Collaboration with Oracle.

Fri Aug 24 19:52:45 UTC 2007

Should we set up a conference call?

- Michael

George Hackman wrote:
> Hi all,
> I think the design patterns and the user testing are probably the best 
> place to start.
> On this issue...
> We continue to struggle with "what is the right level of granularity" 
> for these patterns...which is quite related to who is the audience, 
> designers or developers.  Our goal is that we meet the needs of both.  
> Also, in distributed, complex projects such as Sakai, uPortal & 
> Moodle, what is the right level of flexibility to promote consistency 
> yet allow for creative innovation and the "it depends" in design.
>
> I could talk all day on this one as we struggled quite a bit with it.  
> We have some solutions we could share that may or may not work for 
> you. We are very big into design patterns at Oracle.
> How about we do a conference call on this?  I am out next week on 
> vacation, but towards the middle end of the following week (8/29 - 
> 8/31 is good for me).
>
>
> On the UE front, I could ask folks in our larger org to present as 
> well.  Or I could join the chat myself.  I am not a big emailer, 
> because my fingers get tired :(  .  But I would love to talk.
> Thanks,
> George
>
>
>
>
> Daphne Ogle wrote:
>>>
>> Hi George,
>>
>> It's great to hear Oracle will be participating in the Fluid project.
>>
>> Welcome!  It would be great to hear about your work at Oracle and how 
>> we might utilize some of your methods, etc. on our Fluid work.  The 
>> timing is great since we are in the midst of defining much of this 
>> work for Fluid.  I've commented below on some of the biggest 
>> challenges I see for us from the UX perspective.   I'm sure there are 
>> more but these are just the ones on the top of my mind right now.  
>>  Does it make sense to schedule a conference call or Breeze meeting 
>> to talk about the topics below (and others people think of)?  Are you 
>> planning to attend the Fluid summit, 
>> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Fall+2007+Fluid+Summit?  
>> If so we could also include some of this on our UX agenda.  My 
>> preference would be to talk before then since we'll be presenting and 
>> discussing several Fluid UX processes and methodologies at the summit.
>>
>> As far as current work in progress, there are several activities 
>> going on and it would be great to have you participate in any or 
>> all...whatever makes sense from your perspective.  Here's the short 
>> list:
>> - UX walkthroughs (a hybrid usability & accessibility heuristic 
>> combined with cognitive walkthroughs) of Sakai, uPortal & Moodle, 
>> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/User+Experience+Walk-throughs.  
>> Also see Colin's blog post, "Fluid UX Walk-throughs Getting 
>> Started",  http://fluidproject.atrc.utoronto.ca/blog/ about ways to 
>> get involved in this work.
>> - Several process definitions are being created for review and 
>> refinement at the Summit:  1) User testing protocol, 2) Content 
>> management research, 
>> http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Content+Management+Research 
>> (very drafty and still populating with information from work last 
>> week), 3) Component design process, 4) UX walkthrough process and 
>> protocol (on the wiki at URL above).  These are all at various 
>> "in-progress" states and I'm sure you're thoughts on them would be 
>> appreciated.  There isn't anything posted yet for the user testing or 
>> design processes but I expect there will be soon.
>> - Design patterns, 
>> http://bugs.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/DESPAT/Home.  This 
>> work is being done within the Sakai working group.  Please feel free 
>> to join our weekly calls and/or give feedback on the pattern library 
>> thus far.
>>
>> -Daphne
>>>
>>> George Hackman wrote:
>>>> Hi all,
>>>> Thanks for the intro Jutta.  I look forward to contributing where I 
>>>> can.  A couple of topics, I could talk about further include...
>>>> * UI design patterns and how we use them at Oracle to promote 
>>>> usability and consistency.   This is a big help for us as we have a 
>>>> lot of developers to support with a fairly small UX team.
>>>>       
>> We continue to struggle with "what is the right level of granularity" 
>> for these patterns...which is quite related to who is the audience, 
>> designers or developers.  Our goal is that we meet the needs of 
>> both.  Also, in distributed, complex projects such as Sakai, uPortal 
>> & Moodle, what is the right level of flexibility to promote 
>> consistency yet allow for creative innovation and the "it depends" in 
>> design.
>>>> * Accessibility and evolving standards.  Accessibility is key to us 
>>>> as we sell lots of software to the goverment.  I could talk about 
>>>> our program and what we are doing here.
>>>>       
>> Great!  I'm sure we face similar challenges here with creating 
>> accessible system behavior at the same time standards are evolving.
>>>> * Usability methods that we use at Oracle (Customer visits 
>>>> (ethnography),  usability testing (remote and local) etc.).  You 
>>>> are probably familiar with most of these, but I could call out what 
>>>> we do differently or uniquely.
>>>>       
>> It's always good to hear what others have found to work.  I see a big 
>> challenge for us here to define, suggest, promote UX process and 
>> methods to a distributed group whom all likely already have some 
>> process and methods in place in their current organization.   How 
>> much consistency in these activities do we need?  How do we make sure 
>> the community is "brought along" early in the design activities 
>> (research, modeling, etc.)  Do we require (rather than just 
>> encourage) research and modeling (persona and scenarios for example) 
>> for instance?   Research will likely be done in a distributed 
>> manner.  What are the best techniques for making sense of the 
>> research findings (modeling activities are best done, or at least 
>> started, f2f at a white board for instance.
>>>> These are just starting points.  I am open to new ideas or topics.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> George
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> fluid-work mailing list
>>>> fluid-work at fluidproject.org
>>>> http://fluidproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-work
>>>>   
>>>
>>> -- 
>>>
>>>
>>> <oracle_sig_logo.gif>
>>>
>>> Michael Feldstein | Principal Product Manager | 818.817.2925
>>> Oracle Academic Enterprise Solutions
>>> PO Box 307, Glendale, MA 01229
>>> <oracle_sig_logo.gif>
>>> <michael.feldstein.vcf>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> fluid-work mailing list
>>> fluid-work at fluidproject.org <mailto:fluid-work at fluidproject.org>
>>> http://fluidproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fluid-work
>>
>> Daphne Ogle
>> Senior Interaction Designer
>> University of California, Berkeley
>> Educational Technology Services
>> daphne at media.berkeley.edu <mailto:daphne at media.berkeley.edu>
>> cell (510)847-0308
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 

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Michael Feldstein | Principal Product Manager | 818.817.2925
Oracle Academic Enterprise Solutions
PO Box 307, Glendale, MA 01229
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