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[OH-Dev] UX Team for OpenHatch

Asheesh Laroia asheesh at asheesh.org
Fri Aug 2 21:54:58 UTC 2013


(I'm moving a conversation to devel@ that started out in some private 
emails,)

I was recently remembering fondly how, at PyCon sprints, how at the PyCon 
Sprints in 2013, Heather and Flora put in a lot of effort to understand 
how to use the site, and identified a whole lot of places where the flows 
between pages can be improved.

I got some enthusiasm from Heather and Flora for kick-starting a user 
experience effort for the site. After watching a friend use the site, it 
is clear I am so blind to the site's many sharp edges, and I would love 
for things to be better!

I think we agreed the simplest thing is to have people write up a few 
different use cases for what people do with the site -- for example, add a 
project to their profile -- and the current click path. Optionally, also 
provide the click path you think people *should* go through. This is often 
called user testing, and often done by people who declare themselves as 
"user experience" people.

https://openhatch.org/bugs/issue869 ('There should be an "Edit projects" 
button on one's own profile page'), recently fixed by Susan Tan, is a 
great example of a UX bug of the kind I'm thinking of. I filed it after 
watching someone click around the site and have a harder time than needed.

Perhaps it makes sense to form an ad-hoc "UX team", of people who 
self-identify as caring about the UX, and have them write up a few of 
these click paths and submit them to the list. Heather and Flora, I'll 
leave this in your hands for now, but I might send you a ping in a week or 
something. (-: (And I presume it's OK with you if others stand up and say, 
"Yes, I care about the OpenHatch site's user experience" and then start 
emailing Devel and/or filing bugs.)

(And if you need any other input from me, say so! Oh and IRC is usually an 
even better way to reach me, but I also expect the Devel list to work!)

-- Asheesh.


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