Maarten Verbaarschot volunteered to take on a Microproject (thanks Maarten!) and for the past few weeks he has been working on interface design for a Media Library for Drupal. There is a great discussion going on in the Drupal.org issue queue that you might want to take a look at.

Maarten is currently working on the third iteration of these wireframes but he’d really love it if you can take a look and give him some feedback – anyone who has ever added an image to a web page should be able to have a say on this interface, so don’t hold back!

In particular, Maarten is looking for some user stories where users would be uploading content using this Media Library interface rather than uploading whilst in the process of creating a ‘node’ (story, article, post etc.). I know I have a couple but if you do also perhaps you can share them in the comments below or on the issue queue thread (if you’re a member of Drupal.org or would like to be!)

He is also working on an interactive prototype for this, and would love a little help from someone with good JavaScript skills so if you’re so inclined, please comment below.

You can see the work that Maarten has done so far here:

* Iteration 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mverbaar/sets/72157620755726297/
* Iteration 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mverbaar/sets/72157620894822174/
* Iteration 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mverbaar/sets/72157620894824094/ (in progress)

We really look forward to your feedback (here, on the flickr photos, on the issue queue, wherever is most comfortable for you).

Thank you Maarten for all your hard work so far! You rock!

And thank you to Maarten’s employers, Merge, for sponsoring a week of his time to work on this project. You rock too!

To kick there projects off I’m creating a home for them over in the Issue Queue on Drupal.org, but I’ll create an index of them for you here so you can dip in and out as you please

Please also feel free to leave any general feedback about the overall Microproject concept/framework as a comment to this post.

Active Microprojects: (in no particular order)

• D7UX Microproject – Dashboard Widget for Traffic Data
• D7UX Microproject – Missing Critical Blog Functionality
• D7UX Microproject – My Profile Page
• D7UX Microproject – Dashboard Widget for Watchdog Data
• D7UX Microproject – Missing Critical Forum Functionality

Note – there are still quite a few more waiting to come online, as time permits – I’ll update the comments below as more are added.

What is this?

An opportunity for UX people to work with Drupal developers to solve specific, finite and modular user interface issues. No previous experience or knowledge of Drupal is required.

A UX volunteer will be paired with module developer(s) to work on the interface and UX aspects of a module, create wireframes that capture UX recommendations which may then be implemented by the developer(s).

A Drupal UX Mentor will provide guidance and support as required. We’re estimating that each microproject will require no more than 12 hours of a UX Volunteer’s time and those hours can be spread, flexibly, over a 3 week period.

Why are we doing this?

• to give UX professionals an opportunity to ‘try out’ designing in an Open Source Community (and hopefully love it so much they stay!)
• to give developers the opportunity and framework to engage with designers/UX professionals to maximise the usability of their module
• to get feedback and insight into how we can help designers and developers to engage in a much more holistic way on an ongoing basis
• to spread the UX workload and maximise the improvements available for inclusion in D7
• to help make Drupal 7 an amazing user experience!

How will it work?

This is a brand new and somewhat experimental initiative so your involvement will be instrumental in shaping the way the process works, but this is what we have in mind:

• 26 May – 1 June 09 – Call for participation: see ‘Get Involved’ below.
• 2 – 10 June 09 – Cross Matching: We’ll assign UX volunteers to modules and introduce the teams!
• 10 June – 1 July 09 – Engagement
  A three week period will be assigned for the participants to work together to improve the UX of their assigned module.The work involves
  o Developers briefing the UX people on how the module works and anything they need to know about how Drupal works
  o UX people creating wireframes or prototypes (your call!)
  o UX people and developers collaborate to finetune the user interface and perhaps do a little guerilla usability testing (if possible/appropriate).
• 1 – 8 July 09 – Evaluation
  Each participant will be asked to submit a brief evaluation of their experience (what was good, what was challenging, how they’d do things differently next time, how things could be better) so that we can learn more about how to foster the engagement between Designers/UX people and Module Developers throughout the open source development lifecycle.

What kind of projects?

We would love to sign up around half a dozen microprojects. Here are some examples of projects we think would be perfect as a microproject:

• design a great WYSIWIG Editor interface for Drupal 7
• design the interface for a great media library for Drupal 7
• design some great dashboard widgets for Drupal 7

There will be opportunities to get involved in more complex UI projects for D7UX and we’re working closely with the Drupal Usability team to define and collaborate on these.

Get involved!

Want to get involved? Yay! We’d love to have you aboard!

• If you’re a UX person who’s interested in participating, leave a note in the comments below (and use your real email address in the comment form so we can contact you!)
• If you’re a Drupal developer and you’d like some UX love for your module, add a link to your module project page or even the specific issue if there is one and give a quick summary of what the module does and what the main user interface challenges are.
• If you’ve got some ideas for what needs UX attention (task ideas) even if you’re not a designer or developer – feel free to post your suggestions in the comments below

We’re really looking forward to working with you all on these projects and seeing what we can achieve in the coming weeks!

ps. want to find out more about how you can get involved in the Drupal Usability Community? Come say hello here and see what we’re up to!