[General] Re: Teams Area, etc.

[Sheila Mooney]

We can certainly leave the page the way that it is. I'm afraid I  
can't rationalize what I would change and why. It's just purely  
visual reaction. Maybe it's the content - that the main page only has  
a bunch of notes that aren't really relevant.

+ I don't think we need all of those notes. A single link to the 2006  
and 2005 notes is probably fine. Do people really want to go back and  
look at those really easily or often? It seems like it's wasting  
space to me. I have to scroll down to design session stuff which to  
me is more important.
+ I just find the right nav is too busy and cluttered. I can't see  
the information very well. Maybe reducing it so I don't have to  
scroll would be good enough.  I do agree that most people will get to  
this stuff off the planning page. I was simply exploring if we could  
make it a bit less busy but if there is a specific reason for doing  
this, fine.

In any case, perhaps as you suggest I can experiment with a bunch of  
changes.

Cheers,
Sheila

On Apr 6, 2007, at 11:32 AM, Mimi Yin wrote:

> Hi Sheila,
>
> I'm not sure how:
> 1. Putting the RIGHTNAV links on a separate page; or
> 2. Putting the RIGHTNAV links in a section below the PPD Notes
>
> makes them more accessible.
>
> In the first case, you need to do an extra click, and you're not  
> even sure what you'll see once you get to that page. Then to  
> actually view any of the specs and planning pages currently listed  
> in the RIGHTNAV, you have to click again.
>
> In the second case, you need to scroll down the page.
>
> However, I do agree that unlike the other Teams Pages, the PPD  
> 'Active Projects' links are 'off to the side' rather than the  
> 'focus' of the page. That was intentional on my part.
>
> Unlike the other Teams, we as a group have never really used the  
> DesignGroup page to focus our attention on active projects. We are  
> much more likely to look directly on planning pages for specs and  
> now we have a product area for all product definition, branding and  
> design issues. For PPD, the Product and Planning wiki areas are  
> *our focus*. We have always produced more wiki pages than any other  
> working group and we now have 2 dedicated Wiki Areas with which to  
> organize our work.
>
> So in that sense the RIGHTNAV links are not the focus of the PPD  
> Team page, they are just peripheral QUICKLINKS to the other areas  
> of the wiki we focus on and garden all the time**. There isn't much  
> to them, but they serve 2 functions
>
> 1. Provides us with quick and easy access to Product and Planning  
> pages, if we happen to be staring at the PPD Team page. (But we  
> haven't and I don't expect that we will in the future...always go  
> to the PPD Team page when working on specs and/or design write-ups.)
>
> 2. Give people outside of OSAF a quick punch list of areas of  
> Product and Planning that we are actively working on**. But I  
> suspect that if someone is truly interested in Product and Planning  
> material, they will start from Product and Planning.
>
> (**By "Garden all the time" and "Active" I mean links we might  
> change every 6-9 months.)
>
> I think it will be too much work to try to maintain a full-fledged  
> "Active Projects" section both on the PPD Team page as well as work  
> to keep the Planning and Product Area pages up to date.
>
> Our needs felt different to me, as compared to other teams. Our  
> usage patterns felt different to me, as compared to other teams. So  
> I took a pass at making the focus of the PPD Team more about  
> Meeting Notes and less about Active Projects.
>
> ===
>
> There is a wholly separate issue of what constitutes clutter. What  
> looks tidy versus what's actually better for mentally grokking  
> large volumes of information.
>
> I've always felt that the hardest thing to digest about the wiki is  
> the 'undifferentiated' look of long wiki pages with section after  
> section of text and bulleted lists. As you scroll down a page, you  
> beging loose sense of the big picture of the focus of the page.  
> What's this page about? What was the stuff at the top? At a glance,  
> it looks tidy because all the sections look the same, but when you  
> actually try to wrap your head around all the content, it starts to  
> become a blur of sameness. (Newspapers address this problem  
> extremely well. Newspapers have lots of different ways to chunk and  
> segment information without hiding it away, making it inaccessible  
> to at-a-glance browsing.)
>
> (That diagnosis was the original driving motivation behind the  
> different 1 and 2 column layouts and the addition of the RIGHTNAV.)
>
> The RIGHTNAV Priss and Jared implemented gives us a great  
> opportunity to 'chunk things out' a bit, communicate the substance  
> of a page with visual cues. Differentiate between Focus and  
> Peripheral References. For me, the Focus of the DesignGroup page  
> was always: Meeting Notes. X-links to Product and Planning are  
> peripheral. We never used the DesignGroup page to focus our work.  
> But perhaps, you're suggesting that we change that? That would be a  
> separate discussion to have. But I think that discussion is  
> distinct from a discussion about what constitutes visual clutter.
>
> Either way, its your call as wiki owner of this page. We can try  
> something out and adjust as we go :o)
>
> Mimi
>
> On Apr 5, 2007, at 5:15 PM, Sheila Mooney wrote:
>> On Apr 5, 2007, at 5:01 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:
>>> On Apr 5, 2007, at 4:32 PM, Priscilla Chung wrote:
>>>>> Sheila, if you're okay with the new PPD Team page, I can  
>>>>> replace the old Design Group page with this one. http:// 
>>>>> wiki.osafoundation.org/Teams/PPDTeam
>>>> I realize this is really Sheila call, but there is just way too  
>>>> much information on the right side bar for this page. I'm also  
>>>> not familiar with what a 'Hub Server' is, perhaps just Server is  
>>>> fine if you're currently linking to 0.7 release page.
>>>
>>> I changed it to Server. I've also removed a few items. Does that  
>>> feel better? I know it's still a lot. I agree that we don't want  
>>> to jam too much in the RIGHTNAV, but I think having the x-links  
>>> there are preferable to having them on a separate page or in the  
>>> body of the wiki. It seems onerousl to make people go a separate  
>>> page just to list out 3-5 links. Keeping content that is concise  
>>> (not too many characters) out of the body of the wiki page also  
>>> decreases the total # of sections in the body content and  
>>> shortens the page.
>>>
>>> I think we just need to find the right balance of content in the  
>>> RIGHTNAV. Does anyone else have any thoughts about this issue?
>>
>> I agree we need to have the right balance. I just feel that the  
>> planning and specs info is hidden in the right nav. It's such an  
>> important part of what the PPD team does, to me it seems more  
>> prominent to have it on the main content page even though it's  
>> just a set of links. Not many people are going to care that much  
>> about the old notes, I think they could even go on a separate page  
>> really and just have the more recent notes on the main page if we  
>> are trying to keep things concise.
>

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