Meetings

Note: Please do not share the wiki link to anyone.

May 6th, 2019 - Discuss features and roadmap
Attendees: Sridhar, Sunder and Krishna.

Key Outcome of the meeting. ( I have attached this notes as a link to the doc as well)


 * 1) Sridhar to review the doc and make the wiki page better as a collaborator. (Team to work as collaborators by learning from wiki  and add their inputs to avoid meetings and mails.)
 * 2) Identify the best available software on which we can customize. - Core team
 * 3) Sridhar wanted a designer who can design the templates for him. Sunder requested Sridhar to let us know if he knows any good designer basis his experience in web development who can work swiftly as desired. We can pay the designer as per the market standards for the work done.
 * 4) Everyone acknowledged that we have reached a complete state of clarity. If anyone has any questions need to get it clarified by expressing their concern on the wiki page itself.
 * 5) Sunder said that we can get technological /branding and people support from bigger organizations/foundations. Once we have complete concept and roadmap ready, we can reach to people who can help us.

Sridhar Response on 9th May to the document shared
'''Uolve is going to be a single page application. There are two main design patterns for web apps: multi-page application (MPA) and single-page application (SPA).'''

Krishna - We have only one main page and rest of the pages will open up on clicking the links (user profile, watchlist, contributions...etc it will similar to Wikipedia). In short it will have benefits of both the single page application and avoid the cons by having multiple pages. To reduce the development effort and avoid building everything from scratch, we were looking at taking up some of the closest opensource application which can fit into our needs. Sridhar and sunder to decide on the same.

But before you start turning your idea into the real application, you have to answer a bunch of important questions. To decide what app model is better for you, you should follow content-first approach, which emphasizes the importance of putting your application content before everything else. That’s because content is the main reason for which users will or won’t use the application. And this leads us to the most important questions: what content do you want to present and what content your users will care about the most.

Krishna - Yes, we will have the content first - we will eliminate the landing page and will share the mockup with you again. Thanks for this suggestion.

A single-page application is an app that works inside a browser and does not require page reloading during use. You are using this type of applications every day. These are, for instance: Gmail, Google Maps, Facebook or GitHub. SPAs are all about serving an outstanding UX by trying to imitate a “natural” environment in the browser — no page reloads, no extra wait time. It is just one web page that you visit which then loads all other content using JavaScript — which they heavily depend on. SPA requests the markup and data independently and renders pages straight in the browser. We can do this thanks to the advanced JavaScript frameworks like AngularJS, Ember.js, Meteor.js, Knockout.js. Single-page sites help keep the user in one, comfortable web space where content is presented to the user in a simple, easy and workable fashion.

Krishna We should look at simple application which has one singe main page which users will refer and the rest can be from an administration purpose which can be independent of each other (similar to Wikipedia)

SPA is fast, as most resources (HTML+CSS+Scripts) are only loaded once throughout the lifespan of application. Only data is transmitted back and forth..The development is simplified and streamlined. There is no need to write code to render pages on the server. It is much easier to get started because you can usually kick off development from a file file://URI, without using any server at all. SPAs are easy to debug with Chrome, as you can monitor network operations, investigate page elements and data associated with it. It’s easier to make a mobile application because the developer can reuse the same backend code for web application and native mobile application. SPA can cache any local storage effectively. An application sends only one request, store all data, then it can use this data and works even offline. But look at the cons of SPA: Cons of the Single-Page Application: (1) It is very tricky and not an easy task to make SEO optimization of a Single-Page Application. (2) Its content is loaded by AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) — a method of exchanging data and updating in the application without refreshing the page. (3) It is slow to download because heavy client frameworks are required to be loaded to the client.SPA is less secure. Due to Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), it enables attackers to inject client-side scripts into web application by other users. (4) Memory leak in JavaScript can even cause powerful system to slow down..In this model, back and forward buttons become dysfunctional. So do not jump to application model or pattern without creating mockups.

1 Sketch It’s basically just a raw freehand drawing on a piece of paper, that gives you a low-fidelity representation of your app. It is the fastest way to get your idea ready for brainstorming. Even a simple sketch can describe your idea better than words. Generate ideas, change details, visualize what you have on your mind; it’s all up to your imagination. This step is essential for getting to the wireframe stage.

Krishna We have prepared the image of the application using the mock ups - We can provide even finer details. Yes, we need to brainstorm on the idea/concept which we have on hand and see if something better can be done.

2 Wireframe - A wireframe is equivalent to the skeleton or simple structure of your website/app. Each one is used to describe the functionality of a product as well as relations between views (what will happen when you click a certain button). The decisions on what (content/features) and where to put on the website or app are usually made during this stage. This step does not cover the product’s design.

'Krishna' Once, we finalize on the sketch. We can work on the wireframe part. This will certainly help everyone to understand.

3 Mockup We should not  start building an app before mockups are completed. With this representation, you can start to work on the development process and the developer can make your mockups a reality. Any mockup will provide a medium-fidelity representation. Add colours, fonts, text (Lorem ipsum), images, logos and anything else that will shape your wireframe. Your result is a static map of the app. Think about User Interface Practices while shaping this step. Krishna We agree, the mockups should be looking like a live website in a presentation - on clicking each of the buttons the desired screen should appear. We will provide you this once we agree on the above pointers.

4.Prototype Prototypes offer a high-fidelity representation of your app. It’s like a mockup enriched with UX pieces, interactions, animation and anything else you’d like to experience when clicking buttons. This step is not always needed to create an app. If you’re not a developer, I highly recommend having a prototype to pitch your idea to friends, family and potential investors. The only thing that missing is functionality. It can give you a feeling of using a real app.

Krishna This will help us in visualizing completely before we put in full efforts.

As everyone is doing out of interest to server others over and above their daily schedule, request everyone to find something which can be taken up to develop and without compromising much on our requirements. I have listed some of the available opensource softwares, request all to explore further.

Changes Made as per Sridhar's Suggestions
Krishna has updated all the details as required in the wiki page - https://kids.miraheze.org/wiki/Uolve_-_Just_Solve_it_!!

This will help us in understanding which software which we need to pickup and how we can integrate them together using common database. We can work on the finer mockups - Once we finalize which opensource software we need to pick up.

Major changes made: 1. Home page changes as required - the user will directly see the site content and will be ready to contribute. 2. Hybrid model of single and multiple page to leverage all the benefits - the user will be seeing the main page for 95% of times. 3. User profile page for both individuals and organisations - anyone can create or update the events on which they have worked on. 4. Event Management - This is very important. Surrender wants this to use it extensively and lot of organisations today have to pay an good amount. We can provide this free of cost to all the MNC and all organisations to manage and share their events and outcomes with everyone. On similar lines to facebook /linkedin. ( this feature is not available to any one till date)

Please let us known when can we meet up and finalize the next steps.