Home for the Design outreach group

I fully appreciate the collaborative environment g.d.o. tries to foster, and I think that from a site architecture perspective, it makes a whole lot of sense to make sure that groups, specifically those related to geo-location, have as little overlap as possible. I've heard various people make comments, for example, about the situation in Southern California on g.d.o. - how the original intention was for there to be a big group in the southern part of the state. While that sounds great as an idea, it's completely impractical, as it relates to having meetings in LA County versus San Diego.. or even Anaheim, for that matter. The sheer volume of people there, if they were able to actually get together in one place, would have a hard time finding a spot big enough (and free) to host the meeting. I live in Las Vegas and I host the local Drupal users group at my house. Since we are so small here in Las Vegas (DrupalCon 2009 anyone?? hehe) it would be a terrible shame to have more than one Las Vegas group on g.d.o. because it would fracture the already very small group. Design, on the other hand, is a topic so broad, so subjective, and so ubiquitous, the nature of the subject itself really implies a need for focused groups within the broader subject of "design."

I will let Claudio speak to the question of specific needs and goals, but I wanted to say that, as for me, I'd subscribed and unsubscribed before to this particular group because it didn't seem like there was any specific plan of attack under way that I could involve myself with and that it was kind of random postings of very good bits of information.. but not really a movement with momentum, and probably not as specifically focused on design as what got going with our group of a dozen or so people at our meeting in Boston. In general, the Design Outreach group was formed by a group of us as a way of marshaling together various bits of existing content as well as the creation of a whole new body of content and Drupal-related designer tools that will be of great use to people specifically from the design world, not necessarily information architecture, in order to help them transition into the Drupal community and contribute their greatly-needed design skills. It was my understanding that this was one of the primary goals of the Design Track at DrupalCon (and the reason why I personally flew to Boston to go to the con - the existence of the design track, that is.)

I think the architecture of g.d.o. and a desire to not splinter existing groups where possible were likely the intentions of whoever deleted the Design Outreach group, but I think that best intentions can sometimes get in the way of progress, and can have a chilling effect on creativity and momentum. I can also hear some people that have been around Drupal longer saying "why not join this group and create momentum here?" Good question. I just think that real momentum is something that tends to happen when the right group of people get together and don't have their hands tied or too many challenges to meet their goals. Like group management, as an example.

I agree that we don't need too many groups and too much overlap on Drupal.org, but at some point, language itself will imply a need for overlap, so where do we draw the line, you know? Now that I'm thinking about it. It might make sense to split this group into two well-focused groups: One for design and one for information architecture. While obviously related, those are two huge subjects, each in their own right, that might best be served with its own group.

Anyways, I just wanted to share some thoughts on g.d.o.... Thanks Kieran, for responding to this issue. Glad there are people in charge that are listening! And for those of you on here who I haven't met.. Hello! my name is Christopher. :)

I added Steph's post back to this group: http://groups.drupal.org/node/9499

Kieran

P.S. "It was my understanding that this was one of the primary goals of the Design Track at DrupalCon (and the reason why I personally flew to Boston to go to the con - the existence of the design track, that is.)" made my day.

Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign

Thanks Kieran for your post here. Shame things ended up being deleted but I understand the sentiment. The issue is that we, as a small working group out of Drupalcon, needed a focused home where we could plan a specific initiative and get things off the ground. It wasn't at all meant to be a separate clique from the larger design community, just we needed something right now that we could call our own for planning purposes.

Anyway... at this point I guess we should keep things here and perhaps tag posts as suggested previously. I'm sure the other designers/IA folks won't mind a little activity in the group! I think there will be some growing pains with this initiative since it's a new kind of thing...

I'd love to dive in more right now but we're on the cusp of this startup and will have no time for the next couple weeks. But I know things are in good hands :)

~~~
Coming soon - { TopNotchThemes } Gorgeous Drupal designs with Views/Panels 2 support, plus Ubercart themes!
~~~
Themer for CivicActions

Hello everyone,

here is the link: http://groups.drupal.org/node/9400

The dev4des "group" was another fatality on "Black Tuesday" (just a joke everyone!) so i have linked that thread above.

One of the frustrating things that has bogged me down ever since the birth of the net is: how the hell do i find what i am looking for? Much of this is solved with categories... and that is one of the things that i LOVE about Drupal.

Maybe our answer is in to create categories that list functionality.... um and then a TABLE OF CONTENTS explaining what the intentions are of each thread?

Also, when I go to a groups page, i really expect to see a menu... detailing which areas that I can drill down to find information. drilling down is essential because, well, have you every tried to spell a word and look it up in the dictionary... if you don't know the name of it , then how can you find it.

which brings me to this point: organic structures are good when you have all the cell "knowing" what the DNA is. Like, cell#1 "hmmm ok, so the two of us are here and we have to build a human being. so, how should we proceed?" cell#2 "um, why don't you look at the map you came with... it's that long stringy thing over there. MEN!" However, we all have different ways of looking at things... well except for one and that is : what is the fastest and best way (read: create something that we all can use) to solve this problems here.

For the above to be of value, we would take large areas and drill down to smaller areas. here is an example:
major areas of content concentration

1. A designers introduction to Drupal (how Drupal works and how we work within Drupal)
1. How Drupal Works - the big picture with pictures
2. How designers work within Drupal
1. Creating CSS Based Adjustments
2. Creating "Theme Template" Adjustments
3. The Zen of Drupal - creating your first "Theme"
2. Best Practices
3. Recipes
1. Theme Recipes
2. CSS Recipes
3. Module Recipes
4. Theme & Module Recipes
4. Designers who Develop (or want too!)
1. Introduction to Developing
2. Developing for Drupal
3. A PHP Primer
4. ... etc
5. ....
5. FAQ

Looking at the above, I KNOW that these topics have already been written. what bothers me is that we need a Rosetta Stone of some sort: something that can translate between the two world...

maybe we shouldn't start from scratch. I love the book "Painting as an Art" form this professor at Princeton. they are his lectures in a written form... but it is IMPOSSIBLE to read, because they are lectures.. and he is not Feynman. So, i have started to rewrite the damn book back into English. Which is funny. so, maybe we can create an "Artist's" translators module: take a post a re-write it with what designers presume... and fill iin what they don't

need to get back to work

For those you interested in promoting the cause of design in the Drupal community, the Design for Drupal group will be having an open conference call every other Monday at 5PM. The first will be happening 3/24/2008.

We'll be discussing the state of building out the http://designfordrupal.org site and seeing how we can all combine forces in pushing this along in the next month or two.

http://connect.studiomodule.com
and type in your name or GDO nickname.

We would have had this call a week or two ago, but our office has been decimated by the flu. Hopefully, everyone else from DrupalCon has been spared.

I look forward to talking you soon and presenting some work-in-progress.

Claudio

DOH... I got to reading this and boy that doesn't help much if I don't read it until 4pm pacific! Definitely will try to do the next one :)
-=liz=-