Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Pine W]

FWIW, Foundation staff members have told me more than once that they don't
entirely understand WMF's org chart.

My understanding is that the org chart is missing important pieces like
consultants.

Also, some users who are not native speakers of English have commented that
the diversity of titles around the organization has caused them uncertainty
about who does what. For example, it may not be intuitive to them that a
"director" may be above a "senior manager".

Perhaps this is something that Boryana can help with... any comments,
Boryana? (:

On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 1:16 AM, Gnangarra  wrote:

> the more you mess around with name changes the harder it becomes for the
> community to follow who is doing what and why.  Thats just for those of us
> who are english speakers I would hate be someone who doesnt speak english
> trying  to follow the changes
>
> On 11 November 2015 at 16:53, Quim Gil  wrote:
>
> > Hi, this is a very interesting conversation, and I hope the most
> > informative bits are reflected in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design
> >
> > By the way, we are discussing the use of the term "Design" in the WMF
> > product development process, as a stage involving not only visual/UX
> design
> > but also architecture, performance, operations... Your feedback is
> > welcomed.
> >
> > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_product_development_process#Design
> >
> > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Srypura34nh1njr4
> >
> > --
> > Quim Gil
> > Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
> > http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
> > ___
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> > 
> >
>
>
>
> --
> GN.
> President Wikimedia Australia
> WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Richard Ames]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2015 at 10:21 AM, Pine W  wrote:

> FWIW, Foundation staff members have told me more than once that they don't
> entirely understand WMF's org chart.
>
> My understanding is that the org chart is missing important pieces like
> consultants.



And volunteers!   :-)

Cheers, Richard.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Gnangarra]

the more you mess around with name changes the harder it becomes for the
community to follow who is doing what and why.  Thats just for those of us
who are english speakers I would hate be someone who doesnt speak english
trying  to follow the changes

On 11 November 2015 at 16:53, Quim Gil  wrote:

> Hi, this is a very interesting conversation, and I hope the most
> informative bits are reflected in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design
>
> By the way, we are discussing the use of the term "Design" in the WMF
> product development process, as a stage involving not only visual/UX design
> but also architecture, performance, operations... Your feedback is
> welcomed.
>
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_product_development_process#Design
>
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Srypura34nh1njr4
>
> --
> Quim Gil
> Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
> http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
> ___
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>



-- 
GN.
President Wikimedia Australia
WMAU: http://www.wikimedia.org.au/wiki/User:Gnangarra
Photo Gallery: http://gnangarra.redbubble.com
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Quim Gil]

Hi, this is a very interesting conversation, and I hope the most
informative bits are reflected in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design

By the way, we are discussing the use of the term "Design" in the WMF
product development process, as a stage involving not only visual/UX design
but also architecture, performance, operations... Your feedback is welcomed.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_product_development_process#Design

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Srypura34nh1njr4

-- 
Quim Gil
Engineering Community Manager @ Wikimedia Foundation
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Qgil
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Isarra Yos]

According to the Staff and Contractors page, May is a 'Visual Experience 
Designer', which sounds like exactly what you're describing when it 
comes to the overlap between interaction and visual design. Is it just 
that you lack the visual design resources currently (one visual designer 
who isn't even just visual design does seem a bit insufficient for such 
a huge task!) to not overlap your roles?


Also, very cool to see how the roles interact laid out like this.

You're a UX engineer too, right? Does this mean you're often one of the 
ones interacting with other engineers/developers?


Sorry if I'm getting a bit off track here - design has always been one 
of the more opaque areas of the Foundation, at least from a volunteer 
perspective, and it's really nice to get a view of what's going on in 
such an integral part of the organisation.


On 10/11/15 22:50, Sherah Smith wrote:
>>Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you stated already that you 
also have specifically visual designers?


Because interaction design and visual design are separate things. 
Visual designers are hired to design visual components, while UX 
designers are hired to design user experiences. Sometimes building 
experiences involves visual design, but not always - for example, in 
cases where we are innovating new ideas that do not yet have standards.


>>Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI 
Standardization, along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer.


>>How does Design Research relate to the rest of this?

Roughly:
Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build 
interactive prototypes working with Design Research and Designers ---> 
Designers polish and iterate the prototypes with the prototypers ---> 
Engineers build the designs



As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the main 
difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering background and 
applies that to the building (coding) of interactive prototypes.


On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 2:32 PM, Isarra Yos > wrote:


Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the
first place.

Sorry about that!


On 10/11/15 22:25, Isarra Yos wrote:

Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.

Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual
when you stated already that you also have specifically visual
designers? Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI
standardisation?

How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state
that they are not designers, but their work is an integral part
of the user experience design process.

Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or
even just leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is
really hard to read and I misread a few things the first time
that made it look a little... different from what you obviously
meant.

