Contributor Day Design Table Recap

On December 3rd at WCUS several designers and design-lovers gathered at the design table to share, learn, and build.

The people included were:
Monique (@boemedia), Sara (@saracannon), Yoni Luksenberg, Ben, Catherine Zarabanda, Kevin (@kevinwhoffman), Mason Guttery, Sandhya, John (@johnmaeda), Jacob, Fuyuko (@fuyuko), Maria (@mariawoothemescom), Lance (@lancewillett), Gregory, Moira Ashleigh, Michele (@mizejewski), Christina (@christinablust), Jessica Yaeger, Jennifer Swisher, Cathi Bosco, Taylor (@taylorgorman), Leslie Bernal, Sonja (@sonjaleix), Betsy Cohen, and Mark (@mapk)
(If I missed anyone, please make note in the comments.)

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As it was my first time leading the Design Table with the wonderful help of @saracannon, I wanted to try a few things differently this time around. We quickly broke out into a circle of chairs, and I began passing out post-its and pens while I drew a line from 0% to 100% on the backs of recycled signs previously used for this event. I asked the question, “What percentage does our livelihood depend on WordPress?” Everyone jotted down their answer and came up to place it on the line. After that I asked, “What percentage of our time is spent contributing back to WordPress?” Everyone posted their answers. The results are pictured below:

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We all realized that although much of our livelihood relied on WordPress, we weren’t contributing back as much as we’d like. I then asked if we’re comfortable with other people making decisions about the future of a software upon which we rely so heavily? To help focus our efforts, I talked about how Matt Mullenweg is looking for WordPress to be more design-lead. We’re designers, or design-lovers, and we have a great opportunity right now to help contribute and push this open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. project forward.

From here I asked what people thought about in regards to “design” and how designers might contribute to WordPress. A common pattern revealed that we tended to focus on CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. with many of our examples. This became a perfect opportunity to share the various ways in which designers can help.

Our discussions continued along these lines with many people sharing their experiences and hopes for WordPress. Some felt our communication channels were too many, others felt that we needed a liaison to share WordPress with the world in an engaging way, and some struggled with where to begin in the community. A few in the group also expressed interest about how to contribute immediately during the day. Gauging for this, I spent some time walking around to the other teams in the morning asking if they would like any design help on their projects. A few responded with a definite, “yes!”

John Maeda also joined us and asked a question around everyone’s personal interest in WordPress. “What are the selfish reasons why you’re a part of the community?” These answers were also shared anonymously and they expressed our own personal journey with WordPress. It was a great practice and we all shared with each other.

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After lunch, the designers split up to begin engaging other teams with their design needs. Documentation, Marketing, GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ user-test videos, and some others all needed help. In addition to this, those who needed a bit more direction for contributing stuck around with @saracannon and I to learn a bit more about the process. Sara was a great help as she gave some demos on how to navigate TracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.. Maria and Betsy got together to start reviewing the Gutenberg videos. @kevinwhoffman began feeling out the ability for a WordPress liaison between the teams and how this might engage the public at large.

The day went by fast. There were lots of great questions and a lot of excitement and interest. I, and other designers, will be pinging everyone as time goes along and encouraging their involvement in the slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channels.

Thanks to everyone who made this day a special one!

Design updates: week five

This is the weekly call for updates for those contributing to design, as outlined here.

The idea of these it to keep all designers connected. If you are contributing to design please add your reply as a comment to this post by Thursday 23:00 UTC. All comments will be combined into a weekly update post on Friday for the design team.

Not a designer but you have something you’d like us to work on? No problem, you can also leave a comment. Just tell us what it is, if a specific team or skill also tell us that.

Just reply to the following:

  • What did you work on this past week? Anything completed (don’t forget a link to show us the amazing work!)?
  • What are you currently focusing on?
  • Anything you need help with? Got a tricky project? Are you looking for a task? Perhaps you know about a task that needs a designer or need a buddy to work on something (lets support each other)?
  • Any links for inspiration you want to share (doesn’t have to be WordPress design links)?

Everyone is welcome to comment, adding names of all that commented last week and were at summit – your name will be added to list as you give an update (so we can include everyone).

cc: @melchoyce, @michael-arestad, @folletto, @mapk, @sonjaleix, @saracannon, @liljimmi, @joen, @empireoflight, @joshuawold, @celloexpressions, @zetaraffix, @boemedia, @annaharrison

Design updates: week four

This is the weekly call for updates for those contributing to design, as outlined here.

The idea of these it to keep all designers connected. If you are contributing to design please add your reply as a comment to this post by Thursday 23:00 UTC. All comments will be combined into a weekly update post on Friday for the design team.

Not a designer but you have something you’d like us to work on? No problem, you can also leave a comment. Just tell us what it is, if a specific team or skill also tell us that.

