Education and Outreach Working Group Teleconference

<scribe> Scribe: Brent

Technicalities

<yatil> https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/WAI_site_TF/Technicalities

Eric: Need to look at time again to see if this is the best time for James to meet.
... Technicalities page is where Eric is adding ideas and research on technologies.
... Most of the information will work its way into the backlog.

Tech – CMS

Eric: First up is the CMS
... Eric talking through the pros and cons of the CMS.
... Pros - Easy to use, Consistent navigation, Allow for quick updates and little team involvement
... Cons - Probably not flow well back and forth with GitHub, Would need to be maintained and updated, Our content is diverse so this could be restricted a little by the CMS with the document structures types available.
... Other idea would be to build some type of custom CMS that could flow back and forth with GitHub. Also have comparison features.
... Could build a preview functionality as well that could be beneficial to the work on the project.

AnnaBelle: Eric are you aware of any CMS in the W3C that could be used?

Eric: The WordPress is the only one that I am aware of that we have.

AnnaBelle: FYI - I know WordPress quite well so I am happy to talk with you about that.

Eric: Connection to GitHub is the biggest concern that would need to be overcome. WordPress has its advantages and drawbacks.

Tech – Navigation

Eric: Next topic is Central navigation
... Need to wait on the IA portion to see what direction we need to go with navigation.
... Two ways to do it. start with light navigation and you have to dig deeper and deeper as you go.
... Or start with most important stuff at top and as the user digs deeper they find the variety of resources.

AnnaBelle: What I have used most recently is have a master template that was used for each page, then used includes for header, navigation, footer.
... was with a big site but allowed us to customize.

Eric: If we provide a preview on GitHub, there is conciderations as it will not allow includes as easily.
... Could be problematic for resources with sub-pages as a lot of that may need to be handled manually.
... How much do we want to be automatic vs. manually. This will make a difference with iteration.
... CMS - we could split it up. One CMS for press releases, etc. Then on the other side a CMS for resources that are not needing to be updated.

Tech – Static Resources

Eric: For more static-ish resources
... When we are creating new or updating resources that are on GitHub, we would fork the base repository, this would allow quick set up for new resources and preview.
... Then we can have sub-repositories.
... If we go with Custom CMS, when reviewing the page, can add ? to URL to review the page which would add some simplification to reviewing.
... Any questions?
... no questions. That is all.

Tech – Performance Budget

<yatil> http://www.webpagetest.org/result/160713_NC_d691cf9644daf968336a109052ff6eab/

Eric: Last thing is the Performance Budget
... This is about testing pages for performance.
... This will help in informing our decisions for design.
... One of our priorities is that our pages load fast. Interesting to watch the performance results.
... Want to manage and keep the kilobytes very low so pages load fast.
... I will be learning and researching more about how it works and will report back to the group to help keep us on track for performance.

AnnaBelle: Any questions?
... I have been planning to use that exact same tool for testing performance. Thinking we should keep some results on the wiki site for tracking performance.

Backlog

<AnnaBelle> https://3.basecamp.com/3119737/buckets/936310/messages/173370065

AnnaBelle: Set up on Basecamp a temporary file for backlog

Eric: When we decide for a name for the repository, I can post the new information.

<AnnaBelle> https://github.com/w3c/wai-website-design

AnnaBelle: James and I talked about the next steps for jumping into high gear on the work.
... Thought we would start by focusing on the information architecture and the design.
... Start working the the adjectives and the goals.
... Appears that Charlotte (?) UT would have some time in August to work with the group on Information Architecture.
... So where should the task force start?

Eric: For more background information... it is like a pool of information. When things don't work you put it into the backlog and then start to prioritize that work during a sprint meeting.
... What do we actually want to do, and who does what.
... Some others may work on some smaller side projects.
... So keep in mind that we may not need everyone doing all one task all the time unless it is needed.
... Start with IA. Information gathering, what are the smaller components. I think it is a good place to start. Collect what we have on the page.

AnnaBelle: What do you think about simultaniously starting with style tiles? What I was discussing with James, August 1 we would get in touch with those interested in visual design work and get them started pulling together fonts, colors, etc.
... We could all be working on visual design simultaniously. Then at the end of the month it could be submitted and the TF could make selections and move forward.
... Could have this anonatized where people could submit annonmously the designs they work on.

Eric: This makes sense. Help stay away from templating, etc. I think this is good and can work in parallel with the rest of the work.

Sharron: I agree with starting IA and working simultaniously on other design is a great idea.

AnnaBelle: Have asked James if he would be willing to model using the backlog.
... Eric, do you know how to do this. Agile, so that you could model backlogging?

Eric: Yes I have a while ago. Need a good PjtMgr to do that.
... Basically, what you put in is formulate what a user would want to do on the page, like "expand/collapse". Then you dump that application/functionality into the backlog.

Then after everything is in you go about prioritizing what shoule be worked on and when.

Eric: Another way is to use it more like an issue tracker. Put in issues and then formulate them as tasks.
... Then you have the standup work meetings. Everyone participates and talks about their tasks. Work through the Sprint planning.
... Using Sprint Points to assign what tasks can be completed in the current Sprint.
... As Sprints move on, the team starts to understand how long various tasks take and can make adjustments as needed.
... Stand up meetings where everyone is just checking in, talking about what they have done, assigning tasks, etc.

AnnaBelle: Shawn, your thought on running IA and visual design side by side?

Shawn: I am all for concurrent work. Good idea.
... I am wondering about the Search.
... It's important to get going on the IA and the visual design. They depend on each other and are required for the coding.
... What I learned from the analytics is the amount of people clicking on the Search. Not sure what is involved in implementing a smart search.
... If we had that smart search, we wouldn't have to wait for that to be deployed. Could be a different person working on that? Could we actually work on all three at the same time?

Eric: Need to define what we mean by smart search. What meta information do we need? What functionality?
... Would it be like the Quickref? Would be heavy on the data side. Fun, Interesting.
... We sould at least define and find good examples of what we thing the smart search will have.

<AnnaBelle> Search is part of Information Architecture

Eric: Could stage it out. Stage out the work. But we need to define the finish line.

AnnaBelle: As part of this, maybe Brent could do a brainstorming session on the smart search.

Brent: Yes, I could do that if the Task Force decides that is appropriate.

AnnaBelle: Thank you all so much. That is it for now.
... James will most likely be leading the call next week.

Eric: Is there anything we should do now? Action items? To report back to the larger Task Force group.

AnnaBelle: I can send out an email to the redesign task force about starting backlog.
... This is temporary in basecamp now and James can transfer into GitHub

Eric: We can use the current GitHub repository for the backlog.

AnnaBelle: James has indicated that he wants to set up the backlog. Eric can you work with him on that.
... Then we can encourage Task Force members to start adding to the backlog.
... Anything else for today?

Shawn: Just excited about getting going on the work.

Sharron: agreed

Brent: agreed

<yatil> trackbot, end meeting