Call for volunteers: Handbook Working Group

Our handbooks are a well of great information, and they’ve grown immensely over the years without a lot of editing.

It would be great if we could audit and rework part of the content/information architecture to make them more useful than ever, and plan for future growth.

I propose we form a working group with multiple talents to help our ever-growing group of Community Organisers. We probably will need the help from other teams; it would be a great way to collaborate with different people!

What problem we try to solve

The handbooks have a lot of good content, but it’s hard to find and sometimes confusing for non-native speakers or untrained organizers.

Draft of the roadmap

  1. Audit the existing content
    • We will start with the MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. Handbook: it gets a lot of views and it’s shorter than the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. one.
  2. Review past blog posts to see what should be added to the handbooks
  3. Identify unclear language or passages in the handbooks and edit them for clarity
  4. Restructure the menus/flow of the handbooks
  5. Identify design elements where they might be useful (and recruit designers to help with them, and add those designs).
  6. List the missing content
  7. Draft it
  8. Work on a “tone of voice” guide: this will help us unify the style and create a guide for future text
  9. Publish it
  10. Maintain the handbooks

Challenges

  • No version control >> Work with MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. to find solution
  • Handbooks are not the easiest to browse, especially on mobile > Work with Design
  • Are our handbooks accessible? Let’s find out >> Audit by the AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) Team
  • Are the handbooks easily understandable from people whose first language is not American English? >> Let’s work with people with different language backgrounds

Prerequisites

You gotta love to read and write documentation 🙂

  • A group of people with basic English knowledge, to test if the material is understandable from everyone
  • At a later stage, a group of English native speakers to check the texts.

No prior knowledge of the Community Team procedures is necessary: the point is checking if the material is clear enough so everyone can apply to start more events in their hometown

Time commitment and frame

Between 1 and 2 hours a week, more if you want to!

Ideally the whole process will be done between August and October, with a release date before WordCamp US (goal, last week of October 2019).

Communication and project management

As always with a global team is difficult to find a time that suits everyone: I propose we hold the first meeting at 16:00 UTC on Thursday, August 8th and we go from there.

Who is in?

Please leave you name in the comments before August 7th.

Thank you!

#handbook