Webmaker/Roadmap 2013

	Webmaker Tools and Content 2013 Roadmap
	Owner: Brett Gaylor	Updated: 2014-01-6
	Vision: Mozilla Webmaker provides tools, community and badges that help people move from *using* the web to *making* the web.

2013 Priorities

• Iterate on what "Webmaker content" looks like. Measure how users react.
  • starting point: "Webmaker lets you make content that's irresistibly hackable"
• Encourage "learning by making"
  • lean into connected learning -- make our tools fun, easy and empowering
  • measure learning through badges
• Create experiences that work in the spaces users already live online
  • Frictionless sharing to Twitter, Tumblr + Facebook
  • Facebook app
  • Native mobile experiences
• Localization
• Develop methods for external partnerships & developers to influence our codebase
  • ability to fork our codebase and submit pull requests we can integrate
  • ability to activate external libraries. eg, Processing.js
• Expose enough "code" (e.g., markup) for users to learn web mechanics if desired
• Make working open and agile both work

Development Process

• "Train"-style releases. Ship new releases weekly.
• Focus on early wins. Help users make more things, more easily.
• Integrate with Product Marketing. To identify and build excitement about new content and features.
• Be metrics-driven. User-driven priorities and decision-making as we go, instead of spec'ing out and locking into an entire year's worth of features in advance.
• Creative content possibilities drive product priorities. We build tools that support creators -- instead of hoping creators will find uses for our tools.
  
  

Editorial Priorities

• Think like a newsroom. React quickly.
• Enter and participate in popular culture.
  
  

Q1

focus: Engage users with usability improvements and iterations on remixable content

P1

Popcorn Maker

• Sequencing
• Fix remixing flow

• Fix known Popcorn Maker UX fails:
  • Undo
  • Event defaults (e.g., remove tedium of changing fonts)
  • Fix weird escaped characters (a by-product of our security efforts)
  • Allow users to specify an event duration (instead of just start and stop times)
  • Fix layout of "tray." Make it resizable
  • Position new events at mouse location
  • Make new layers default to top layer
  • Change background colour of canvas
  • Extend default embed page to include meta-data like number of views.

• Improve how our content appears on social platforms
  • Twitter cards (Thimble + Popcorn Maker)
  • Include related videos and remixes in post-roll.
  • Research requirements for a Popcorn Maker Facebook App. Initial version of our app working in FB.
  • Tweak UX to fit in Facebook box size

Webmaker.org

• A "firehose" gallery of everything people are making with our tools, sortable by most recent and most viewed
  • First iteration is an internal tool used to highlight and celebrate what users make
  • Following iteration is public facing
• A "mentors" top level page on webmaker.org linking out to community resources
• Refresh voice and tone, celebrate press of Popcorn Maker and Thimble

Thimble

• Embedding in Thimble
• Remix button in thimble
• Fix Thimble project creation
  • html5 linting for projects we publish vs. full review

Content

• Immediate creation and testing of content types within existing tool features
• Provide offerings for popular events (Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, April Fools)

P2

• Help our users by building support.webmaker.org
• Let users submit their own webmaker projects
• Build a robust Facebook app
• Improve Thimble instruction layer
• Improve developer documentation to assist community members
• Remixing within embeds

Q2

focus: Enhance learning experience by layering in badges across infrastructure. Grow international audience by adding localization

• As Open Badges Infrastructure reaches 1.0, integrate badges into Popcorn Maker and webmaker.org
• Localize Thimble, Popcorn Maker and Webmaker.org

Q3

focus: launch major Uk and European campaign with O2 / Telefonica. Welcome new users from Summer Campaign.

• O2 "Hacking Popular Culture" content is launched
  • Functionality to support campaign
    • Improved Thimble instruction layer
    • Ability to synchronize content captured on mobile
• Summer campaign brings large amount of users/mentors
  • Exposing HTML/markup in Popcorn Maker

Q4

focus: Let users seamless move between code and media editing by unifying Webmaker tools

• Mozilla Festival
• Full integration of Thimble / Popcorn Maker apps into unified Webmaker experience
• Build collaborative editing and revision history across tools (see demo here http://secretrobotron.tumblr.com/post/38324727650/webmaker-in-2013-collaborative-tools-popcorn-maker