A presentation at IXDA Port Harcourt by Eriol Fox
Design documentation How documentation can level up your design processes. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
( Hi, I’m Eriol. Ehh-roll). I’m a humanitarian designer. I’m part of an Open Source Design movement. 10 years in digital product design and UX. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Designers and people who work with designers: 1. What information best helps you to work together? E.g. It’s really helpful when I know the constraints that developers are aware of and how that affects design. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Designers and people who work with designers: 2. What do you wish other teams members knew about your work and the way you work? E.g. How long it takes and what I do when I conduct user research/testing and the way I interpret the results into design. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Designers and people who work with designers: 3. What method of communication works best for you? E.g. I find it easier to record a conversation and then transcribe the conversation with the key points and decisions picked out. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Ideas on how you can use documentation to improve this: 1. As a designer, I can catalogue the existing core UI components in a dev framework and what might be missing for a product I’m designing. 2. As a designer, I can invite team members as active or silent participants into my process and/or I could explain as simply as possible how I came to a design decision. 3. I can share audio recordings or notes from conversations and share them with my team widely. I could also take the time to explain in new conversations what decisions were made and why. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
What springs to your mind when you think of the word ‘documentation’? Documentation is also know in the shortened form ‘docs’ @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
(Too)Technical Specifications Manuals Guides Tech only Complex information Giving away my ideas Boring papers/ writing @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
‘Official’ definitions: 1. Documentation is a set of documents provided on paper, or online, or on digital or analog media, such as audio tape or CDs. 1. Good documentation—including installation guides, user guides, white papers, FAQs, and more—provides users a roadmap to using software and hardware. Article via open source.com here @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
What is open source? OSS can be a “tool”, a service or project that is made available under an ‘open license’ such as Creative Commons, APGL or MIT license. The source code and often all other vital components of the project live in a fully disclosed and open way on the web, typically on sites like GitHub or Gitlab. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
What is open source? Typically, OSS is being perceived as something that you can use for free and also adapt and change in ways that are useful to you and/or your organisation. And OSS often is a collaborative community effort, to build and improve a ‘technology’ or product, together. Contributing to OSS is part of many developers lives, and where they learn, share and mentor each other, and how they ‘give back’ to their community in a way. In case that reminds you of IxDA’s mission: Correct. Big similarities. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
How design fits in open source Design hasn’t got a well established place in open source software/projects. Largely due to the space being initiated by developers/coders and continuing to cater to these kind of skills/ backgrounds. This is changing and you can be on the ‘ground floor’ of this change. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
A good ‘playground’ for designers. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Docs are key for open source design and how this helps all designers. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Why we need more design documentation. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
‘The big reveal’ is harmful to current and future design practices. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
The best knowledge isn’t always from published authors or contained in books. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Writing articles are important but are they ‘docs’? @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Examples: Design discovery and research @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
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Open Design’s five core design activities. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Examples: Design decision and synthesis @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
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Examples: What you and your team call ‘good design’ @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
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Examples: Design ‘file’ docs @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
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Examples: How to get (designers) involved @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
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Good habits @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Getting familiar with an ‘open’ home for your design docs @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Summarising/explaining your design @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Careful! This does not mean ‘selling’ your ideas! @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Careful! This also does not simply mean ‘a how-to tutorial’. @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
MVDD’s or Minimum viable design docs for software @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Check out projects with designers involved: http://opensourcedesign.net/ https://github.com/ushahidi/tenfour https://docs.ushahidi.com/platform-developer-documentation/design/designprocess https://github.com/Erioldoesdesign/opendesign https://github.com/foss-responders/fossresponders.com https://github.com/jcklpe/open-source-branding-toolkit https://github.com/kantord/LibreLingo @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
Where to look for guidance & advice. https://opensource.com/article/20/4/documentation https://opensource.com/tags/documentation https://docusaurus.io/ https://github.com/hotosm/ux-review https://opensource.google/docs/ https://thegooddocsproject.dev/ https://www.writethedocs.org/ https://increment.com/documentation/documentation-as-a-gateway-to-open-source/ https://blog.teamtreehouse.com/contributing-open-source-documentation https://medium.com/capital-one-tech/art-of-open-source-documentation-5b8b3f5b0ab https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/documentation-as-an-open-source-practice/? @erioldoesdesign @ixdaph #ixda
How documentation can level up your design processes.
for free. You
can too.