UI module owner

[Gervase Markham]

Frédéric Buclin wrote:
> As said in my previous email, we definitely need a UI module owner. From
> what I have seen so far, Byron Jones (glob on IRC) seems a good
> candidate for this role. In my opinion, he has very good and sensible
> ideas. 

Let's step back again.

1) Why do we need a UI module owner at all?

Suggested answer, for working purposes: because someone needs to take
the final decisions about what changes we make to the UI.

2) What qualifications does such a person need?

a) They need to have a consistent and coherent vision of what the UI
should look and work like.
b) Therefore, they need to have a good understanding of Bugzilla's
target user market(s), and their needs.
c) They need to have a good understanding of the basic principles of UI
design and interaction design.

Given that we are about to start doing work on personas to establish b),
implying that we don't have a good idea of what the answer is, arguably
now is not the time to be appointing a UI module owner because they
wouldn't be able to do their job properly...

Also, note that "has good ideas for UI changes we could make" is not a
necessary qualification for UI module owner. They are not expected to
come up with all the ideas themselves; the skill required is sorting the
suggestions and arranging them into a coherent vision, saying Yes to
some and No to others.

In fact, arguably, the UI module owner should have no ideas of their
own, because then they will treat all suggestions equally :-)

> His last one can be seen at:
>
> http://landfill.bugzilla.org/tabbededitbug/show_bug.cgi?id=1

What problem is this change trying to solve?

> Assuming he could have limited time for this role, we could imagine that
> we have two co-owners (wurblzap, gandalf?).

Why do we need UI co-owners? Why do we need two rather than one or
three? What role does a UI co-owner serve?

> From what we saw in our last meeting, it seems we have no other choice.

Is it a good idea to make a "choice" because you have no other choices?
We do have at least two other choices:

a) decide never to have a UI owner
b) decide to postpone the decision

If you are arguing that we should appoint someone, you need to explain
why those two options are the wrong thing to do.

Gerv