[development] D7-UX: Complete nightmare

[Gábor Hojtsy]

On Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 10:42 AM, Stefan
Nagtegaal<development at standoutdesign.nl> wrote:
> The last couple of weeks, I was trying to get into the "Drupal 7 User
> Experience"-improvements the community is  planning to make before releasing
> Drupal 7. Unfortunatly, I lost track between all the different websites
> (drupalusability.org / drupal.org / d7ux.org / groups.org/microproject and
> so on), the enormous amount of issues and the ongoing talk of wireframes,
> suggestions and idea's.

Agreed it is overwhelming! Sometimes it is hard to track what is
happening. You know for developers, the issue queue is the end of all
means, so that is where the actual "getting into core" happens.
Otherwise there is lots of wireframing, UI and UX discussions at all
over the place. Even on flickr, youtube and so on.

> Now, concretely what I would like to know to get started *somwhere* is the
> following:
> - Where do we have the exact guidelines and examples of how we are going to
> work to complete this (horror)job and immense task? Is there any at all?

It is not managed beyond how previous tasks like i18n development for
core, fields in core or DBTNG were managed. We are working in the
issue queue (d7ux tag) and using a supportive third party repository
to help us work together like in the mentioned previous efforts. See
http://code.google.com/p/d7ux/source/checkout

> - Do we have a roadmap to complete and guide the community, and the order we
> should work things out?

The header and the overlay are two huge concepts in the redesign. The
basics of these need to be settled, however, until the header is in,
the overlay has no functional means to tie to, so there is heated
work/discussion on the header. http://drupal.org/node/484820 (also
often close to the top of the d7ux tagged issue queue). Other parts
progress in parallel. For example, reworking the admin IA is already
in the works, sections move around as appropriate in their own issues.
Reworking some admin pages per mockups can be done in separate and
parallel tasks. One of the other parallels is a CCK UI in core, for
which we've been working on evaluating formbuilder as a possibly
viable option (http://drupal.org/node/404818)

> - What is the place to look at, if I want to work on it structurely and to
> not lost track on all the things spread around on the different groups /
> websites and issues?

The issue queue is the definitive place for core development, the
others support it by providing place for discussion, wireframing and
such. There is nothing getting into Drupal core if there was not an
issue for it, right? Direct link to the d7ux tag is
http://drupal.org/project/issues/search?issue_tags=d7ux

> - Is there anyone taking a lead in this, who I can talk to and discuss things
> with?

Totally depends on what part are you working on, there are people
doing usability assessment, wireframing, implementation, IE testing,
porting, etc. I am happy to help direct you to the right people.

> As I'm getting up with Drupal CVS again I didn't found anything related to
> the "new" (seperated again) administration section. I couldn't find any code
> to rely on, or even to get an overlay-sort-of-thing working to build upon.
> (perhaps I'm wrong, but I had the feeling that this would be there as *a
> lot* of people are wireframing, making sketches of possible and new UI's and
> discussing things that IMO doesn't even matter as long as the groundwork
> isn't done yet..

It cannot get into core without the header being in. I am already
personally involved in shuffling dozens of patches, so the overlay
does not exist in patch form yet. We have received many bugfixes to it
already however in the third party repo at
http://code.google.com/p/d7ux/source/checkout (I can give you commit
access in a matter of seconds, if you'd like to help!).

> So, to make such a long story short: Is there anyone, or any place where I
> could find things (structurely ordered, preferably by task) to start on at
> least some things of the groundwork?

Best thing probably is to try out what is in the repository. You'll
definitely notice bugs. Note whatever you believe is missing from the
groundwork. We can discussing either fixing existing bugs, or starting
off separate areas of the groundwork.

> I hope there are some people willing, who could help me to get going.

Sure thing! Sorry I did not reply earlier, but I was totally taken for
the weekend at the d7ux sprint in Utrecht
(http://drupal.org/project/issues/search?issue_tags=d7uxsprint), then
ha travels and internet connectivity problems. Lots of fun :)

Let me know if I can help you in any other way.

Gábor