oneweek|onetool: an experiment in interdisciplinary, rapid, open source software development
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OneWeek|OneTool An Experiment in Interdisciplinary, Rapid, Open Source Software Development
Sponsor/Organizer Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
FunderThe National Endowment for the Humanities, Office of Digital Humanities
Effie [email protected]: @digitaleffie
What it is
• “Digital Humanities Barn-Raising”
• 12 “digital humanists”• 6 days in “isolation”
How it worked: Learning & planning
• Sunday nightOverview + Get-to-Know-You
• Monday morningBrief seminars(Outreach/Open Source Software Development, Digital Humanities)
• Monday afternoonBrainstorming
• Tuesday morningTeam + Twitter voting, teams formed (Development, Outreach, UX)
= 2 days
How it worked: Doing/Testing/Refining/Launching
Tuesday afternoon - Saturday afternoon
= 4 days
Work in teams with BRIEF morning/ evening check-ins
Guiding Principles: Center for History & New Media
• Build something that will be used• Keep tool simple & focused• Outreach and marketing are important for building user
& developer community• Make decisions and move on (“Leadership is
momentum-making,” Tom Scheinfeldt.)
Jeremy Dan Sheila Tom Sharon Trevor
Creative Lead Director
Director of Public Projects
Community Lead
Assoc. Dir. of Public Projects
ManagingDirector
Team Outreach Approach/Reflections
• Illustrate a compelling story for potential users/developers-why should they care?
• Create buzz where users are• Divide & conquer/Trust• Outreach doesn’t stop at release
Project Mgt/ Copywriter/Outreach/ Designer
Copywriter/ Editor/ Grant Writer
Design/Multimedia Prod./ WP Site Builder
Social Media Guru/ WP Site Builder/Writer
Effie Doug Zach Jana
Team UX Approach/Reflections•ID’d real-world use case scenarios and built use cases
•Evaluated similar projects.
•The diversity of backgrounds in the OWOT crew was a benefit
•2 days in, Jason & Scott moved to the dev team to pitch in on some UI/AJAX development. Kathie worked iteratively with the dev team to build wireframes and UI documentation.
Kathie Jason Scott
Project Mgt/ I.A
I.A/ Java-Ajax Hijinx
I.A/ Java-Ajax Hijinx
Team Dev. Approach• Forced parallel development • Constant communication and trust• Good-enough prototyping • Decide and go• Design software around technical strengths as
well as our hypothetical users’ needs
Metadata Badass
WordpressGuru
XSLT Transfixor
“Glue”
Julie
SteveBoone
Patrick MJ Patrick R.
pdf -Tamer
Results• 6,000 downloads
since Aug. 3, 2010• Active user & dev.
forums• Press• We learned a ton.
What worked
• Bringing together a group of do-ers
• Ratio of doing vs. planning• Quick timeframe kept egos out• Diversity of skills on one team• Living & working together• Common goal
What didn’t work• More doing!• More cross-learning• Post-release, we have
our day-jobs• Not enough time for
UX
Future
• Continue to develop tool – Recent 0.5 alpha release (10/2010)
• Continue dissemination of software with online outreach and conferences
• Apply for more grants
How is it different than our environment?
• Ratio of Planning vs. Doing is flipped • Minimal risk-taking• We stay in our roles
One Week | One Tool http://oneweekonetool.org/Anthologize http://anthologize.orgCenter for History & New Media http://chnm.gmu.edu/ Twitter #AnthologizeEffie Kapsalis [email protected] / @digitaleffie