[Design] 'Design team' in Wikimedia contexts

[Isarra Yos]

From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services
into the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to
me, at least, since design is such an integral part of most
development). Did this happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem
to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds
like front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.

So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?

As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak
up, share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as
it is, I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on
could also clear up quite a bit.

Thanks.

-I

[Sherah Smith]

Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain
consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's
work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and
brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in our work.

Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the design
of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team are not
designers.

Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer"
as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on
combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
"UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.

The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year and
was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from upper
management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the staff
page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example, you will
not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences
for the Editing team.

Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you
feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?

Thank you,

Post by Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into
the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at
least, since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this
happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem to
still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is,
I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Isarra Yos]

Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.

Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when
you stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are
the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they
are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user
experience design process.

Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just
leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to
read and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a
little... different from what you obviously meant.

Thanks!

Post by Sherah Smith
Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to
maintain consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one
another's work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly
talk and brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in
our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the
design of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this
team are not designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual
Designer" as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX
Designer" works on combinations of visual and user experience design,
mostly the latter, and "UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and
interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year
and was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came
from upper management. We do now work within the teams you see listed
on the staff page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for
example, you will not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team
working on experiences for the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that
you feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
Thank you,
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists
and on phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I
understood it, the previous monolithic Design Team was essentially
disbanded toward the beginning of the year, with the designers
themselves distributed amongst the other WMF teams in order to
more directly integrate their services into the development
workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at least,
since design is such an integral part of most development). Did
this happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there
seem to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their
names, Reading Design and Design Research, though these both seem
to have somewhat more specialised functions than just general
design, namely Reading (sounds like front-end non-interactive mw
stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams
only have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF
designers in general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if
you have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this,
please, speak up, share your experience and where you're coming
from. As confusing as it is, I suspect a discussion of what and
why this has been going on could also clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Isarra Yos]

Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place.

Sorry about that!

Post by Isarra Yos
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when
you stated already that you also have specifically visual designers?
Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that
they are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user
experience design process.
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even
just leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really
hard to read and I misread a few things the first time that made it
look a little... different from what you obviously meant.
Thanks!

Post by Sherah Smith
Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to
maintain consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review
one another's work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and
regularly talk and brainstorm in person across teams to support one
another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the
design of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this
team are not designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual
Designer" as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX
Designer" works on combinations of visual and user experience design,
mostly the latter, and "UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes
and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this
year and was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it
came from upper management. We do now work within the teams you see
listed on the staff page, on experiences for those teams
specifically. So for example, you will not see a designer on the
Search & Discovery team working on experiences for the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that
you feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
Thank you,
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists
and on phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I
understood it, the previous monolithic Design Team was
essentially disbanded toward the beginning of the year, with the
designers themselves distributed amongst the other WMF teams in
order to more directly integrate their services into the
development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me,
at least, since design is such an integral part of most
development). Did this happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there
seem to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their
names, Reading Design and Design Research, though these both seem
to have somewhat more specialised functions than just general
design, namely Reading (sounds like front-end non-interactive mw
stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the
teams only have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just
WMF designers in general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific,
if you have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this,
please, speak up, share your experience and where you're coming
from. As confusing as it is, I suspect a discussion of what and
why this has been going on could also clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Jonathan Morgan]

Post by Isarra Yos
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you
stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are the
visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they
are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user
experience design process.

Hi Isarra,

Yeah, the current organizational structure is confusing that way. However,
Design Research works pretty closely with designers (although we don't
currently work on every product... that's partially a capacity issue, and
it needs to change).

To take one example: I've been working with Pau Giner on a series of user
studies to evaluate the design of a new Notifications prototype:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Global_notifications_user_research

And FWIW, 'UX [designer, engineer]' is a title that I've never been able to
parse either ;)

J

Post by Isarra Yos
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just
leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to read
and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a little...
different from what you obviously meant.
Thanks!
Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain
consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's
work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and
brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the design
of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team are not
designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer"
as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on
combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
"UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year and
was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from upper
management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the staff
page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example, you will
not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences
for the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you
feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
Thank you,

Post by Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into
the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at
least, since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this
happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem
to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is,
I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com
donate.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Sherah Smith]

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you

stated already that you also have specifically visual designers?

Because interaction design and visual design are separate things. Visual
designers are hired to design visual components, while UX designers are
hired to design user experiences. Sometimes building experiences involves
visual design, but not always - for example, in cases where we are
innovating new ideas that do not yet have standards.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI Standardization,
along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this?

