[openstack-dev] How to best make User Experience a priority in every project

Flavio Percoco flavio at redhat.com
Thu Nov 21 08:59:39 UTC 2013


On 20/11/13 09:37 -0600, Dolph Mathews wrote:
>
>
>
>On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org> wrote:
>
>    Hi everyone,
>
>    How should we proceed to make sure UX (user experience) is properly
>    taken into account into OpenStack development ? Historically it was hard
>    for UX sessions (especially the ones that affect multiple projects, like
>    CLI / API experience) to get session time at our design summits. This
>    visibility issue prompted the recent request by UX-minded folks to make
>    UX an official OpenStack program.
>
>    However, as was apparent in the Technical Committee meeting discussion
>    about it yesterday, most of us are not convinced that establishing and
>    blessing a separate team is the most efficient way to give UX the
>    attention it deserves. Ideally, UX-minded folks would get active
>    *within* existing project teams rather than form some sort of
>    counter-power as a separate team. In the same way we want scalability
>    and security mindset to be present in every project, we want UX to be
>    present in every project. It's more of an advocacy group than a
>    "program" imho.
>
>    So my recommendation would be to encourage UX folks to get involved
>    within projects and during project-specific weekly meetings to
>    efficiently drive better UX there, as a direct project contributor. If
>    all the UX-minded folks need a forum to coordinate, I think [UX] ML
>    threads and, maybe, a UX weekly meeting would be an interesting first step.
>
>
>++
>
>UX is an issue at nearly every layer. OpenStack has a huge variety of
>interfaces, all of which deserve consistent, top tier UX attention and
>community-wide HIG's-- CLIs, client libraries / language bindings, HTTP APIs,
>web UIs, messaging and even pluggable driver interfaces. Each type of interface
>generally caters to a different audience, each with slightly different
>expectations.

As already mentioned in other emails on this thread, I think it'd be
valuable to have a member of each project to coordinate with the UX
team. I think this is something we all want to have in the projects
we're working on and also something that every core member should be
keeping in their minds when reviewing patches.

I like the idea of having a security akin team for UX. We could also
tag bugs - this came up in the last TC meeting - when we think they
need the UX team intervention.

Also, as part of the review process, when the patch affects the UX,
reviewers could add one of the UX core members to the review and
request their feedback.

The above should guarantees the cross-project UX enforcement to some
extent.

>From my point of view, UX is not just something we need to have
experts on but something we all need to care about. Having a UX team
will definitely help with this matter.

>    There would still be an issue with UX session space at the Design
>    Summit... but that's a well known issue that affects more than just UX:
>    the way our design summits were historically organized (around programs
>    only) made it difficult to discuss cross-project and cross-program
>    issues. To address that, the plan is to carve cross-project space into
>    the next design summit, even if that means a little less topical
>    sessions for everyone else.
>
>
>I'd be happy to "contribute" a design session to focus on improving UX across
>the community, and I would certainly attend!

We also discussed about having a cross-project session at the summit.
I think this is becoming more and more important.

Cheers,
FF

-- 
@flaper87
Flavio Percoco



More information about the OpenStack-dev mailing list