[Marketing] Thanks for your feedback on Website RFI

Sun Jan 8 06:41:12 PST 2017

Hi All,

Thanks again for all the feedback.

I want to ensure that we create a coherent user experience that
remains consistent as long as possible during the users 'Discovery'
phase. Im very much in favor of storing the information that drives
this kind of 'Guided Search' all in one place that is easily
maintained by the projects so that it can be surfaced in several
different ways including OSGeo-Live and info sheets for print. The key
thing though is to try to show the users the highlights of the
software and make it clear what it can do for them based on their
stated role. Its ok if they still end up with several options at the
'end' of their discovery/guided search, I don't think we necessarily
need to try to 'rank' projects against each other either, but should
try to show as much information as possible about each project in an
easy to digest way including indicating how active it is, what
commercial support is available etc. Cameron, agree that the
OSGeo-Live overview and project pages are the best/most current
manifestation of this idea, but we need to do a lot better from a
design perspective.

We are all developers and might just like something like this
https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/design/ ... but we need to step
back and see this from the perspective of someone who may be just
starting a GIS 101 course at university or a ArcMap user at a GIS
company who wants to explore open source and has no idea where to
start and is incredibly confused by all the terminology. I think any
competent design firm will be very familiar with how to do this in a
'beautiful' way and it can be setup in such a way that its
maintainable by the projects.

Jody, I think it should be very possible for each project's PSC or
maintainers to add indicate which commercial providers are active
contributors to their project, but also ones that might be just active
in its user community etc. Thanks for adding Annex III, I think we can
add several more links there.

All this leads to some discussion on the taxonomy of the content types
in the CMS and how to make sure we can easily maintain this content. I
think this will require some more focused discussion on how to best
achieve this once we start the project. We don't have to figure this
all out up front before the vendor starts.

I'm not sure who else is going to take the time to thoroughly review
this solicitation document, but we should be pretty close to something
we can use now I think.