Roughly:
Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build
interactive prototypes working with Design Research and Designers --->
Designers polish and iterate the prototypes with the prototypers --->
Engineers build the designs


As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the main
difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering background and
applies that to the building (coding) of interactive prototypes.

Post by Isarra Yos
Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place.
Sorry about that!
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you
stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are the
visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they
are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user
experience design process.
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just
leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to read
and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a little...
different from what you obviously meant.
Thanks!
Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain
consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's
work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and
brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the design
of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team are not
designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer"
as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on
combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
"UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year and
was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from upper
management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the staff
page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example, you will
not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences
for the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you
feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
Thank you,

Post by Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into
the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at
least, since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this
happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem
to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is,
I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com
donate.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Isarra Yos]

According to the Staff and Contractors page, May is a 'Visual Experience
Designer', which sounds like exactly what you're describing when it
comes to the overlap between interaction and visual design. Is it just
that you lack the visual design resources currently (one visual designer
who isn't even just visual design does seem a bit insufficient for such
a huge task!) to not overlap your roles?

Also, very cool to see how the roles interact laid out like this.

You're a UX engineer too, right? Does this mean you're often one of the
ones interacting with other engineers/developers?

Sorry if I'm getting a bit off track here - design has always been one
of the more opaque areas of the Foundation, at least from a volunteer
perspective, and it's really nice to get a view of what's going on in
such an integral part of the organisation.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos

Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you stated already that you

also have specifically visual designers?
Because interaction design and visual design are separate things.
Visual designers are hired to design visual components, while UX
designers are hired to design user experiences. Sometimes building
experiences involves visual design, but not always - for example, in
cases where we are innovating new ideas that do not yet have standards.

Post by Isarra Yos

Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI
Standardization, along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer.

Post by Isarra Yos

How does Design Research relate to the rest of this?

Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build
interactive prototypes working with Design Research and Designers --->
Designers polish and iterate the prototypes with the prototypers --->
Engineers build the designs
As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the main
difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering background and
applies that to the building (coding) of interactive prototypes.
Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place.
Sorry about that!

Post by Isarra Yos
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual
when you stated already that you also have specifically visual
designers? Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI
standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state
that they are not designers, but their work is an integral part
of the user experience design process.
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or
even just leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is
really hard to read and I misread a few things the first time
that made it look a little... different from what you obviously
meant.
Thanks!

Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out
under different managers with no centralized Director, we still
consider ourselves a "team" in that we still work together
across teams to maintain consistency and provide feedback,
collaborate, and review one another's work where needed. We have
a weekly meeting and regularly talk and brainstorm in person
across teams to support one another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs
the design of products we build on all other teams. The
employees on this team are not designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs
reading experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see
"Visual Designer" as a title, that person works on visual
designs. "UX Designer" works on combinations of visual and user
experience design, mostly the latter, and "UX Engineer" builds
interactive prototypes and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April
this year and was not a decision the design team itself made.
Rather, it came from upper management. We do now work within the
teams you see listed on the staff page, on experiences for those
teams specifically. So for example, you will not see a designer
on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences for the
Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization
that you feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer
your questions?
Thank you,
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on
lists and on phabricator. But what does this really mean
now? As I understood it, the previous monolithic Design Team
was essentially disbanded toward the beginning of the year,
with the designers themselves distributed amongst the other
WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services
into the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty
good idea to me, at least, since design is such an integral
part of most development). Did this happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors,
there seem to still be two teams now with the word 'design'
in their names, Reading Design and Design Research, though
these both seem to have somewhat more specialised functions
than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the
teams only have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it
just WMF designers in general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more
specific, if you have an actual answer, or if you have been
saying this, please, speak up, share your experience and
where you're coming from. As confusing as it is, I suspect a
discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585 <tel:[phone]>
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Sherah Smith]

Yes, you are correct, we have one visual designer, May, and she is working
on UI Standardization right now. Ideally we would have more visual
designers but you are correct about resources.

And yes, I am a UX engineer and I mainly interact with Design Research and
Design. I build mobile prototypes that we take to users for testing before
iterating/releasing them. I do not typically interact with engineers these
days as I am on the design side of things. :)

Post by Isarra Yos
According to the Staff and Contractors page, May is a 'Visual Experience
Designer', which sounds like exactly what you're describing when it comes
to the overlap between interaction and visual design. Is it just that you
lack the visual design resources currently (one visual designer who isn't
even just visual design does seem a bit insufficient for such a huge task!)
to not overlap your roles?
Also, very cool to see how the roles interact laid out like this.
You're a UX engineer too, right? Does this mean you're often one of the
ones interacting with other engineers/developers?
Sorry if I'm getting a bit off track here - design has always been one of
the more opaque areas of the Foundation, at least from a volunteer
perspective, and it's really nice to get a view of what's going on in such
an integral part of the organisation.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when

you stated already that you also have specifically visual designers?
Because interaction design and visual design are separate things. Visual
designers are hired to design visual components, while UX designers are
hired to design user experiences. Sometimes building experiences involves
visual design, but not always - for example, in cases where we are
innovating new ideas that do not yet have standards.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI Standardization,
along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this?

Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build
interactive prototypes working with Design Research and Designers --->
Designers polish and iterate the prototypes with the prototypers --->
Engineers build the designs
As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the main
difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering background and
applies that to the building (coding) of interactive prototypes.

Post by Isarra Yos
Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place.
Sorry about that!
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you
stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are the
visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they
are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user
experience design process.
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just
leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to read
and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a little...
different from what you obviously meant.
Thanks!
Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider
ourselves a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain
consistency and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's
work where needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and
brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the
design of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team
are not designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer"
as a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on
combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
"UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year
and was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from
upper management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the
staff page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example,
you will not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on
experiences for the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you
feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
Thank you,

Post by Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into
the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at
least, since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this
happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem
to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is,
I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com
donate.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com
donate.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Isarra Yos]

Resources are often a limiting factor in these things, and not even in
places where one would normally expect, it seems like. Unfortunately
when priorities are all over the place, what can you even do?

I'm a little confused by your second paragraph, though - if not the UX
engineers, then who is getting the prototypes to the product engineers
and making sure they're properly made?

Also, thank you so much for taking the time to respond to all of this.

Post by Sherah Smith
Yes, you are correct, we have one visual designer, May, and she is
working on UI Standardization right now. Ideally we would have more
visual designers but you are correct about resources.
And yes, I am a UX engineer and I mainly interact with Design Research
and Design. I build mobile prototypes that we take to users for
testing before iterating/releasing them. I do not typically interact
with engineers these days as I am on the design side of things. :)
According to the Staff and Contractors page, May is a 'Visual
Experience Designer', which sounds like exactly what you're
describing when it comes to the overlap between interaction and
visual design. Is it just that you lack the visual design
resources currently (one visual designer who isn't even just
visual design does seem a bit insufficient for such a huge task!)
to not overlap your roles?
Also, very cool to see how the roles interact laid out like this.
You're a UX engineer too, right? Does this mean you're often one
of the ones interacting with other engineers/developers?
Sorry if I'm getting a bit off track here - design has always been
one of the more opaque areas of the Foundation, at least from a
volunteer perspective, and it's really nice to get a view of
what's going on in such an integral part of the organisation.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos

Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you stated

already that you also have specifically visual designers?
Because interaction design and visual design are separate things.
Visual designers are hired to design visual components, while UX
designers are hired to design user experiences. Sometimes
building experiences involves visual design, but not always - for
example, in cases where we are innovating new ideas that do not
yet have standards.

Post by Isarra Yos

Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI
Standardization, along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer.

Post by Isarra Yos

How does Design Research relate to the rest of this?

Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build
interactive prototypes working with Design Research and Designers
---> Designers polish and iterate the prototypes with the
prototypers ---> Engineers build the designs
As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the
main difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering
background and applies that to the building (coding) of
interactive prototypes.
Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the
first place.
Sorry about that!

Post by Isarra Yos
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do
visual when you stated already that you also have
specifically visual designers? Are the visual designers the
ones doing the UI standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You
state that they are not designers, but their work is an
integral part of the user experience design process.
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour
(or even just leave it as the default) for your emails? That
grey is really hard to read and I misread a few things the
first time that made it look a little... different from what
you obviously meant.
Thanks!

Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split
out under different managers with no centralized Director,
we still consider ourselves a "team" in that we still work
together across teams to maintain consistency and provide
feedback, collaborate, and review one another's work where
needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and
brainstorm in person across teams to support one another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that
informs the design of products we build on all other teams.
The employees on this team are not designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs
reading experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you
see "Visual Designer" as a title, that person works on
visual designs. "UX Designer" works on combinations of
visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
"UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late
April this year and was not a decision the design team
itself made. Rather, it came from upper management. We do
now work within the teams you see listed on the staff page,
on experiences for those teams specifically. So for
example, you will not see a designer on the Search &
Discovery team working on experiences for the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this
organization that you feel like we should be discussing, or
does this answer your questions?
Thank you,
On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team'
on lists and on phabricator. But what does this really
mean now? As I understood it, the previous monolithic
Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves
distributed amongst the other WMF teams in order to
more directly integrate their services into the
development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good
idea to me, at least, since design is such an integral
part of most development). Did this happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors,
there seem to still be two teams now with the word
'design' in their names, Reading Design and Design
Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely
Reading (sounds like front-end non-interactive mw
stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these,
though the teams only have 5 and 4 people on them,
respectively? Is it just WMF designers in general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more
specific, if you have an actual answer, or if you have
been saying this, please, speak up, share your
experience and where you're coming from. As confusing
as it is, I suspect a discussion of what and why this
has been going on could also clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585 <tel:[phone]>
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585 <tel:[phone]>
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
--
*Sherah Smith*
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com <http://sherahsmith.com>
donate.wikipedia.org <http://donate.wikipedia.org>
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[May Tee-Galloway]

