Hi Andy, I like this thread, and would enjoin anyone interested to contribute to the FOSS movement in whichever way they find appropriate - there's some good stuff happening out there :)
Yours is a good response, well structured. Without trying to sound snarky, churlish, or childish, I have to point out that some form of UxD involvement has been happening in parts of the FOSS movement for years - although, true, to look at some of what comes out you may not think so :) The thing is, new or not, this concerted effort is the start of something wonderful that will help. Good luck with it, and if you need a blog/wiki/whatever thrown together to provide a collaborative environment, let me know. Best regards, Andrew On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:12 AM, Andy Polaine <[email protected]> wrote: > I think this discussion is probably the best example of the beginnings of > developing that process. It is a lot more difficult to do with diagrams and > ideas than code and text, which lend themselves to much more computer regexy > crunching. > > I think it is worth abstracting a little what need to goes on rather than > hook onto a specific tool just yet (especially a commercial one). > > From what we have so far from the suggestions are: > > - A need to break down the design (and docs) in a modular way > - A need to be able see that documentation in a merged form > - A need to be able overly 'layers' as a kind of versioning process > - A need to make changes that percolate through all the other modules and > docs > > By the way, the thing that immediately comes to mind is the kind of process > used for those giant lithographs of microchip circuits and/or the way > four-colour printing works (or used to) when the printer would overlay the > films together and immediately be able to spot an error or misalignment > visually. > > That's at least for the middle or latter stages and that part I can see > managed by some kind of tool than a person (which is what mostly happens on > projects right? One of us is the, ahem, tool.) > > I'm still finding it hard to imagine that working for the earlier, > importantly rougher parts of the process. I've done quite a few online > collaborative projects run globally across many countries with many people > and the brainstorming, back-of-the-napkin process is the hardest bit to do, > but where a lot of the magic happens. > > Once things become a bit more refined (like a digitally created wireframe > rather than a napkin) it gets a bit easier to share and modify. > > But it would be good to be able to work out how that earlier part could > work well. And I think it would be good if the tools used for it weren't > proprietary. I wouldn't want an open source project to fall over just > because Adobe screwed up, oh I don't know, an installer or a particular > format. > > Maybe simply being able to write notes on images of sketchpads (please > don't say 'digital whiteboard') like Flickr allows is another start. This > seems to be the way a lot of those links given above have worked. > > FluidIA looks like a great start and is asking a lot of the right > questions. I think we do need to just do it as David says and then find out > what works and doesn't, but at the same time we need to ask the right > questions at the start to get the process even roughly lined up IMHO. > > Count me in. Somehow. ;-) > > > Best, > > Andy > > :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: > Andy Polaine > > Interaction & Experience Design > Research | Writing | Education > > Twitter: apolaine > Skype: apolaine > > http://www.polaine.com > http://www.designersreviewofbooks.com > http://www.omnium.net.au > http://www.antirom.com > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [email protected] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- --- Andrew Boyd http://uxaustralia.com.au -- UX Australia Conference Canberra 2009 http://uxbookclub.org -- connect, read, discuss http://govux.org -- the government user experience forum http://resilientnationaustralia.org Resilient Nation Australia ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
