What is the design team's scope?

[tim-schilling]

Hi folks, we have a team for designers within the organization and there are some broad ideas on what that means, but I think it would be helpful to get some more specifics out there. This is coming out of this discussion.

From maintainers perspective:

• What would you qualify as design work within your project?
• Do you actively want help from a design perspective on your project?

From designers perspective:

• What design work are you interested in helping with for libraries?
• How do you see the team as working and how do you want to fit within it? For example, would the team and individuals be responsible for all packages? Would the team segment for specific packages? Would you want to be stick with a particular set of packages?

I'd love to hear people's opinions, rationales and ideas on this.

[ryancheley]

I think it could be helpful for the library maintainers to know what to expect from working with a designer. For many this could be their first opportunity to work directly with a designer. Not knowing anything about that process might keep people from engaging - new things are scary even if they’re good!

Even then each designer is different and might have a different idea of what a good process might look like. Folks on the @django-commons/designers team, what are your thoughts on how library maintainers can work with you? What are your expectations for the design process?

Some questions that might be helpful to answer are:

• Typical timeline expectations
• What deliverables designers usually provide
• How much time commitment maintainers should expect
• Communication preferences/tools

[viscofuse]

Hi guys,

TLDR: Just reach out and ask!

The standard design process that I would follow, especially for the logo, would be as follows:

1. Discovery: understand the org's wishes and brand goals
2. Research: understand the market and competitors (probably not so important for this particular project)
3. Brainstorming and Sketching: put some rough digital mockups together and explore creative options
4. Client Feedback and Revisions: present mockups to the team and see which idea is the best to pursue
5. Finalization: design and develop the complete, pixel-perfect version
6. Delivery: digitally delivering all necessary file formats and usage guidelines in a central location for the team to use

To give more clarity about myself, I am familiar working in an agile software development lifecycle, so I want consistent communication with devs. I'm flexible in regards to working with this team in whichever way you work currently. @ryancheley mentioned that not knowing anything about design process might keep people from engaging - I want to put it out there that I will not get my feelings hurt if you reach out to explore incorporating design into your library or package and then you decide that it's not the right time! Additionally, setting expectations for me in the beginning would be helpful (for example, if you are looking for a new color palette for your numpy plot, tell me that you do not need heavy design work and I will keep it to a minimum).

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Tim's Questions

Q: What design work are you interested in helping with for libraries?
A: Not sure yet - any and all? Do you have video calls between team members? I think joining a call would be the best way to meet everyone and see what work is currently being done. It would also be a good place for me to ask some questions about django and understand the type of design work that may need to be done including building style guides or user experience flows.

Q: How do you see the team as working and how do you want to fit within it? For example, would the team and individuals be responsible for all packages? Would the team segment for specific packages? Would you want to be stick with a particular set of packages?
A: Also not 100% sure here because I would want to learn a little it more about django itself. I am familiar with python, python packages, and other web frameworks such as Ruby and Node.js, but have never worked with django before.

Ryan's Questions

Typical timeline expectations - depends on the ask. I'll be upfront about how long I think it will take before the next check-in.
What deliverables designers usually provide - any digital filetype that the project needs; although, I typically stay away from any code unless you really want me to just ask Chatgpt to write up some html.
How much time commitment maintainers should expect - Personally, I have a full time job and a fresh baby, so I don't know if my time commitment will be very consistent, but I am open about transparency.
Communication preferences/tools - anything that you use, anytime. I don't have preferences.

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Next Steps from my perspective

1. I'll work today to get a Discovery doc posted here for people to answer.
2. I'd like to set up a short call to meet people and get a feeling for the type of work that needs to be done. @tim-schilling please let me know if this is something you'd like to do and when.
3. We can move forward in the Discovery / Brainstorming steps once I have a clearer idea of what you need. Next week is busy for me, so it might be the week after before I can sit down and pay some attention.

[viscofuse]

@tim-schilling I have created a surveymonkey to collect info about the logo. Where would you like me to post it? Should I create a new General discussion board and post it to all members? Would you like to share directly to the admin board?