Help requested for Ubuntu Brainstorm response on Unity Dash - Contact Lens

[Allison Randal]

Thanks, I'll participate.

On 09/08/2011 07:10 AM, Colin Watson wrote:
> Once you've read the details below, please respond with an
> acknowledgement and let me know if you can participate.  The expected
> time investment is on the order of a couple of hours over the next two
> weeks.
> 
> Last November, the Technical Board recently began a new program to
> respond to top voted topics on Ubuntu Brainstorm:
> 
>   http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2010/11/03/weathering-the-ubuntu-brainstorm/
> 
> with the first two rounds of responses summarised here:
> 
>   http://mdzlog.alcor.net/2010/12/10/ubuntu-brainstorm-top-10-for-december-2010/
>   http://www.piware.de/2011/04/top-ideas-on-ubuntu-brainstorm-march-2011/
> 
> Our goal is to improve our responsiveness to the questions, concerns and
> suggestions we receive from the user community.  Note that this does NOT
> mean that we will commit to following the suggestions, but we will
> evaluate and respond to them.  By explaining what we will (or won't) do
> and why, we will show that we are paying attention and trying to make
> good decisions on behalf of our users.
> 
> The way the program works is that the Technical Board identifies people
> within the Ubuntu project who are knowledgeable in the specific topics
> proposed in Brainstorm, and asks each of them to write a short response
> to one topic.
> 
> One of the most popular topics in Brainstorm at present is a request for
> a contact lens in the Unity Dash:
> 
>   http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/27584/
> 
> Since you are well versed in the technology involved, and Allison
> expressed interest when we talked about this Brainstorm review, we would
> appreciate if you could spend a short time reading the Brainstorm
> content about it and writing a few paragraphs.  You don't need to have
> all the answers, and I encourage you to ask for input from others who
> might have a view on the issue.  This can be in the form of a detailed
> upstream bug report, a blog post, an email, or any other suitable
> format.  It shouldn't take more than an hour or two to complete.
> 
> Our goal is to have everything ready for publication by the 27th of
> September.  Can you confirm that you're willing and able to help with
> this?
> 
> You can formulate your response as you see fit, but make sure that the
> tone is sympathetic.  Many of the comments in Brainstorm take the form
> of demands or complaints: just treat these as if they were questions,
> and answer them politely.  Try to listen to the *need* behind the
> suggestion, not just the suggestion itself, and connect with your
> audience by telling a story about it.
> 
> Here are some example formulas which might be helpful to you:
> 
>  * "It sounds like the problem described here is X.  We address that in
>    Ubuntu today by doing A, B and C.  Maybe that's not working for
>    everyone because of Y.  We could improve this by doing Z."
> 
>  * "I would love to see a new feature like that in Ubuntu.  It's
>    consistent with the way other parts of Ubuntu work, and seems
>    genuinely useful.  We're busy with some higher priority projects at
>    the moment like X, but if someone is interested in writing a patch
>    for this, I will help them get it into Ubuntu and upstream."
> 
>  * "This is a really hard problem without an easy solution.  It's
>    complex because of X, Y and Z.  It will take some time for this to be
>    completely solved, but here are a few projects we're working on which
>    will make things better, bit by bit."
> 
>  * "That's an easy fix.  I've written a patch and uploaded it to
>    Oneiric.  It will be in the 11.10 release!"
> 
>  * "That's a great idea, and we already thought of it!  Here's the
>    blueprint, and here's how you can follow along as this gets
>    implemented in Natty."
> 
>  * "I passed on your suggestion to the upstream developer of the
>    software, and we had a conversation about it.  Here's what we
>    decided."
> 
>  * "This seems like a genuine problem, but I'm not sure that's the right
>    solution, because of X and Y.  I asked our usability expert Jill
>    about this, and here's what she suggested."
> 
>  * "I didn't understand what the problem was here, so I had a
>    conversation on IRC with Jamie, who submitted this topic to
>    Brainstorm to understand better.  Here's how it went:
> 
>    [...]
> 
>    In the end, we both decided that the best course of action is X."
> 
> If you have any further questions about what is expected here, please
> let me know.
> 
> Thank you in advance!
>