[theme-reviewers] Goals and Process

Fri Jun 11 15:08:47 UTC 2010

Hi Gavin,

To be fair to David, I think that what constitutes a clear visual hierarchy
to me, might be different than what you think a clear visual hierarchy is.
Navigation might be easy to understand for me, but not for you. You and I
might have a different definition of a "decorative image" or of a
"presentational aspect". That's why I see those items as being very
subjective.

However, I do agree that a rating system won't solve the subjectiveness of
those things. When it comes down to it, it's still a human process where we
all have different likes and dislikes that will play through. Our reviews of
the themes will be just as varied as the creativity of the themes
themselves.

I think what would help the best is to have a clear statement of what
constitutes a proper theme, and then simply rely on each individual reviewer
to meet that goal. We could debate all day over what a decorative image is,
but I have faith in most of you that you'll know a good design from a bad
one.

Tim

On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 8:43 AM, Gavin Pearce <GavinP at tbs.uk.com> wrote:

>  Hi David,
>
>
>
> Without trying to sound too awkward, I'm afraid I still disagree.
>
>    - The theme has a clear visual hierarchy.   - It's either clear, or
>    it's not. If it's "almost" clear but not completely clear, then it's "not
>    clear" and would therefore be a no + advisory to improve slightly if
>    possible.
>    - The navigation is easy to understand.   - It either easy to
>    understand, or it isn't. If it's "almost" easy to understand, but not
>    completely easy to understand, then it's a no and as above.
>
>
>    - Where possible, decorative images are in CSS.    - All decorative
>    images are in the CSS .. if they are then yes, if not no + another advisory.
>    - The theme uses CSS for all presentational aspects.  - It either uses
>    CSS for all presentation aspects, or it doesn't.
>
> Again, remember an advisory would be only for things that are minor, and
> you'd have to get a few of them to fail.
>
> As for things that are subjective on the eye of the reviewer, such as your
> example - a "is that hierarchy 100% clear (yes/no)", is a lot easier to
> resolve with a second pair of eyes than "is that hierarchy a 2 or a 3?".
>
> I also feel, that while 'rating' things would be nice, we don't gain
> anything extra by doing it.
>
> E.g.
>
> ·         The theme uses CSS for all presentational aspects.
>
> No matter whether we rated this as a 2, 3 or 4, we'd still have the same
> bit of advice to tell the author - "Put more of your presentational images
> into the CSS".
>
> Gav
> //gavinpearce.com
>
>
>
> *From:* david at mirmillo.com [mailto:david at mirmillo.com] *On Behalf Of *David
> Damstra
>
> *Sent:* 11 June 2010 15:25
> *To:* Gavin Pearce
> *Cc:* theme-reviewers
> *Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] Goals and Process
>
>
>
> Gavin, I completely agree about the Y/N flags... but there are several
> items on the checklist that are truly subjective, for example:
>
>    - The theme has a clear visual hierarchy.
>    - The navigation is easy to understand.
>
>
>    - Where possible, decorative images are in CSS.
>    - The theme uses CSS for all presentational aspects.
>
> Not to mention general aesthetic appeals and eye of the beholder stuff.
> That is where I think your need rating scales.  Ranging from not at all (1)
> to For the most part(5) and address advisories in the free form comments.  I
> also think this is where it actually is good to have more than one reviewer
> per theme, so that many eyes can see different issues, and clear visual
> hierarchy can be interpreted different ways.  This also keeps creative
> license in the theme author's hands.  Maybe they are intending to create a
> dark navigation that I perceive as "not clear" because my monitor is
> horribly calibrated.
>
> Low subjective ratings without comments are worthless, use the comments to
> explain the rating and recommend a course of action and constructive
> criticism.  But the subjective portions are advice for improvement.  Whereas
> the Y/N portions of the site are more make it or break it.  If you don't
> pass the critical Y/N portions (or at least a minimum of them) then the
> theme is no fly until they are fixed.
>
> Again, I am just talking here... I am still unclear on what the expected
> outcome of these theme reviews are. Hoping to hear some clarification from
> Joseph.
>
>
>  On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 10:11 AM, Gavin Pearce <GavinP at tbs.uk.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the feedback Tim, some great ideas with the how to format it. I
> also agree with Devon earlier, though a PDF would be handy, somewhere that
> responses can also be displayed to the original author would work quicker.
>  A nice online app would be handy indeed.
>
>
>
> With the rating system though - I feel that also the subjective items
> should be a case of just simply pass/fail - largely because by their very
> nature, subjective items are somewhat subjective (excuse the pun).
>
>
>
> Is the theme widgetized as fully as possible?
>
> Are comments displayed correctly?
>
>
>
> On a scale of 1 - 5 would be very hard to judge consistently between
> reviewers. What makes a widgetized theme a 4 rather than a 3 for example?
> Also saying that, from past experience you'll also just end up with a lot of
> 3's.
>
>
>
> If a template has a MAJOR problem, it fails the review instantly.
>
> If a template has a MINOR problem, we issue an advisory to the author to
> make some changes, but continue to allow it.
>
> If a template has more than X advisories, it also fails.
>
>
>
> That way, a template that isn't fully widgetized will pass if that is it's
> only problem, but a template that isn't fully widgetized, has errors in the
> comment area, has formatting errors + others will fail.
>
>
>
> Simple yes/no checklist is the way forward  think, especially in terms of
> simplicity, consistency and quality, for both the theme authors, and
> ourseleves.
>
>
>
> Feel free to tell me I'm completely wrong though.  ;  )
>
>
>
> Gav
>
> /gavinpearce.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* tgolen at gmail.com [mailto:tgolen at gmail.com] *On Behalf Of *Tim
> Golen
> *Sent:* 11 June 2010 14:44
> *To:* Gavin Pearce
> *Cc:* theme-reviewers
>
>
> *Subject:* Re: [theme-reviewers] Goals and Process
>
>
>
> Hey Gav,
>
>
>
