[TYPO3-v4] Minutes of the 10th meeting of the 4.7 Release Team

[Ernesto Baschny [cron IT]]

Steffen Gebert schrieb am 30.01.2012 19:37:

>> Revise "Zap the Gremlins"
>> ==========================
> 
>> For TYPO3 4.0 a project called "Zap the Gremlins" was done. It reached
>> out to editors telling about the most nasty bugs in usability or the
>> TYPO3 backend during their daily work. As Steffen Gebert started
>> something similiar within the mailinglists with a thread collecting the
>> most pressing issues Oliver Hader came up with the Idea to start a new
>> "Zap the Gremlins" project.
> 
> Nice that at least you got my point :) Most of the responses were
> related to bugs introduced more recently, so it felt like people
> reported the bugs which annoyed them most the last week..

Yes, the idea will be to get more feedback also from actual *users* of
the system (editors, administrators etc), not only developers like we
usually have. This means to use other channels of getting this
information, since regular users don't probably read the mailing lists
(and maybe even not typo3.org news).

The concept on how to achieve that has to be specified by the "Zap The
Gremlins Team".

>> * Text/page in About Modules.
> Umm.. wondering how that should look like..?

Something like the "Donate" Link we have in the "About TYPO3" screen.
Considering that 90% of the users start in the "About Modules" screen
(not the power-users / admin which know how to change that...), this
would be a nice place to setup a link to this campaign, inviting the
user to give some "first hand" feedback of what annoys him in the daily
work with TYPO3. Leaving this link active for 2 Patch Level Releases for
example, then removing it again once the Campaign is ended. The landing
page of course should be more specific about the time range of the event
to avoid people in 2-years (with the old installation) still trying to
get involved.

This is also *just an idea* that popped up during the Release Team
meeting, which *can* be considered by the future "Zap The Gremlins Team".

>> The release team agreed that this project would be a benefit and Olly
>> will Kickstart it with a mailing asking for further feedback while Ben
>> will get in contact with the Design Team.

> Maybe at first people should be found who commit oneself to participate
> in such a campaign, before we announce it with big marketing tam-tam.

Yes, of course! We quickly agreed that we will need a team to organize
this as a "Project". But how can we form a team if the idea is not
known? So we will announce that we *want* to have such an event and that
it will get some official background (like official news / articles,
maybe even some budget), and that we seek help to form such a team.

>> We also found, that reporting issues has to be more trivial than with
>> forge and has to happen without login. A plain mailform has been
>> considered to be the most attractive way to gather user input.

> And who ignores such mails.. sorry.. who answers such mails? ;)
> I guess there will be people out there, who are annoyed and write down
> their frustration and give fake email addresses. How to ask them for
> feedback and so on? Honestly, I think such a form isn't a good idea.

I also don't feel that comfortable with a "contact form" inviting people
to write their annoyances, but this is the least technical way to reach
a broad audience (like editors who probably don't even know what "Forge"
is).

This of course rises the amount of work of the "Gremlins Filtering
Commitee". In the past (4.0) we had a voting system where people could
post their Issue Numbers (from Forge).

Maybe a combination of both would be a good compromise: A form asking
for either and most preferable a Forge Issue Number or a quick
description of the "Gremlin". After all a Gremlin should be a small (for
the Editor usually an "Usability issue"), so it should also be quick to
describe.

Another idea would be to reach out to Agencies who deal on a daily basis
with editors.

But, of course, this has all to be evaluated and sketched by the "to be
formed" Team.

Cheers,
Ernesto