Jeff

On Sun, Jan 8, 2017 at 12:09 AM, Jody Garnett <jody.garnett at gmail.com> wrote:
> Reading through your list ... seems very tech focused (many users would not
> care which components or which language it was written in). If you follow
> the document comments you can see cameron and jeff going over the
> http://geonode.org "for users", "for developers", "for admins" presentation
> - I expect this is a more useful perspective.
>
> I feel strongly that the approach taken by qgis and geoesrver community is a
> good one for listing "commercial support" providers - I really want to let
> each PSC highlight organizations that have made an ongoing commitment to
> their project, or have a history of successfully contributing to the
> project. See "ANNEX 3. Related Information" for links.
>
>
>
> --
> Jody Garnett
>
> On 7 January 2017 at 20:34, Bob Basques <bbasques at sharedgeo.org> wrote:
>>
>> All,
>>
>> I think it's more about describing the projects on an equal basis and
>> letting the users decide which will work best for their particular need and
>> supporting infrastructure.  Maybe this is something that is created as a
>> step between Incubation and Graduation of projects.
>>
>> Something along the lines of a set of short descriptors for each project
>> similar to what you might see when going out and comparing/buying any other
>> software and/or hardware.  Topics like:
>>
>> Configuration options
>>
>> Typical configuration
>> Built for what uses
>> Other uses
>>
>> Project/Product overview
>>
>> History
>> Why was it created
>> How is it used
>> Who uses it (typically)
>>
>> Specifications
>>
>> Component list
>> What's it made of (Javascript, Java, C, etc)
>> What's it run on.
>> What Standards are adhered to for/during development.
>>
>> Accessories/Plugins
>>
>> Extra Capability options
>> What other Projects/Products can it be used with.
>>
>> Manuals and Support options.
>>
>> Project Community pointers
>> Paid for support options.
>>
>> Hmm, makes me think about how to badge up Companies related to supporting
>> particular products/projects as some sort of certification process.
>>
>> Just a quick list, probably other stuff that should be here in the list.
>> But I think a focus on supplying this type of information on an even basis
>> across all projects is the key.  Even going so far as setting up online
>> comparing options similar to buyinh a CPU where the data is presented side
>> by side for each product/project.
>>
>> bobb
>>
>>
>> On 01/07/2017 07:10 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:
>>
>> <bringing this conversation back on list>
>>
>> RFI here:
>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UJPiiVSV5U2CBaVFFjiHQ4qn1Vf5DOgEb83IFCxVQkw/edit#
>>
>> Jeff,
>>
>> I agree with the goal of making OSGeo easy to navigate by guiding users to
>> the best project.
>>
>> The political challenge of this is one OSGeo project gets preferential
>> access to users and sponsors. Do we recommend GeoServer or MapServer? QGis
>> or gvSIG? Each is competing for the same user-base.
>>
>> As Jody has mentioned, we've pushed to get a 5 star rating in place to
>> rank project maturity and help find projects. (This was shot down,
>> particularly by projects with low ranking).
>>
>> We have been able to reference OpenHub metrics, which provides some
>> guidance, but is still far from perfect. It should be at
>> https://live.osgeo.org/en/metrics.html but when I check just now, it appears
>> the factoids are not being pulled down from OpenHub.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/01/2017 9:02 AM, Jody Garnett wrote:
>>
>> The trick is to do this feedback while not discouraging the volunteers on
>> OSGeo live. Reading the above discussion it seems to be the difference
>> between a warehouse and a store.
>>
>> It is easier to do a warehouse as there is no value judgement on the items
>> stocked. Cameron has tried several times to guide OSGeo live towards the
>> store experience (with ratings and metrics and asking for docs and guidance)
>> - each time he moves the dial - but at some political cost.
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 12:52 PM Jeffrey Johnson <ortelius at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Also, after reading your most recent comments, I want to raise one
>>> overarching point. The way you describe things of just providing big
>>> lists and linking people off to completely foreign sites and
>>> experiences is horrible user experience and its the exact reason why
>>> OSGeo is simply incomprehensible to the vast majority of our potential
>>> users. Again, I say this after trying to explain OSGeo and its
>>> initiatives to audiences all over the world. We can and should strive
>>> to have a *consistent* set of content that guides users to the project
>>> that is appropriate for them holding their hand as much of the way
>>> there as we can. Just dumping them onto some random trac or wiki page
>>> may work for some, but it confuses the hell out of everyone else. See
>>> qgis.og downloads page and remember how it used to be before to
>>> understand what I mean.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 12:36 PM, Jeffrey Johnson <ortelius at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> > On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 12:30 PM, Cameron Shorter
>>> > <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> Hi Jeff,
>>> >>
>>> >> No problem. I'm done reviewing.
>>> >
>>> > Thanks
>>> >
>>> >> Key message from me is:
>>> >>
>>> >> * Keep it simple and maintainable.
>>> >>
>>> >> * Try to avoid duplicating content. In particular, we should align
>>> >> OSGeo-Live content with website content, as OSGeo-Live is already
>>> >> achieving
>>> >> some of the key goals of the website.
>>> >
>>> > I really strongly disagree that OSGeo-Live is achieving much of
>>> > anything. I've seen group after group of people completely confused as
>>> > to what to do when OSGeo is booted up and have no idea which software
>>> > to use for what or why there are so many softwares that all seem to do
>>> > the same thing. Its incredibly confusing to them (as is OSGeo in
>>> > general). We tend to keep thinking of things as developers when we
>>> > really do need to take a much more user (and particularly users who
>>> > have the authority to decide what software their organization uses)
>>> > focused approach. In any case, I _do_ agree that we should align
>>> > OSGeo-Live and the website to the point of including alot of the
>>> > website on the ISO, but this big index page
>>> > https://live.osgeo.org/en/overview/overview.html isnt really doing the
>>> > job at all IMO. See my comments in the doc about using somekind of
>>> > structured info about the projects that can be reused in many places
>>> > (including the info sheets).
>>> >
>>> > Thanks again for providing feedback. I hope others take as much care
>>> > to make sure that we have a good basis for having a successful
>>> > project.
>>> >
>>> >> Feel free to share this email.
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On 8/01/2017 6:42 AM, Jeffrey Johnson wrote:
>>> >>>
>>> >>> Glad someone is really reading this besides me and Jody :)
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> --
>>> >> Cameron Shorter
>>> >> M +61 419 142 254
>>> >>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cameron Shorter
>> M +61 419 142 254
>>
>>
>>
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