> I think what you say makes perfect sense, and I've liked where the
> discussion is headed. I too wondered about the validity of 5 star rating
> system for each item and for a lot of items in the checklist it's either
> black or white... either it works or it doesn't work. However, I think there
> are also items that could use a 5-point rating system because they are a bit
> more subjective. Such as "Are comments displayed correctly" and "Is the
> theme widgetized as fully as possible?".
>
>
>
> I think the organization of the review process could be done to extreme
> (using a bug tracking system like Bugzilla which would be a very effective
> tool for communication with reviewers and authors), but if you wanted a
> really simple solution you could also use a Google Docs Spreadsheet with the
> Form functionality. It would only take a short amount of a time to setup a
> form for the entire checklist. You could use checkboxes for the
> black-and-white items, and you could use a 5 point radio group for the more
> subjective items. Along with a text field for the name of the theme and free
> form comments at the bottom of each sub-section. With this solution you
> could use one spreadsheet per theme, or have all theme reviews in a single
> spreadsheet (they have some cool summarization views for the form data).
> Just a thought... the communication channels would still remain unresolved
> at that point.
>
>
>
> Tim
>
> On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 7:07 AM, Gavin Pearce <GavinP at tbs.uk.com> wrote:
>
> Agreed almost completely.
>
> Not convinced about 1 - 5 ratings mind, you start to open up the process
> to the whim of individual reviewers again.
>
> Checklist should check for items that are:
>
>        * Critical items - No go, instant fail..
>        * Less critical - You get a 'advisory'.
>
> If you're template has more than X amount of "advisories", it doesn't
> pass. (Similar to the format of the UK Driving Test).
>
> I guess you could also get a different amount of "advisory points"
> depending on the problem, but it starts getting overly complicated
> again. Personally I think keep it as simple as possible - this will
> result in a much better consistency of what quality of template we
> allow/disallow.
>
> If built around this model, you can start to add extra criteria to
> improve the general quality of all templates, e.g.:
>        - To get a V2 version of the same template into the system, the
> author first has to demonstrate they acted upon at least some of the
> advisories issued first time round.
>
>
> Thoughts?       :)
>
>
> Gav
> /gavinpearce.com
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org
> [mailto:theme-reviewers-bounces at lists.wordpress.org] On Behalf Of
> chip at chipbennett.net
> Sent: 11 June 2010 13:43
> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Goals and Process
>
> I concur.
>
> I'm thinking that Joseph (Joe?) is getting several people started on an
> initial theme review, in order to give us some better context for coming
> up with the more formalized process.
>
> That's what I'm doing with my first review, anyway: just going through
> the
> TDC and evaluating the theme against each of the checklist points.
>
> I think, once we've got some context by reviewing an initial theme,
> we'll
> better be able to evaluate what criteria are critical/required
> (GO/NO-GO),
> and which ones are more subjective (1-5 rating, or whatever) - as well
> as
> how each subjective criterion (or category) should be weighted.
>
> Of course, my first theme assignment is taking a bit (sorry, Joseph -
> the
> one you gave me threw about five errors right off the bat!), so it may
> not
> be until the evening or tomorrow morning until I can report back on it.
> In
> the meantime, I'm appreciating the opportunity to read everyone else's
> initial take on the review process.
>
> (As for getting the feedback to the theme authors themselves: I assume
> Joseph is handling that?)
>
> Chip
>
> > Hi David,
> >
> > I agree with your points. I was thinking something like a scorecard
> too.
> >
> > What I understood so far, is that we will go to check the theme
> against
> > the listed points from Theme_Development_Checklist, right? Is this our
> > only job?
> >
> > I would appreciate a clarify from Joseph too.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Daniel
> >
> >
> >> Hi Joseph (and everyone else),
> >>
> >> First, is it Joseph or Joe?
> >>
> >> Second, can you clarify what exactly the goals are of a theme review?
> >> What are we trying to accomplish? I realize we are trying to improve
> the
> >> quality and reliability of themes, but how is that going to work?
> >> You've assigned some theme reviews to participants here, but they are
> >> reporting "problems" back to us, not to the author to fix.  Is there
> a
> >> process I am not seeing?
> >>
> >> It seems to me, and I apologize if I am speaking out of turn, is that
> >> all of the information on
> >>
> http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development_Checklist#Theme_Unit_Test
> >> could be turned into a scorecard.  It's already broken up into
> sections.
> >>  Give each bullet list a line item with a 1-5 rating or a y/n and set
> a
> >> comment section for free form comments at the end of each sub
> section.
> >> Then a theme submission could come in, be assigned to 3-5 of us, and
> we
> >> each complete a scorecard.  (heck portions of it could be automated.)
> >> Then send these scorecards back to the theme author where they can
> >> digest what they have done right, and what needs improvement.
> Without
> >> being too rigid, this process is crying for some formality of method.
> >> This also gives the theme author feedback, but not at the whim of one
> >> reviewer since some of the points (aesthetics in particular) are very
> >> subjective.
> >>
> >> Just a thought...
> >>
> >> -David _______________________________________________
> >> theme-reviewers mailing list
> >> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> >> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> >
> > --
> > Daniel Zilli _ Production Executive _ Jilliz Ltd.
> >
> > Phone: +66 (0) 85 334 1224 | Website: http://www.jilliz.com
> > 288/43 BaanMai Puttabucha 36, Bangmod, Thungkru Bangkok 10140.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > theme-reviewers mailing list
> > theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> > http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> >
>
>
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