[p2pu-dev] [p2pu-community] Some thoughts about badges.p2pu.org

[Vanessa Gennarelli]

Since Dirk so succinctly and amazingly reflected on his experience with the
badges project, I thought I'd add the same.

Green:

   - *Our Trello board <https://trello.com/board/badges/> *worked nicely.
   Dirk spec'd out what was UI, tech, implementation, and we were able to
   collaborate well on the big pieces of the project.
   - Working with P2PU staff instead of outsourcing. I know we might need
   to in the future, but it was great to work with team members who all know
   the culture, goals, and vibe of P2PU. I think it made a better product.
   - *Prioritization*. As a team, we were able to assess what we needed to
   produce by demo day, and we worked towards that goal. There are
   improvements to be made, but you wouldn't know it from the response we got
   at DML.
   - *Tiger team. *Dirk is a hero. Erika is amazing. Chris tolerates me
   (and is also a rockstar). I really felt like all hands were on deck for
   this project, and I'm really proud of what we built together.

Yellow--this is the section where I ask the Community for help.

   - *Nomenclature for the badge
dashboard<http://badges.p2pu.org/en/dashboard/vanessa.gennarell/>
   *. I'm not sure we've cracked that nut--I think people are still
   confused by the terminology we're using. @Joao--would you be willing to
   help me figure out a usability test for the dashboard? http://cl.ly/NbUI
   - *How becoming an Expert works*. Currently, whoever creates the Badge
   is an Expert--but they haven't really proved their expertise yet. Some
   proposed solutions:
      - Ask the Badge creator to also submit a exemplary project.
      - Ask the Badge creator to submit evidence of their mastery elsewhere
      on the web.
      - [Your suggestion here!] I wonder if Chloe, Alan, Karen, Zac or Jane
      have suggestions here.
   - *Marketing copy/visual walkthrough*. This was not a priority, but
   extremely important so that folks know what they are looking at. I am
   working through this over the
weekend<http://pad.p2pu.org/p/marketing_message>,
   but could use your help!

Red:

   - *Copy creation proces*s--I tried to use screenshots to be precise
   about what copy should go where, but then Dirk, Erika and Chris couldn't
   copy and paste. #Fail.
   - *Copy updating process*--we didn't create a use case for an Admin, and
   so we need a way to update the copy on the site smoothly.


On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 7:14 AM, Dirk Uys <dirk at p2pu.org> wrote:

> Hey everyone
>
> You may or may not know that we have been working on badges.p2pu.org (
> github.com/p2pu/badges) for the last 3/4 weeks. At this stage I would
> like to reflect on a few things.
>
> What went well?
> - Using OAuth for user authentication worked really well
> - Structuring the model as an API and hiding the ORM objects from the view
> -- This helped a lot with testing
> -- Also made dependencies between different parts of the application
> explicit when it needs to be
> - Using ansible for sysadmin tasks (see github.com/p2pu/marvin)
> - More thorough testing for the model
> - Using notifications API to send email notifications (badges.p2pu.orgknows only the username)
>
>
> What could/can we improve upon?
> - Use API for user info
> - User roles like admin not implemented on badges (will need this to
> handle)
> - User uploaded media - scaling images, async upload, storing files on S3
> - Testing of views
>
>
> Other thoughts
> - Modularity of the model vs modularity of the view (Django app metaphor
> doesn't feel like a good fit for everything)
> - Notifications as part of the model. Notifications tends to be more view
> like and have more dependancies
> - Slightly concerned about performance with API, but only time will tell
>
> Let me maybe say a few things about the modularity and notifications, I
> think they're actually related. The application model and the application
> view doesn't feel to me like it fits that well with Django's concept of
> applications. The views normally have more dependencies than the model and
> even though you can use a django app where the view has more dependencies
> on other apps, it starts making less sense.
>
> This brings us to notifications, which have several similarities with
> views: they are exposed to the user, normally supply more context to the
> user that the event triggering the notification in the model, needs to be
> translated based on user preferences and probably also uses a template. I
> guess it's possible to create notification events in the model and then
> hook that up with the actual notification sending code? This obviously adds
> a bit of complexity.
>
> So, just felt like sharing this for those who may be interested. Any
> feedback will be very welcome!
>
> @Erika & Chris, feel free to add any thoughts that you have.
>
> Enjoy the weekend!
>
> Cheers
> d
>
>
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-- 
Vanessa Gennarelli
Learning Lead, Peer 2 Peer University
vanessa at p2pu.org
@mozzadrella <https://twitter.com/#!/mozzadrella>
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