Summary Notes

These are the notes from a brainstorming session between Katie and Sheila regarding the strategy and plan for 0.6. We met and talked about various scenarios for proceeding with a shorter release for 0.6 that focuses on fixing some of the existing problems. This proposal is at an apps team perspective and will need to be vetted with the services team as well.

Attendees:

Sheila, Katie

Agenda

• Should we re-examine the goals for 0.6 based on the state of 0.5?
• What are the proposals?
• What would go in 0.6a, 0.6b etc?
• What are the outstanding decisions to be made?
• What questions do we have for Mitch?
• Next steps.

Notes

Should we re-examining the goals for 0.6 based on the state of 0.5?

• Yes. Currently, the 0.5 release is being extended to complete work on functionality that needs to be more polish or fully built out to enhance the overall product experienced based on our goals for 0.5.
• In some cases, we are doing temporary fixes that will need to be reworked or improved before we support new features ie: detail view, notifications.
• Some areas of 0.5 were not fully built out and it's difficult to evaluate whether or not the feature really works correctly. ie: sidebar lacking visual feedback.
• Some visual polish goals are being re-evaluated since they seem key to the user experience and we are examining whether or not time needs to be spent up front on some of these things ie: fonts, polish.
• We are proposing that we revisit the goals for 0.6 to address certain areas of the app and fix what doesn't work BEFORE adding any new features.

What are the proposals?

• With the above issues, reflections and goals in mind we see 2 specific proposals for 0.6.
  • Proposal #1: Shortened 0.6 release that only addresses fixing a specific set of the existing problems so we can move forward with the new functionality.
    • Short 0.6 ~10 weeks
    • Little design, we can start working right away. Most of these problems don't need much design work, the specs exist, bugs are logged. We pretty much know what we need to do.
    • We wouldn't show any new features, simply finish what is already there in the app.
    • We would have something concrete and demoable at the end with a release number etc.
    • Seems like a logical set of goals.
  • Proposal #2: Regular 0.6 release that front loads all of the existing problem fixes to the beginning of the release (part 0.6a) The later part of the release (0.6b) will work in SOME of the feature work described in the current 0.6 plan. The 0.6b section could not be defined until after 0.5 is released and the 0.6a work has been detailed, scoped, resourced and scheduled.
    • Similar length to 0.5.
    • 0.6a would be equivalent in functionality and goals as proposal #1.
    • There would be less visability as to what is in 0.6b until after we complete 0.5.
    • There is some risk that adding on the extra time for 0.6b may not really be able to support full features we had scheduled for 0.6 orginally, we may end up with 1/2way features again. There is some worry that this may be distracting.
    • On the other hand, we would make some progress on the currently planned 0.6 functionality which would not be really addressed in proposal #1.

What would go in 0.6a, 0.6b?

Based on what needs to be finished and what is currently scheduled for 0.6, here is a 3 staged plan for the apps team.

Stage 1 - 0.6a or Short 0.6

• Detail View Refactoring
  • use Attribute Editor for all fields
  • real notifications solution
  • work on fonts, icons
  • some of this would also apply to the summary table view
• Summary Table View
  • attribute editor renderer
  • fix columns and content model
• Sidebar
  • message counts
  • unread messages
  • sidebar visual feedback, collections
• Understand detailed Widgets plan
  • what widgets are needed when
  • what is already being worked on.
• Other chrome, polish, fonts, ui cleanup
  • this may effect, parcel loading, styles
  • need a concrete list of specific items - Mimi, Sheila and Mitch should put this together
  • overall font cleanup - specify this

Stage 2 - Some of this for 0.6b

• Deletion and Trash
• Triage Dashboard
  • content model work
  • widgets work
  • detail view work
  • summary table view work
• Search
  • add text edit box
  • hook to collection
  • backend
• Design of Undo functionality

Stage 3 - Move to 0.7

• Sharing - next steps
  • work on sharing detail view
  • storing events in iCalendar format
• Email
  • attachments ui
  • reply, reply all, forward
  • email addressing
  • iMip invitations
• Calendar
  • import/export
  • recurrence - content model, detail view
• Date Time fields
  • detail view
• IMAP Folders

What are the outstanding decisions/questions?

• How does the Services team plan fit into these proposals?
• Do we have the right content for 0.6a, 0.6b?
• What is the correct polish list for 0.6a?
• What should be our message for 0.6?
• How does the team feel about this stretegy?

What questions do we have for Mitch?

• What is your overall reaction?
• Do you have a preference for proposal #1 or proposal #2? Would you like to have something at the end of the cleanup stage that is a dedicated release, demoable etc?
• What level of involvement in the planning/defining 0.6a?

Next steps

• Setup a discussion with Lisa for next week.
• Review these proposals with Mitch this week.
• Start working on details for 0.6a.