Attendees:

• Deborah Limb,
• Ryan Adams,
• Paul Welch,
• Daryl Hedley,
• Sven Laux

Notes:

• Requirements:
  • We reminded the group of the task of reviewing the requirements by 28th Feb 2014 and acknowledged the feedback and engagement from the community. Feedback so far is generally very positive and some additional requirements had been captured.
• Current work:
  • We agreed that the design stream has to continue trying to leapfrog ahead of the development being undertaken. The key objective is that we produce well-thought through specification documentation and user interface designs for the developers to implement.
  • The primary purpose of the design and specification documentation is to inform the developers on 'what to build'. We acknowledge that this is detailed documentation as part of a software development project. 
  • We agreed to organise the design stream into sprints and work on the UI and the specification in the same agile methodology as the development stream.
  • Design sprints will tackle small and relevant chunks (rather than a complete spec), which will then feed into the upcoming development sprints.
  • We reviewed the documentation examples posted as part of the last set of notes and agreed that:
    • We will concentrate on working visually first (in a mockup/design tool).
    • We will develop and talk through UI design snippets (in line with relevant / urgently needed user stories). We will use annotation and conversation to review / explore the designs.
    • Once satisfied with the flow of the mockups, we will sense check the designs back against the requirements and high-level information architecture (see relevant attachment).
    • Given success in the previous set of steps, we will then write up the use cases to provide sufficient detail for the developers.
  • We will aim for consistent design patterns and a resulting consistent interface. We will extract the design patterns after the first few sprints and document them rather than trying to establish them ahead of time.
  • We have set up trials of three design tools, including Balsamiq Mockups, Mockflow and UX Pin. We have agreed to trial until Friday 21st and then make a decision on the tool we will use.

Any comments and additions welcome!

Sven