Suggestions on my GSoC proposal

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Tuesday 24 March 2009, Ana Cecília Martins Barbosa wrote:
> Here is the link: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddxppm45_13cc2rrqcw

welcome to the project; thanks for the SoC proposal.

now let's do a pros and cons list! :)

pros:

* i like that you are planning on starting with user research, and will be 
starting before the beginning of SoC so that you can start coding during the 
SoC period (which Google really cares about; they don't like projects that 
aren't producing code during SoC to get approved)

* you clearly state how you will be working with the community

* this is something that really needs to be done :)


cons:

* there have been some mock ups offered already, it might be useful to find 
and reference those. you can find some of them on planetkde.org even :)

* there are few functionality requirements listed in your proposal, which 
makes it feel a bit vague. it's a bit risky to bet a SoC slot on something 
that isn't a bit more specific. obviously, you need to do some user research 
to move to specifics, but the functional requirements are clear already and 
include:

	* ability to easily select and create a widget
	* fast/easy browsing even of larger collections of widgets
		* widgets shown in categories
	* ability to install / remove new kinds of widgets

iow, spend a few sentences explaining what the widget explorer is and what it 
needs to do as a baseline measure of its utility.

* the "about me" section is a bit too short. do you have experience with c++? 
Qt? etc..

value neutral points:

* i'm not really sure what the user value is in rating widgets unless you can 
share that information with others. and then it becomes a social / referral 
system. unless there's an online component to this information (probably via 
the Open Collaboration API stuff), i don't think we should add such things to 
the interface

* grouping of widgets could be very interesting, but probably only appeal to 
fairly limited groups of people and only as we get larger collections of them. 
i almost wonder if this isn't something more related to containment 
save/restore than the widget explorer itself?

good luck! :)

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software

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