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Wet codefest design jam

Tanya Snook edited this page Jul 8, 2013 · 21 revisions

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This year’s Code Fest (August 8-9) will include a Design Jam to give the design oriented individuals in attendance an event where they can fully participate. The central theme will be “Mobile Usability”. More specifically the event will aim to brain-storm and develop ideas for making existing WET widgets mobile-friendly either by modifying existing designs or developing new ones.

The event could take many forms and we are looking for feedback and ideas.

  1. What should be the primary goals and considerations of the event? (Are there any missing?):
    1. Generate solutions to mobile usability problems in the context of WET widgets.
      • How should the solutions suggested by participants be best documented/recorded for later consideration?
    2. Increase awareness about WET as an open source community project and engage new contributors.
      • How do we encourage people to participate and contribute after the event?
      • How do we form lasting connections?
      • How do we stay memorable and top-of-mind?
    3. Be an enjoyable and useful experience for participants. What will the participants be hoping to get out of it?
      • Networking opportunities. How do we support people meeting each other, exchanging information, and connecting with people with mutual interests.
      • Knowledge exchange. How do we facilitate knowledge exchange. This includes providing opportunities for less experienced designers to learn from their more senior colleagues.
      • What else?

  2. Since the theme of the jam will be “mobile usability” we will need to define the term “mobile”. With so many new categories of devices in the market this is not easy. The term is usually associated with
    • A) Smaller screen sizes: Generally mobile devices have smaller screens which presents a challenge in fitting the necessary information and interfaces into a smaller package. However, with so many devices and available screen sizes it is very difficult to draw a clear cut-off for sizes that would be considered “mobile”. This is also a problem for designers of mobile sites that need to define at what screen size users would get the mobile instead of the standard version of the site.
    • B) Different context of use: Mobile devices tend to be used on the go which often means less than ideal working conditions and time-pressure. They are also often used for tasks that are a response to an immediate problem or stimuli (finding an address, changing a booking, or getting an update).
    • The design jam should consider both challenges and how they apply to the WET widgets.

  3. The exact form of the design-jam needs to be specified. Our current concept is to divide participants into work groups that develop solutions for individual WET widgets & related design problems, and then share them in open forum at the end of the event – potentially critiquing and consolidating best ideas.
    1. If turnout is large this will allow everyone to contribute and make the event more manageable. It is also an easily scalable solution since we can’t predict exact attendance.
    2. The form of the final presentations should be defined ahead of time.
      • This means details such as reasonable time limit, moderation of discussion, available aids such as white-boards, projectors, paper etc, and a template for the presentation structure.
    3. Teams should be arranged so that various levels of expertise and backgrounds are represented in each group. In particular, each team should have at least one seasoned designer to act as a leader.
      • This will require some form of registration and/or self-identification of level of experience and background from participants.
      • It will also require us to develop reasonable categories and general idea for preferable group composition before-hand to make sure group-formation runs smoothly.
    4. Possible format: (based on Design Jam Handbook)
      • Day 1
        • Research & Exploration - 1 hour max
        • Problem solving/ jamming
        • Interim presentations by all groups
      • Day 2
        • Recap, host summarizes presentations from previous day
        • Design phase
        • Interim presentations
        • Finalize solutions, build presentations
        • Final presentations

  4. Not all widgets can be covered during the jam. Which widgets would benefit the most from a mobile redesign (and are the most susceptible to mobile issues that would not occur in stationary context and when a lot of screen real-estate is available)?
    1. This issue will be solved by crowd sourcing heuristic evaluations based on a heuristic evaluation guide currently in development by the Mobile User Experience Working Group (UX-WG). Widgets can then be arranged in order of priority/severity of usability issues and assigned to teams in that order.

  5. Participants will have to be introduced to WET, the context of their design task, and their particular widgets.
    1. Paul Jackson could potentially present an overview of WET.
    2. Someone from UXWG could present the design problem.
    3. Packages should be developed for participants (or teams) that would contain all relevant information as reference.
      • What should be found in these packages? Information about WET, the goals of the event, and the design jam. What else?
        • A description of the widget for the team?
        • A summary of heuristic evaluation findings for that widget?
        • A design goal based on those findings?
        • Use cases, scenarios, etc. (Provide context of use including user goals.)
        • Examples of the widgets being used in mobile and standard design.
        • Personas of expected users.
        • Links to resources and tools? (heuristic evaluation guide, persona worksheet, etc)
        • Etc.
    4. A suggested framework for the process that would include stages and allotted times may be helpful in keeping the teams on track, although teams should be free to adopt a different process based on their collective experience and preferences.

  6. Physical considerations.
    1. Teams will need appropriate workspace to foster easy communication and collaboration (many auditoriums are far from ideal for this).
    2. Teams will need tables and/or surfaces and drafting paper and pens in sufficient quantity.
    3. Depending on the size of the event projectors may be helpful for the presentations at the end of the day.
    4. Have we missed anything?

  7. Mentor Prep
    1. Mentors and organizers should meet once prior to the event to review logistics and expectations
    2. Materials for mentors?
    3. Will they need to document anything? Are they judging the impromptu prizes?
    4. Mentors should check in with each other during the jam
    5. Post-mortem with mentors and organizers?

  8. Prizes: Shall we award some random prizes using specific categories or via draw? Would we do separate prizes from the Codefest portion or would we just do a general give-away?
    1. Prize ideas
      • UXCamp Ottawa ticket (confirmed :)
      • Rosenfeld books
      • WxT T-shirts?
      • Travel mugs/ swag from sponsors?
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