments from others. If it's 
definitely not going in the right direction then maybe someone else can 
jump in as well. Once the basics are confirmed and agreed upon a 
competent designer can take those designs and deal with them in a 
coherent and quick fashion however bashing ideas by committee and with 
several people is essential. That might be the problem why it took so 
long, we kept bashing ideas back and forth? I'm not sure.

To be honest I think it depends on the project. With something as widely 
used as WP it's important to have more than one head because it's going 
to be used by soo many thousands of people that it's important that many 
many angles are covered. I'm currently doing the redesign of an open 
source feed aggregator (www.fofredux.sourceforge.net) and that's just me 
and a group of coders. It's a small little project so it doesn't need 3 
people designing it. Hopefully it'll attract more than the handful of 
people that are using it currently (if you guys want to have a look at 
the mockups then go head over here: www.brokenkode.com/fofr ). It's 
really dependent on the project I think.

Also having several people concentrate on one section might kill 
continuity between the sections. Just something to bear in mind.
>> * Focus on lots of incremental changes, rather than giant redesigns 
>> (you end up in the same place, and probably sooner)
Hmm not sure I agree with this. The problem is that a giant redesign 
requires the lead developer (ie you Matt :) ) to be commited to the 
changes and to see them as a priority. If you thought it was a priority 
then you'd have taken those mockups and put them into the design. It 
would take you a  few weeks, but the task would have been completed. I 
understand the sheer amount of pages and changes involved and yes 
debugging would be a bitch but once again if it was a priority it would 
be done. I'm not complaining mind you, I'm just stating what I feel is 
the situation. This is not really pointing in your direction, it's an 
open source project, you've got other things on your mind, you've got 
other tasks, you've got other bigger priorities. It's the nature of the 
beast. I think we all understand that completely.

Also don't forget that  the final mockups were tweaked considerably to 
what we were playing with for a good long while. That's why we didn't 
code straight away. It's much much easier for us to change a psd.
>> * Document the process and decisions along the way
Yes definitely. Get one person who's keen on that sort of thing to 
document the whole thing. Keep track of important decisions and why.
>> * Code concurrently with the designs (and iterate)
see above.
>> * Don't hype it, expectations get out of control
With the exception of announcing the members involved and showing a 
couple of mockups I don't think we hyped the redesign. I think just 
grouping everyone's names together and actually saying out loud that we 
were going to be addressing one of the elements that most people don't 
like the most about the software itself (except for the multi-user 
thing) created the hype on it's own. I don't think we tried actively to 
hype up. If the designs are implemented as is I think for the most part 
we'll have satisfied 70% of those people, 20% would never be satisfied 
whatever we did, and the other 10% don't care.
>> * Avoid scope creep of features into designs
>> * Set a deadline and stick to it
That's not going to happen. It's a nice thing to have, but it's an open 
source project. We all have lives and other interests and other things 
to do. We dedicate as much time as possible but in all honesty putting a 
deadline will be broken every single time. Maybe however it won't be 
broken by too much and that could be a pretty good thing. Here's a 
taste: (Insert Mission Impossible music) Your mission Jim (or Matt), 
should you choose to accept it is to take the shuttle mockups and made 
them part of the main WP install. You have 2 months MAXIMUM to comply. 
That means that on the 2nd of July this message will self destruct. :).
>>
>> I'd be curious to hear other folks thoughts on how a design-oriented 
>> project in Open Source could be done better as well, or things you 
>> learned from Shuttle. Be harsh if necessary!
The final point that I will make is that COMMUNICATION is the single 
most important aspect of any open source project. We can't have meeting 
to discuss and share and what not so these conversations are the only 
thing we've got to that. As such these things do take longer but it's 
important to talk. I kept saying it throughout the design process, it 
keeps people motivated, it keeps people happy to jump back into it. It's 
a VITAL element of leading a project online.
>>
>
>
> -- 
>
> Joen Asmussen
>
> CPH DENMARK
>
> AIM: workjoen
> MSN: asmussen at gmail.com
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>
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