[kdewebdev-site] First draft of www.kdewebdev.org vision statement - feedback requested

[Eric Laffoon]

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On Sunday 04 April 2004 8:13 pm, David Joham wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> Here's the first draft of the vision statement I've put together for the
> kdewebdev.org web site. I hope everyone agrees that it is imperative we
> define what we're going to be building before we get started so that we
> fully understand the goals of the project and what we're trying to
> accomplish. This is going to be a big project and I believe these first few
> steps are critical to its success.
>
> Please keep in mind that this is a first draft based on my readings of the
> archives, feedback from folks so far and a few tangents of my own. I
> welcome any and all constructive feedback.
>
> This vision statement doesn't yet contain any TODO's. I decided it was a
> little premature to get to that before I had feedback on this document.
>
> This is how I would like to proceed. I would like to suggest we all take
> until Wed. night Mountain Daylight time to digest, discuss and modify this
> document. I will then take all of the suggestions and create a final
> document by next Sunday evening. We can then move on to assignments and the
> design phase.

Omigosh! Less than an hour to say this is all wrong... ;-)
>
> The design phase is where I expect to start saying things like "Chris, will
> you please work with our graphic artist and put together a page layout
> prototype and document. Can you have that done in XXXX days?".  At that
> point, hopefully this project will start being the collaberative project
> I'm hoping for rather than jus t me sitting up typing random suff into
> KMail :)
>
>
> So, without further ado, here is the first draft of the kdewebdev.org
> vision statement.
>
> kdewebdev.org:
> VISION
>
> kdewebdev.org aims to be a the preeminent website for users of KDE's web
> development tools to find documentation, code samples and best-practice
> tips and tricks. The primary goals of kdewebdev.org are to allow web
> developers to help themselves, see what KDE offers in the way of tools and
> other development aides and to allow developers the opportunity to easily
> contribute back to the kdewebdev.org community.

Overall I think this is a very good document and the vision statement is good. 
I'd like to add a comment, sorry to do so at this late hour, and it would 
depend on the target audience of this, which I guess is us so it's relevent.

A primary objective of kdewebdev.org is to manage growth in the CVS module. As 
the project grows the developer noise load and project complexity increases. 
A chief aim is to anticipate user concerns to divert "noise" as well as 
provide a central cohesion, focus and clarification to the development 
process. The developer support will both assist developers and inform users.

I'll leave it to David to repackage that with his statement as he sees fit.
>
>
> kdewebdev.org;
> DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
>
> The development of kdewebdev.org can be broken down into two phases:
>
> Phase I will be the development of a www.kdewebdev.org “umbrella” site as
> well as a “brochure-ware” site for each component in the kdewebdev.org
> family. When completed, these sites will serve to educate visitors about
> the tools and technology we offer as well as present a consistent,
> professional image that conveys confidence and trust.
>
> Phase II will be the development of an infrastructure that encourages
> interactive contributions to the kdewebdev.org community. These
> contributions will include things like Kommander scripts, Javascript code,
> templates and contributions to the core tools themselves.

As I see it the size and complexity of the developer.kdewebdev.org portion of 
the site is rather substantial. As it stands right now my initial 
conversations have me with the understanding that I will be laying out the 
infrastructure for this because of my somewhat unique qualifications. This 
will be somewhat separate and merge in. At some point it would become a more 
clear development path driven by it's data structure. As this will probably 
at least initially fall to me that may be why it doesn't appear here. I'm 
okay with that and just trying to interact without being a "bull in a china 
shop". It seems like this would be a concurrent Adjunct to Phase I, or Phase 
IA.

If David has input here or anything I've missed I'm open to it. Also I assume 
at some point people involved with the rest of the project may be involved. 
Clearly I don't want to create any issues here. I'm extremely comfortable if 
this just enables me to reduce my efforts greatly to this single focus, or 
collaboration in merging it under David's leadership.