Just reply to the following:

  • What did you work on this past week? Anything completed (don’t forget a link to show us the amazing work!)?
  • What are you currently focusing on?
  • Anything you need help with? Got a tricky project? Are you looking for a task? Perhaps you know about a task that needs a designer or need a buddy to work on something (lets support each other)?
  • Any links for inspiration you want to share (doesn’t have to be WordPress design links)?

Everyone is welcome to comment, adding names of all that commented last week and were at summit – your name will be added to list as you give an update (so we can include everyone).

cc: @melchoyce, @michael-arestad, @folletto, @mapk, @sonjaleix, @saracannon, @liljimmi, @joen, @empireoflight, @joshuawold, @celloexpressions, @zetaraffix, @boemedia

#weeky-updates

Design updates: week three

This is the weekly call for updates for those contributing to design, as outlined here.

The idea of these it to keep all designers connected. If you are contributing to design please add your reply as a comment to this post by Thursday 23:00 UTC. All comments will be combined into a weekly update post on Friday for the design team.

Not a designer but you have something you’d like us to work on? No problem, you can also leave a comment. Just tell us what it is, if a specific team or skill also tell us that.

Just reply to the following:

  • What did you work on this past week? Anything completed (don’t forget a link to show us the amazing work!)?
  • What are you currently focusing on?
  • Anything you need help with? Got a tricky project? Are you looking for a task? Perhaps you know about a task that needs a designer or need a buddy to work on something (lets support each other)?
  • Any links for inspiration you want to share (doesn’t have to be WordPress design links)?

Everyone is welcome to comment, adding names of all that commented last week and were at summit – your name will be added to list as you give an update (so we can include everyone).

cc: @melchoyce, @michael-arestad, @folletto, @mapk, @sonjaleix, @saracannon, @liljimmi, @joen, @empireoflight, @joshuawold, @celloexpressions

#weeky-updates

Design updates: week two

This is the second weekly call for updates for those contributing to design, as outlined here.

The idea of these it to keep all designers connected. If you are contributing to design please add your reply as a comment to this post by Thursday 23:00 UTC. All comments will be combined into a weekly update post on Friday for the design team.

Not a designer but you have something you’d like us to work on? No problem, you can also leave a comment. Just tell us what it is, if a specific team or skill also tell us that.

Just reply to the following:

  • What did you work on this past week? Anything completed (don’t forget a link to show us the amazing work!)?
  • What are you currently focusing on?
  • Anything you need help with? Got a tricky project? Are you looking for a task? Perhaps you know about a task that needs a designer or need a buddy to work on something (lets support each other)?
  • Any links for inspiration you want to share (doesn’t have to be WordPress design links)?

Everyone is welcome to comment, adding names of all that commented last week and were at summit – your name will be added to list as you give an update (so we can include everyone).

cc: @melchoyce, @michael-arestad, @folletto, @mapk, @sonjaleix, @saracannon, @liljimmi, @joen, @empireoflight, @joshuawold, @rileybrook, @celloexpressions, @joyously

#weeky-updates

Notes from community summit design session

Props to @empireoflight for notes. This post is just the notes, in the second post later today we will include the actual tasks broken down.

Props to @folletto for the sketch during our discussions and @saracannon for the photograph.

  • We did an icebreaker: What’s your favorite breakfast, what animal are you?
  • Discussed the current state of the design meetings on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. Expressed concern over not enough structure.
  • Maybe an identity crisis: are we a team, or are we support for other teams?
  • We tend to discuss topics that could be or have been discussed on other team channels, leading to a sense of disconnection.
  • Seems to be a lack of leadership in the team.
  • We should establish what’s happening/weekly updates, like summaries.
  • Proposal: a monthly meeting focused on a specific topic.
  • Onboarding is challenging when there isn’t a regular meeting with active participation.
  • Maybe once in awhile (weekly?), do a live hangout/discussion with the team reps instead of always relying on Slack for communication.
  • Office hours could consist of or be replaced by a triage of tickets.
  • This would give new members an idea of what to do.
  • Also need to help participants remember what they did. Many people lose track of how they participated.
  • We discussed mentorship/buddy system to help onboarding, where an established team member would help a limited number of new people (but not too many), as this has proven to fail, so maybe 4 or so).
  • Mentorship should be structured, possibly with outside help (not sure why I wrote this).
  • Can we find easy tickets for new designers to work on? Often they are more difficult than they appear on the surface.
  • This might not be a bad thing. The goal isn’t to find easy tasks that they can complete, it’s to get them excited about something that feels relevant to them, even if it’s complicated. Don’t worry about failure.
  • We discussed difficulty in communicating with other teams about their design needs. Although we could be more proactive about determining their needs, likewise, other teams should be coming to us. BuddyPress was brought up as an example of how design has worked with other teams (successfully, or as an example of the problems we experience? I wasn’t quite sure during the discussion).
  • There are a lot of “abandoned” design tasks on tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/.. E.g., Dashicons. (Could we review these as potential tasks for new designers?).
  • GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ was brought up as the most active current project for designers.
  • What about a meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area./happy hour/some kind of outreach pointed specifically at WP designers?
  • It’s possible that WP isn’t a designer-friendly space. JQuery Foundation was mentioned as something designers successfully participate(d) in.
  • “Design First” should be the goal, but often it isn’t; e.g. the customizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings..
  • Guidelines for feedback need to be established.
  • Setting up a 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. sandbox environment is challenging (if not impossible) for designers.
  • We talked about areas for designers to get involved: front-end design/development, marketing, and testing
  • WordCamps often showcase the work of talented designers. They represent a pool of resources for the project; how do we get them to participate?
  • The concept of team reps was discussed. There should be a scheduled meeting between team reps from all channels.
  • We need to define who our reps are, and leads. Leads is the tough part; designers don’t often want to lead.
  • Can we get designers from the industry, who would be granted time to work on the project?
  • This is the case for developers. It benefits their companies when they get “props”. But designers don’t get enough props. How do we fix that?
  • Possibly add a section for “contributing designers” to about page.
  • Possible remove the categories of contribution, e.g. “Core ContributorsCore Contributors Core contributors are those who have worked on a release of WordPress, by creating the functions or finding and patching bugs. These contributions are done through Trac. https://core.trac.wordpress.org.” or “Contributing Developers” on the about page.
  • This became a new topic for discussion to the summit and was discussed later in the day.

