Brainstorming Page for the Combined U-Camp/Programmer's Cafe Session

Combined Session

Our current plan for the combined U-Camp/Programmer's Cafe session at the Amsterdam conference is to create a checklist containing various user experience (UX) techniques to consider when developing new Sakai tools. These techniques will be illustrated using the Tasklist tool as an example of how to apply the checklist to the tool development process. This session will be led by Colin Clark, Daphne Ogle, Harriet Truscott?, and Aaron Zeckoski, and/or anyone else who is interested.

Afterwards, perhaps we can retire to the pub for beers and conversation about improving the Sakai user experience!

Tentative Agenda

U-Camp/Cafe Combined Session - 1 hour
Goal: to share practical techniques about how to improve UX within Sakai

1. Introduction to roles within the design/development process:
   • interaction designers, UI developers, graphic designers, etc. (5 min.) (Colin)
2. Design/Development Checklist: techniques for improving UX in your tool/project (Aaron and Daphne)
   • steps to consider before development
   • 80/20 rule
   • simple, low-cost UX activities (testing strategies, user groups, etc)
   • prioritization techniques
3. Examples of what is hard and easy to develop in Sakai (Antranig & Hattie?)
   • techniques for design/development collaboration
   • communicating feasibility, etc.
4. What is a bug? (who wants to do this?)
   • design bugs/requirements bugs/implementation bugs
   • techniques for communicating bugs?
   • what constitutes a bug fix during code freeze?
5. Handout: a summary of a few good books related to UX/project planning/etc.

Checklist Brainstorming

Please add your ideas for UX Checklist topics below.

• Add your thoughts here!
• The usefulness of any testing whatsoever using people who aren't other programmers who know Sakai.
• Tips on synthesizing various jira issues/requirements (like card sorting) to help define project requirements and incorporate community needs
• X Things to think about from the users' perspective while you're designing/developing/enhancing Sakai
• Basic visual design/IA concepts to keep in mind while your designing/developing Sakai
• Language: seek consistency with widely-used tools; test your language on others.
• Specific design related questions to think about in the design of new tool/enhancement (i.e. how does this relate to other tools in Sakai...should they share data, does this functionality already exist in whole in part, what will the users experience be moving from the new tool to others in Sakai, the CSS and IA built into it, etc.)
• The value of scenarios in design/development

Of interest to designers:

• X things to think about from the technical perspective when designing in Sakai
• How do Sakai services work: what are they and how do affect the way we can pull and share information in the UI of Sakai (especially across tools)
• What's easy, what's hard? Designers don't necessarily understand what's an easy change and what's a difficult one, and user services people, who have a big stake in usability issues, may know even less.

Of mutual interest?

• The division of labor, between different kinds of designers and between different kinds of programmers. It seems as though this can be a bit of a flashpoint between designers and developers; who writes html? How fluid can this be?

From main U-Camp Planning Page

Easy design and testing techniques for developers

• Paper prototyping
• "Guerrilla testing:" Quick techniques for testing with real users
• Something from Alan Cooper about why/how developers think differently from most users
• Distinctions among methodologies: primary inquiry, user testing, logs, subjective surveys; why small numbers are acceptable in testing
• How testing can save coding time!
• Accessibility techniques primer
• Primer on rules for visual composition/layout
• Show video of regular people using Sakai or other software
• Primer on basic design principles
• What 10 things to think about when designing (user models & language, scanability, activities
  across tools, scenarios, personas, etc.)
• How to use scenarios in design (or maybe this should be why using examples)