Talk:Firefox S5

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[edit] Response to "Open Source Thinking" by Cliff Atkinson :)

This is in repsonse to the feedback from Cliff Atkinson.

1. Start with the slide design first. We all start thinking about PowerPoint templates first, but when we do, we rigidly enforce a visual structure on every single slide. What if the best solution is no background? What if visual variety is important to keep an audience's attention? What if it's a better idea to apply a design approach that balances visuals and spoken words in a slide/page hybrid? Too bad, because we've already enforced closed-source slide layouts.

In no way has this, or will this, project enforce any form of closed-source slide layout. As I have said before, it is impossible to make a one-size-fits-all presentation, which is why this needs to be as open and as generic as possible.

It is unfortunate that so many people have jumped into doing the designs and so few into the content, but you are right: that is the way people think. However, it is also the philosiphy of the web to keep content and presentation seperate from each other - i.e. Stylesheets for this should work well completely independant of the content, so that any stylesheet may be used with any slide show and any slide show may make use of the stylesheet.

2. Conform to a bullet point approach. Virtually all PowerPoint templates are set up for bullet points, as in this example. What if a full-screen photograph is best? What if placing the same text on a slide that you read verbally actually harms understanding? Too bad, because we've already enforced closed-source slide design.

If you want to add a slide with bullet points, go for it! If you want some slides with a few paragraphs of a story, go for it!. If you want a slide to be one big screenshot, or a collection of quotes from news articles, go for it! It does not need to be bullet points, even though the only examples I have at the moment are. Having said that though, I will update the Creating Content section to reflect this. It was initially written quickly without much thought, but with every intention to be improved later.

3. Focus on structure last. Once the design is out of the way, then we look at ways to structure the bullet points that we'll put on those pre-formatted slides. But what if a story structure is more persuasive than a bullet point structure? What if writing a script first helps distill and focus information to prevent cognitive overload? Too bad, becuase we've already enforced closed-source presentation structure.

We haven't enforced anything, the project is designed to create a set of slides that may be used to mix 'n' match with each other, to create the most appropriate slide show for the presenter's needs. Also, because there is not just one design, the presenter can pick the most appropriate stylesheet, modify an existing one or even create a new one to fit their needs. --Lachlan.hunt 06:49, 15 Mar 2005 (GMT)

Hi Lachlan, thanks for opening up the conversation. I'd like to reiterate as I did in my post that this is not a critique of this project in specific, but of the way we collectively, as a culture, create presentations. Again, I think Firefox is a great project and my comments are in the interest of helping you to do well with it.

Whether or not we are conscious of it, we share a collective mindset about presentations that produces remarkably consistent results across organizations and cultures. The most visible evidence is the bullet point approach that we see in every presentation, and that every audience complains about. Why do we approach presentations this way? The most articulate description of the situation has been described by the most prolific researcher in the field of educational psychology, described here. :If our goal is information presentation, we can put bullets on a slide and we're done. If our goal is cognitive guidance - the audience will understand and apply the information - then 12 years of research indicates that text on screen is not the best way to go; and in fact it actually can harm understanding.

I think the way to move forward is to agree to an alternative "open source" structure that many people can then take and build upon, to meet their needs. The structure I propose is a persuasive story structure that's based on ideas 2,400 years old as described Aristotle. If we agree that persuasion (and cognitive guidance) are our goals, then the presentation process starts to resemble the filmmaking process. We need a common story first, which a writer usually produces in the form of a script, then any number of directors could take that as a start and produce a range of styles that meet their own vision and purposes.

So what I propose is that we figure out the persuasive story first, and with that as a starting point, open that up to creative interpretatio0n and applications. -Cliff

Indeed, we do need to start with the script first. I was intending to get started with an essay, as I call it, that would basically talk about the features, benefits, etc... of firefox, from which I would then convert to useful slides. I'd been discussing this over MSN messenger just the other day with Charl van Niekerk. One of the problems we will encounter with one script is that if it's aimed more at typical end users, then it won't be suitable from a group of web developers, and vice versa. So, there does infact need to be several different versions, or at least one that can be cut up quite easily to keep the useful information, depending on the target audience.

Having thought about this more though, even the script needs to be written in full public view with contributions from anyone, and I would like to get started. So, my question is, how do you propose we manage this collaboration? Is the wiki the best place to write this script? Do we create multiple scripts, each aimed at a different target audience, or one that covers everything in a way that can be cut up to suit the presenters needs?

Lastly, The War of Two Mindsets article is very good. I'd never thought about information presentation, congitive guidance nor the diffences between them; now I do! --Lachlan.hunt 00:01, 16 Mar 2005 (GMT)

Great point about multiple versions - that's really important to make it relevant and persuasive to different audiences. Here's a thought about how this could be done in a wiki. I've developed a story template in the form of a Word document that serves as a structure to write a presentation script for many types of stories. The idea is to write a script first before thinking about visuals, addressing a blend of principles from Aristotle's ideas on story structure, persuasion and reasoning; along with screenwriting and cross-media design. Once the story template is complete, the statements become headlines of slides, which serve as the foundation to start storyboarding the visuals.

The story template in the Word doc is a simple table that is set up to accommodate a series of written statements. Is there a way to replicate a table like this in a wiki? If we could do that, we could set up a series of these story templates for different audiences. Then we can take a first pass at them, and then people would be free to go in an edit/collaborate as they would like. When they're ready, anyone could copy and paste the text into a Word doc and follow a few simple steps to import the statements as headlines into PowerPoint. We can post that PowerPoint file, which becomes an "open source" storyboard, and anyone could take that and apply endless graphical approaches, and those could be posted too. -Cliff

[edit] Splitting up into multiple pages

I believe we should start thinking about splitting this up into multiple pages.

For example, use a separate page for the designs.

The Firefox_S5 page is getting far too long IMHO.

-- CharlvN

Yes, I've been thinking about that. What if we make Firefox_S5 more like an index page which provides the general instructions, but links to Firefox_S5:Designs and Firefox_S5:Content. Should we also break the content page up into seperate pages for each language, when the time comes for translations? --Lachlan.hunt 19:26, 18 Mar 2005 (EST)

Now you're speaking my language. Yes, let's do that. We could have something like Firefox_S5:Content/af for the Afrikaans translation of the content, for example. -- CharlvN