Design updates week one

This is the first weekly call for updates for those contributing to design, as outlined here.

The idea of these it to keep all designers connected. If you are contributing to design please add your reply as a comment to this post by Thursday 23:00 UTC. All comments will be combined into a weekly update post on Friday for the design team.

Not a designer but you have something you’d like us to work on? No problem, you can also leave a comment. Just tell us what it is, if a specific team or skill also tell us that.

So, lets start the first design team individual updates! Just reply to the following:

  • What did you work on this past week? Anything completed (don’t forget a link to show us the amazing work!)?
  • What are you currently focusing on?
  • Anything you need help with? Got a tricky project? Are you looking for a task? Perhaps you know about a task that needs a designer or need a buddy to work on something (lets support each other)?
  • Any links for inspiration you want to share (doesn’t have to be WordPress design links)?

Everyone is welcome to comment, adding names of all summit attendees first – your name will be added to list as you give an update (so we can include everyone):

cc: @melchoyce, @michael-arestad, @folletto, @mapk, @sonjaleix, @saracannon, @liljimmi, @joen, @empireoflight

#weeky-updates

Content Editing User Experience (CEUX)

Howdy folks!

This group will be focused around streamlining and improving the overall content editing experience in WordPress. We’ll be exploring better methods for curating and formatting content within the post and page editors. We have a preliminary set of mockups that we’ll be expanding and iterating on as we start. Here’s the plugin we’ll be building.

Our first CEUX meeting will be taking place on Tuesday 17:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui. Providing this works for most people, we’ll continue meeting at this time each week.

During our meeting, we’ll elect a team lead and discuss our process moving forward.

Current team
Our initial team is: @melchoyce (me!), @wonderboymusic, @saracannon, @DavidHickox, @georgestephanis, @helen, and to a lesser extent, @joen will be contributing feedback and ideas. We’ll also be communicating closely with the Page + Menu team as content blocks move into pages. @jenmylo has graciously agreed to advise this group. If you’re interested in getting involved, come by on Tuesday!

#3-8, #ceux

Proposal: Improving the content editing experience

As a follow-up to Matt’s recent post on make/core, I’d like to propose improving the content editing experience.

I see this working in two parts:

  1. Content blocks
  2. Content formatting

Some questions to consider moving forward:

  • How can we make formatting easier and faster to use?
  • How can we make it easier for users to include different types of media, such as audio, video, images and galleries?
  • How can we make it easier for users to embed external content, like tweets or maps?
  • How can we make it easier for pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party authors to include new types of content in a way that is more clear and intuitive for our users?
  • What would updating the content editing flow mean for theme authors? How can we make it as easy as possible for this workflow to work with current themes?

Let’s start brainstorming some initial ideas and figure out how to move forward with a proposal for next week’s 3.8 meeting.

#3-8, #content-editing

@saracannon has posted her take on a new…

@saracannon has posted her take on a new direction for post format UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., addressing some of the concerns that surfaced after @lessbloat‘s tests. Re-thinking WordPress Post Format UI.

The one that is closest to what I was thinking, and the best balance between showing the new UI (to people who are already using post formats or who have a theme with special support), and getting it out of the way once you’ve chosen, is the “In Page decision with post editor greyed out” one.

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I’m curious to know what the UI team thinks. I’d like action taken on this ASAP, so that we can get the UI settled for betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. 2.

#post-format-ui