[ui-arch-working-group] Minutes from today's conference call

["Bob Fraser" <bfraser@xxxxxxx>]

Here is what I heard.  Please send any corrections.  I will wait a bit and then post them to the wiki.

 

Attending: Bob Fraser, Troy Beecroft, Boris Bokowski, Wassim Melhem, Bjorn Freeman-Benson, Ward Cunningham

Wiki page: http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/User_Interface_Architecture_Working_Group

 

• Reviewed action items.

 

• The group decided to change its name to the "Eclipse UI Best Practices Working Group" to better reflect the charter and to avoid confusion with what the Platform/UI team does.

 

• Discussed the charter and adopted Boris’ suggestion:

Charter of the Eclipse UI Best Practices Working Group

 

The mandate of the working group is to help improve the usability across the Eclipse projects that are part of the simultaneous release effort.

 

To this end, the working group will do the following:

 

1.  Facilitate usability discussions within projects and across projects

      - Trigger usability post-mortems to be performed by the different projects

      - Conduct regular "show and tells" with UI leads from the projects to shed spotlight on problem areas and promote good ideas as best practices

      - Do an end of release UI review and come up with a cross-project list of polish items

 

2. Update the UI guidelines

 

• Discussed the fine points of what the three activities under item one above mean, what the roles of the working group should be and what the roles of the projects should be.  Troy will write up a draft document.

 

• Discussed how to put things in motion.  We will come up with what we believe the practices and activities should be (eg. Post-mortems, show and tells, etc.) and propose this to the planning council.  Our goal is to get their buy-in and have them help drive this as requirements through the various projects that make up the simultaneous release.  Goal is to have actionable plans by the October Eclipse Council meetings.

 

• Suggestion was made to have three categories of requirements:

 

·         Must

·         Should

·         Suggestion

With very few Musts and mostly Shoulds and Suggestions.

 

• Discussed the difference between “consistency” and “usability”.  Having a consistent interface is not sufficient if it is not usable.

 

• Members discussion. We with to invite the following companies/projects:
• Intel
• Borland
• Acutate
• WTP

 

We will also look through newsgroup threads for individuals with a keen interest in the UI/usability of Eclipse.

 

Action items:

 

• Bjorn to change the name of the group, mailing list and wiki
• Bob to draft a general call to action to join the group
• Bob to update the wiki with the new charter
• Troy to draft the next level of detail for the charter and what we wish to ask the planning council to drive as requirements.
• Membership invitations – develop leads and invite:
• Bob – Borland, Actuate
• Boris – Intel
• Wassim – WTP

 

Next meeting will be September 13 at the same time.

 

 

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