Thanks!

On 10/11/15 22:04, Sherah Smith wrote:

Hi Isarra,

>> what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out
under different managers with no centralized Director, we still
consider ourselves a "team" in that we still work together
across teams to maintain consistency and provide feedback,
collaborate, and review one another's work where needed. We have
a weekly meeting and regularly talk and brainstorm in person
across teams to support one another in our work.

Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs
the design of products we build on all other teams. The
employees on this team are not designers.

Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs
reading experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see
"Visual Designer" as a title, that person works on visual
designs. "UX Designer" works on combinations of visual and user
experience design, mostly the latter, and "UX Engineer" builds
interactive prototypes and interaction design.

The reorganization that you reference happened in late April
this year and was not a decision the design team itself made.
Rather, it came from upper management. We do now work within the
teams you see listed on the staff page, on experiences for those
teams specifically. So for example, you will not see a designer
on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences for the
Editing team.

Is there a particular concern you have about this organization
that you feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer
your questions?

Thank you,


On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Isarra Yos > wrote:

From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on
lists and on phabricator. 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Jonathan Morgan]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 2:32 PM, Isarra Yos  wrote:

> On 10/11/15 22:25, Isarra Yos wrote:
>
> Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
>
> Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you
> stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are the
> visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?
>
> How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they
> are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user
> experience design process.
>
>
Hi Isarra,

Yeah, the current organizational structure is confusing that way.  However,
Design Research works pretty closely with designers (although we don't
currently work on every product... that's  partially a capacity issue, and
it needs to change).

To take one example: I've been working with Pau Giner on a series of user
studies to evaluate the design of a new Notifications prototype:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Global_notifications_user_research

And FWIW, 'UX [designer, engineer]' is a title that I've never been able to
parse either ;)

J





>
> Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just
> leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to read
> and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a little...
> different from what you obviously meant.
>
> Thanks!
>
> On 10/11/15 22:04, Sherah Smith wrote:
>
> Hi Isarra,
>
> >> what is the 'design team'?
>
> Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
> different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
> ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain
> consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's
> work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and
> brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in our work.
>
> Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the design
> of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team are not
> designers.
>
> Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
> experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer"
> as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on
> combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
> "UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.
>
> The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year and
> was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from upper
> management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the staff
> page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example, you will
> not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences
> for the Editing team.
>
> Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you
> feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
>
> Thank you,
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Isarra Yos  wrote:
>
>> From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
>> phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
>> previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
>> beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
>> the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into
>> the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at
>> least, since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this
>> happen? According to
>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem
>> to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
>> Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
>> specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
>> front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
>>
>> So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
>> have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
>> general?
>>
>> As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
>> have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
>> share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is,
>> I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
>> clear up quite a bit.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> -I
>>
>> ___
>> Design mailing list
>> des...@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *Sherah Smith*
> UX Engineer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 206-660-6585
> sherahsmith.com
> donate.wikipedia.org
>
>
> ___
> Design mailing 
> 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Isarra Yos]

Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place.

Sorry about that!

On 10/11/15 22:25, Isarra Yos wrote:

Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.

Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when 
you stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? 
Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?


How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that 
they are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user 
experience design process.


Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even 
just leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really 
hard to read and I misread a few things the first time that made it 
look a little... different from what you obviously meant.


Thanks!

On 10/11/15 22:04, Sherah Smith wrote:

Hi Isarra,

>> what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under 
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider 
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to 
maintain consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review 
one another's work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and 
regularly talk and brainstorm in person across teams to support one 
another in our work.


Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the 
design of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this 
team are not designers.


Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading 
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual 
Designer" as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX 
Designer" works on combinations of visual and user experience design, 
mostly the latter, and "UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes 
and interaction design.


The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this 
year and was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it 
came from upper management. We do now work within the teams you see 
listed on the staff page, on experiences for those teams 
specifically. So for example, you will not see a designer on the 
Search & Discovery team working on experiences for the Editing team.


Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that 
you feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your 
questions?


Thank you,


On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Isarra Yos > wrote:


From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists
and on phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I
understood it, the previous monolithic Design Team was
essentially disbanded toward the beginning of the year, with the
designers themselves distributed amongst the other WMF teams in
order to more directly integrate their services into the
development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me,
at least, since design is such an integral part of most
development). Did this happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there
seem to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their
names, Reading Design and Design Research, though these both seem
to have somewhat more specialised functions than just general
design, namely Reading (sounds like front-end non-interactive mw
stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.

So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the
teams only have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just
WMF designers in general?

As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific,
if you have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this,
please, speak up, share your experience and where you're coming
from. As confusing as it is, I suspect a discussion of what and
why this has been going on could also clear up quite a bit.

Thanks.

-I

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UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com 
donate.wikipedia.org 


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