To add more about Visual designers, they work on designing visual
experiences, which includes the visual design and consistency of a
brand, which then happen to include components or anything that falls
within that realm. If an experience does not require users to see to
experience, we wouldn't need to visualize it, hence no visual design.

There isn't a pure visual designer in the foundation, I'm a Visual
Experience Designer, which means I am more of a visual designer but I
also work on user experience. The role between Visual and Experience
designers are distinct, but often the line can be blur. Some UX
designers also have varying degrees of visual design chops here.

But, I agree with you that we need more Visual Designers. UxD and VD
cannot come up with great experiences by themselves. I'm sure you know
that without Design Research, UxD and VD, the whole experience would
be mediocre and inconsistent. We used to have Visual Design interns
where they get to be integrated into more teams, but we no longer have
budget for something like that. We try to make things happen with what
we have!

mm

Post by Sherah Smith

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you
stated already that you also have specifically visual designers?

Because interaction design and visual design are separate things. Visual
designers are hired to design visual components, while UX designers are
hired to design user experiences. Sometimes building experiences involves
visual design, but not always - for example, in cases where we are
innovating new ideas that do not yet have standards.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?

May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI Standardization,
along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer.

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this?

Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build interactive
prototypes working with Design Research and Designers ---> Designers polish
and iterate the prototypes with the prototypers ---> Engineers build the
designs
As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the main
difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering background and applies
that to the building (coding) of interactive prototypes.

Post by Isarra Yos
Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place.
Sorry about that!
Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot.
Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you
stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are the
visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation?
How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they
are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user experience
design process.
Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just
leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to read
and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a little...
different from what you obviously meant.
Thanks!
Hi Isarra,

Post by Isarra Yos

Post by Isarra Yos
what is the 'design team'?

Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under
different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider ourselves
a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain consistency
and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's work where
needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and brainstorm in person
across teams to support one another in our work.
Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the design
of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team are not
designers.
Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading
experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer" as
a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on
combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and
"UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design.
The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year and
was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from upper
management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the staff
page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example, you will
not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences for
the Editing team.
Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you
feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions?
Thank you,

Post by Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst the
other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into the
development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at least,
since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this happen?
According to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors,
there seem to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names,
Reading Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat
more specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds
like front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is, I
suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also clear
up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
Sherah Smith
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com
donate.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

--
Sherah Smith
UX Engineer
Wikimedia Foundation
206-660-6585
sherahsmith.com
donate.wikipedia.org
_______________________________________________
Design mailing list
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design

[Quim Gil]

Hi, this is a very interesting conversation, and I hope the most
informative bits are reflected in https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Design

By the way, we are discussing the use of the term "Design" in the WMF
product development process, as a stage involving not only visual/UX design
but also architecture, performance, operations... Your feedback is welcomed.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/WMF_product_development_process#Design

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:Srypura34nh1njr4

[Toby Negrin]

Hi Isarra --

I can clarify the way design is organized at the Foundation; the actual org
page I'll have to leave to someone else.

There are currently designers sitting in the vertical teams, but as the
teams themselves are organized slightly differently, it's hard to
understand.

For example, the reading design team is composed of the designers and
engineers that work on Wikipedia and sister sites' reading experiences and
discovery is organized the same way. In editing, the designers are in the
various product teams.

There are two teams that provide support to all of the audiences teams --
Design Research and UX Standardization. Design Research lives under
Research and UX Standardization is in Reading.

This is a start; happy to provide more clarifications.

-Toby

Post by Isarra Yos
From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on
phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the
previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the
beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst
the other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into
the development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at
least, since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this
happen? According to
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, there seem to
still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, Reading
Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat more
specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds like
front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research.
So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only
have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in
general?
As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you
have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up,
share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is,
I suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also
clear up quite a bit.
Thanks.
-I
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