Tuesday, January 1, 2013

WebPlatform Doc Sprint Mountain View

Doc Sprint Mountain View

A splendid time was had by all! On Wednesday, December 12th we gathered at Google in Mountain View, California to work on Web Platform Docs. We had over 35 attendees who worked on the site for a whole day. Google provided snacks, beverages, lunch, and a wine/beer reception afterward with live music. There was, of course, the usual t-shirts, and other cool swag – see below.

Premium Web Platform Doc Sprint Swag

Many of the attendees were new to Web Platform Docs – we registered 15 new users. So we spent some time early on walking them through the site and the Getting Started pages. Once they got going, they caught on pretty quickly. Having a group of folks doing a small task across a broad area really makes a big improvement. This is the power of a doc sprint, turning what would be a tedious and daunting chore into something doable; having company makes it fun and many hands make light work.



Matthew and Tony


We also had several people who just knew how to pick up a shovel and start digging. Many of these folks follow this forum, the e-mail list, the IRC channel, and other forums; they and you are lending your expertise where it really matters. One area of expertise you may have that we can really use is in the domain of user testing, heuristics, and user experience design. These docs sprints provide a perfect laboratory – albeit without the one-way glass. If you’ve been behind the glass, you probably would prefer the chummy doc sprint to that sterile, Observer effect-infected environment. The data is bound to be better, too.


As it is, we have only a limited amount of data from this doc sprint, and none of it scientifically sanitized. Here’s what we got:



  • Attendees: 35+

  • Commits: 375 (apprx.)

  • New WPD members onboarded: 15

  • Pictures: see: G+ event and Meetup.



Dilip, Dickson, Scott Eliot, and Ming Ming


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