DATE: 09.01.05
OBJECTIVE: Practically improve the usability of Open Source software products.
CONTEXT:  [Hallway] Open Source software development is characterized by engineering-driven priorities & timelines. They are typically projects where a developer has either become fascinated with a technical problem or has identified a business case and works with great independence to create a working solution using public code libraries and submitting their code to public use. Often these projects are un-funded labors of love executed with great energy and creativity but without the emphasis upon team work that is found in commercial software development. Market forces require greater dependence on deadlines and documentation in for-fee development than in Open Source projects; successful commercial development has learned the hard way that solid user-focused design is neglected at significant peril to the Bottom Line of returns on investment. Open Source developers are now learning that much of their hard work will be wasted if few users can understand how to use their product. Open Source projects most often do not have the luxury (or the baggage) of a large cross-functional team that has become commonplace in commercial shops. Open Source developers have not had to commit energy to reading, writing and revising based upon team documentation but have instead forged ahead with sometimes brilliant result. A central challenge in working to create more usable (and therefore more viable) Open Source software is to employ usefully rigorous user-focused design techniques without sacrificing the creative immediacy of independent development. In common with technical development in general any solutions offered should be appropriate to available resources and sustainable over time.

KEYWORDS:  social network, collaboration, Open Source, hallway conversations, Extreme Usability
SPONSOR:  Hallway Team

CONTRIBUTORS
Michael Mell
Victor Grey
Eugene Eric Kim
Kasey Asberry

DOCUMENTATION 

• Hallway instances Sept 2005
  2idi.com running release_0.1, using real i-names http://hallway.2idi.com
  head.idcommons.net , running trunk code using test i-names http://halldev.2idi.com
  
• Hallway v.21 prototype
• Functional Specification
• Diagrams
  • Overview
    Note: Navigate using legend.
  • Revision 1
    09.30.05.
• Usability Test Plans & Results
  • v1 Analysis
  • v2 Analysis

Description:  Hallway is an open source event registration and social networking tool. It's based on software written by Mike Mell originally for the Planetwork 2004 Conference.

Objective: Hallway was a test project for FLOSS Usability Sprints I & II, 2005 where the concept of "Extreme Usability" was generated and applied. Networking occurred between developers, community users and usability practitioners. This study aims to extend ideas generated there to concretely improve the usability of Hallway and share results for application to other projects.

SUMMARY RESULTS:  We propose to emulate best practices of ongoing cross-functional team development without sacrificing the developer's enthusiasm for the project. This will require a distributed team & shared documentation (including timeline) for quick feedback loops and discipline based on esteem for the project. The original development team driven by Michael Mell (with Victor Grey at Identity Commons & Eugene Kim's company Blue Oxen Associates) will be expanded to include an additional test client and an experience architect. Driven by the developer and businesss users and documented by the architect the project team will validate a timeline of contribution and development cycles and then deliver on them.