I'm also open to just functioning as a subproject developer lead under David's 
direction with the idea that I just want to achieve some particular 
functionality. I'm open to that being externally defined and reviewing and 
revising it too.
>
> This document will concentrate on Phase I, but will touch on Phase II as
> well.
>
>
> PHASE I Details
>
> The primary goal of Phase I will be the development of a “portal” site
> (www.kdewebdev.org) that will professionally introduce visitors to the
> tools we offer and to convey a sense of cohesion. We want visitors to
> easily be able to see what tools are available, what they can do and to
> understand that these tools have been designed and developed to work
> together.
>
> At a high level, www.kdewebdev.org  should (at a minimum) convey the
> following information to a visitor:
>
>  * Introduce kdewebdev.org as an “umbrella” site for KDE's web tools
>  * Briefly introduce the tools that are available and their features
>  * Provide a news area
>  * Provide one or two high level screen shots of each tool in action
>  * Provide a FAQ
>  * Provide links to access all <tool>.kdewebdev.org sub domains.
>
> A good use case for someone who would use the www.kdewebdev.org web site
> would be a new KDE user who is trying to figure out how to replace
> FrontPage, Dreamweaver or any other tool (s)he is used to using. This user
> has never heard of Quanta or any of the tools we offer and needs to have a
> place where all of the available tools are presented in summary so that
> (s)he can easily match a development need with an available tool.
>
> This “portal” site can almost be thought of as a teaser site. It won't have
> much detail about the tools themselves – rather it will have a one or two
> sentence description of the tool that invites and encourages the visitor to
> visit the tools, <tool>.kdewebdev.org subdomain for more information.
>
> In Phase I, these <tool>.kdewebdev.org sub domains should (at a minimum)
> convey the following information to a visitor:
>
>  * Introduce the tool and what it does
>  * Provide a feature list
>  * Provide screen shots (if appropriate)
>  * Provide a way for user to get support (mailing lists, etc)
>  * Provide documentation on the use of the tool
>  * Provide instructions on how to get the tool
>  * Provide a FAQ (if appropriate)
>  * Provide contact information (if appropriate)
>  * Provide a way to get back to the main www.kdewebdev.org site
>
> All <tool>.kdewebdev.org sub domain web sites will share a consistent user
> interface – further reinforcing the idea that KDE offers a suite of tools
> that are designed to work together.
>
> When we are finished with Phase I, we will have a consistent,
> professional-looking web site that allows users (even ones that have never
> heard of us) to easily find  the tool that is right for them and the
> information they need to use it. We can then proceed to Phase II.

I like the description and thinking here very much. My point so far has been 
largely to address the apparent exception of developer.kdewebdev.org, which 
we discussed on the phone, for clarification purposes.
>
>
> Preliminary PHASE II Details
>
> The primary goal of Phase II will be to build interactivity into the
> <tool>.kdewebdev.org sites and provide a means to help new developers
> easily contribute to the core applications themselves.
>
> As appropriate, each sub domain should have the capability for users to
> upload materials that will help other developers use the sub domain's
> tools. This will include items such as Kommander scripts, JavaScript code
> and other items.

Interestingly, in my original thinking I had looked at adding live interaction 
interfaces to Quanta... but I had not actually thought through the idea of 
individual tool resource submission. Ideally Quanta moves to push button 
ease, but this is a very nice follow through as suggested. Good thinking 
David.
>
> Phase II will also include mechanisms for recruiting and helping new
> developers get started working on the core tools. Further definition of
> this feature will come later.

Okay... Maybe I didn't read this paragraph well enough and this covers 
developer.kdewebdev.org too. If so... Oops! We still get clarification. ;-)

In any event I can still outline data and process and submit it for further 
refinement and assembling a plan. My preference is, after objectives and key 
factors are clearly defined, to put as much as possible under David's 
watchful eye. The paradox here is that the primary data structure and such is 
just about done when the definition is written... So maybe that works well to 
begin the process.
>
>
> Thanks again for everyone's help. Please feel free to comment publicly or
> privately (if you so desire) on this document. Any and all feedback is
> desired and helpful.
>
> Best regards,
>
> David

I'm really getting excited about all we have going on with kdewebdev...
* BE 2 release coming probably within a week
* Kommander updates and separate release probably in a month or so
* Flash4Linux release probably in 1-2 months
* Klinkstatus being added soon
* This site coming together
* aKadamey to look forward too... note that web development was mentioned ;-)

I know we have great people involved here and I'm very proud and humbled to be 
a part. I have the utmost confidence in David and I think we will have 
something we all can be proud of here. I'm ready to take notes. ;-)

Thanks for all your efforts David.
- -- 
Eric Laffoon - Quanta+ Team Leader 
http://kdewebdev.org  eric at kdewebdev.org
Mailing list - http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/quanta
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