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Hi OpenStackers,<br>
<br>
I am replying to this thread with a smaller delay. I was keeping
very close attention to it but I wanted to let the discussion flow
without me interfering, so I see the community opinion on the UX
effort.<br>
<br>
First of all, thanks Thierry to starting this thread and the whole
discussion. I believe it was/is very valuable.<br>
<br>
From the discussion I see some hesitations of approving UX as
independent program and lot of (strong) opinions that this is
important to happen. I appreciate both because from concerns we can
learn and from the positive feedback we get a lot of support and
also a lot of suggestions where we can continue helping. (BTW: Huge
thanks for this, all the listed areas are very important and I am
happy that I could have added some new items to the list of future
spots where we can help.)<br>
<br>
As for me, I am (of course) on the side which fights for UX to be an
individual program from various reasons.<br>
<br>
I share the same opinion that we (UX) shouldn't be completely
separated team which is 'dictating'. Our purpose is to be strongly
integrated with other projects. But on the same time be
cross-project wise and one leg out. We should organize and
prioritize our efforts as well as very tightly communicate with
related project team members (coordinate on planning features,
assigning priorities, etc). And that's what we are doing. We started
with UIs which is the most obvious output. We have have limited
resources, but getting more contributors on board, getting more
people interested, we can spread to other areas which were mentioned
here.<br>
<br>
We are growing. At the moment we are 4 core members and others are
coming in. But honestly, contributors are not coming to specific
projects - they go to reach UX community in a sense - OK this is
awesome effort, how can I help? What can I work on? And it is more
and more companies investing in the UX resources. Because it is
important. We are in the time when not just functionality matters
for project to become successful. And showing publicly that
OpenStack cares about UX will make our message stronger - we are not
delivering just features, we care and invest in usability as well.<br>
<br>
Contributors who might get interested in UX can be largely from
other OpenStack projects, but on the other hand they might be
completely outside the project experts. Experts in cloud-solutions,
they can have huge amount of feedback from OpenStack users, they can
be experts in testing... usability in general. This group of people
is not interested in particular project, but in global effort of
moving OpenStack closer to users. If we don't have special program
about this - whom are they going to reach? Where can they start? How
can they be recognized? Their input is as valuable as input from all
other contributors. Just a bit different.<br>
<br>
I don't agree much with the argument that everybody should keep UX
in mind and care about it. Well to be more accurate, I agree with
it, but this is very ideal case which is very very hard to achieve.
We can't say - OK folks, from now on everybody will care about UX.
What should they care about specifically? This is area where
engineers are not specialized. It takes a lot of time for everybody
to do their own search for resources and figuring out how somebody
else does that, how it should work for user, etc. And instead of
focusing on the architecture or implementation part, people will
have to invest big amount of time to research other sources. Yes, it
is part of responsibility, but... If there is anybody else helping
with this effort, focusing cross-project, thinking user way and
proposing solutions it's so big help and support of others work. Of
course we can do UIs, APIs, CLIs without specialized group of
people, but each engineer thinks a bit differently, each can have
different perception of what is valuable for user and the lack of
unification will raise. And that's actually what is happening.<br>
<br>
At the moment we are not the biggest group of people, so I
understand the concerns. Anyway, getting the blessing for UX is not
a question of us continuing in the effort, but supporting us and
spreading out the message - that we as OpenStack care.<br>
<br>
I am not trying to convince anybody here, I accept the decision 'no'
(at least for this moment). I just feel that it was not consensus
that most of people thinks that this is nonsense. I don't see any
strong reasons why not. In time, I believe more people will see how
important it is and hopefully OpenStack will recognize UX efforts
officially.<br>
<br>
Anyway... I want to encourage anybody interested in the UX (any
area) - reach us and help us to make OpenStack more usable.
Everybody's hand is welcome.<br>
<br>
Thanks all for contributing to this thread and expressing your
opinions. I really appreciate that.<br>
<br>
-- Jarda<br>
<br>
--- Jaromir Coufal (jcoufal)<br>
--- OpenStack User Experience<br>
--- IRC: #openstack-ux (at FreeNode)<br>
--- Forum: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://ask-openstackux.rhcloud.com">http://ask-openstackux.rhcloud.com</a><br>
--- Wiki: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX">https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2013/20/11 16:09, Thierry Carrez
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:528CD0B8.9070707@openstack.org" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">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.
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.
Thoughts ?
</pre>
</blockquote>
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