GitLab Digital Experience, 3 Dec 2020

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From YouTube: Retro sprint 2 marketing design system

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Related OKR: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-com/marketing/inbound-marketing/-/epics/92

Inbound Marketing handbook page: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/inbound-marketing/

A

So we're uh just to recap: anyone who's watching we're going to be doing our retro for the last two weeks um for the design system team uh on the marketing side, and uh we just kind of went through and put down things that went well things to improve on and then we'll take some action items from there.

A

So I went ahead and kind of broke these up into things that sounded similar, but obviously anyone disagrees just like jump in and and feel free to change them. um I figured we could just walk through one by one and talk about them and see if there's anything we can take away um so the first one fingers too hot uh first one welcome tyler had a coffee chat with him, so that was from sanmi.

A

I don't think tyler's on this call, but yeah we're glad to have him um next. One is fast response and awesome collaboration with stakeholders on the cicd issue. A quick turnaround on announcements component home page cicd news developed in three days, looks like there's a comment plus one from hobby.

B

Yeah, the turnaround was just really fast, so props.

A

Yeah huge shout out to sami just got on board and immediately jumped into it. So well done. Thank you, yeah. That was a good good collab for sure um things that went well so refined. Our type stack, more design system components to work with in good collaboration between ux and ui. To get there added spacing section to the foundations, applied the ui kit to figma wires to see how they worked.

A

um I grouped these all together because it felt like they were all just kind of wins for the the new design system and the ui kit, and um you know getting things out there so props to stephen. You know he had a big hand in that he's still on oh there he is uh next one worked on our road maps.

A

We did if anyone wants to elaborate on these. Also just jump on in um got data about ie users, 0.06 of 25 million users. In my opinion, we can ditch support for ie completely that's cool sami. Do you want to talk about that? A little bit.

C

Oh yes, so uh actually javi made the contractor or I'm trying to remember his name right now, harvey the president. Oh so also.

B

C

Yes, so we contacted shane javi discussed with him and he provided us a dashboard where we can always view the reporting so yeah. We came back and discovered that we only have less than 14 000 users on internet explorer and our platform is not even supporting internet explorer. So maybe we don't really have to worry about them. So using that data to get the percentage, we are only worrying about 0.05 of the users, that's very, very important, so small.

C

We don't really need to worry about them, so that gave me encouragement to do some research about what css framework that we want to use. So, if you're going to be using tailwind I'll support it because they don't support ie and it looks awesome for what we want to do.

A

Is that something we have like, as a team, have control over to say, like we're not going to support ie anymore, or is that, like a larger conversation, the company needs to have.

D

I think it's a maybe a larger conversation, but at the same time I would feel comfortable saying at least on uh so so by saying we're gonna ditch support. It's it's really um more of a you know, we're still going to try and do progressive enhancement. It's it's. Maybe that's not one of our. You know browsers that we test regularly uh and in terms of frameworks. um You know it would still work to some degree without um that it just wouldn't look as pretty and that's maybe one side of it.

D

Another side of it is on core funnel pages. Maybe we don't use a frame that particular framework that doesn't support I.e. You know, like our pricing page, for example, we might still need people to be able to buy an ie but yeah. I think it's a good discussion to have uh with um you know, stakeholders um before we come to any decisions but yeah.

D

I think it's uh in general, something that's relatively safe and it also depends on the particular funnel like you know, if, if we have government sector users or other core users that are in a certain funnel that need to have ie, then in that funnel, we would want to see uh make sure that it's supported but yeah. I think overall, it's a pretty safe industry standard thing to do at this point.

B

Yeah just to add some thoughts on that. I know that microsoft is starting to not officially support ie anymore. So that's like something that we can go over also if the product itself doesn't work in ie, that's kind of like another thing, that's like well, you know like let's sign up and do everything in ie only to then realize that the browser I don't know, I think, there's like an accessibility and like a what does support actually mean because it's more nuanced than just like.

B

Oh does that mean the page doesn't load at all like what? What do we mean by when we say support so there's kind of a little bit of a more nuanced discussion. We have to have there, but I think the point is like: let's give ourselves the tools that lets us build as fast as possible. That impacts the most amount of people as quickly as we can, and then we can worry about making sure that people don't get lost in the tracks in between that's, like my opinion, at least.

E

Yeah, I think, there's a fine line to like kind of what have you just said. We can still. We could technically still support it kind of what you just said, brandon, that some government agencies or departments might actually need it, but we don't need to optimize for it, so we can still support to a degree.

E

But it's like what sammy said like with the the percentage that low you know. I don't know how many people would be upsetting but never doing it, but we have to make sure that we kind of keep the lights on so to speak. So if someone did show up on ie, then we're not it's not just a complete washout for them.

B

Yeah, something else that I found was really interesting was that um only the newest version of ie is what has a large percentage after if we start going like back, then the newest version, we start getting into double digit and we're talking like double digit users, so like 22 44, like that amount of users for 25 million hits. So it's like well yeah,.

C

So we just have to find a very thin line of uh separating what we mean by fully supporting ie and not really supporting, but having a fallback option for what happens on ie. So I think that's the thing that you're really going to find so that when users would actually come in at least they must see something that we can put a recommendation there that, oh sorry internet explorer. This website will work much more better on google chrome, something like that.

C

So they can still see something, but they may not be able to get the full uh the full experience that they deserve using internet. So we really need to work and adjust that very, very thin line so that we are supporting, but we are not really supporting.

C

I think that would be something I would like to add.

A

Yeah, those are all really good points. That's awesome, I'm going to keep going here. um So the next thing is a topic section: cms collab, smooth application of the work in progress onto existing pages yeah.

F

I just wanted to point out um sorry to just jump in um here um that I thought that our um collaboration sessions between the design system team and the cms team were very, very valuable. um I think that uh working together as closely as we did um prevented us from getting lost in the weeds when we're kind of uh finding things that weren't working or looking for new solutions. um We just made some really quick and smart decisions together and I think we'll be working again on similar projects. As we start working on the blog.

A

Yeah actually also, I just want to second that, because it was super helpful to do some real world use cases with some of those elements and like get them on the page and talk about them and get them in a really good spot, and I enjoyed working with you. It's great uh all right, gonna keep going so things to improve on so working with ux research and or having our own researcher slash research method methods to rely on.

A

uh I wrote that one um I've been like fighting the research team for two weeks now, um trying to get some stuff going and uh there's just a disconnect happening between our team and their team, about the approach and and maybe best practices, and, uh unfortunately, I think it bridges to a point where there's an impasse and we're gonna have to just stop working with them for for now anyway, for this particular issue.

A

um So I've been talking with michael about, like possibly he's thinking about bringing a researcher onto our team, but also we've been talking to him about various research methods. We could use that like we could kind of ramp up on our own end. So not being so reliant on other teams, and so that's something uh I can add some action items down here, but just uh something to be aware of, like thinking it's probably more for tina than anyone else. But just you know, there's any research you guys are interested in doing.

A

um We might just have to take it on ourselves and uh kind of be the voice of our customers, because we're our cause of company we're more used to doing product based research and now we're trying to do marketing based research and they're, just very different objectives and there's just not a lot out there. Yet. So it's like starting from scratch almost um number two ux operating a sprint ahead. It's on me.

G

Oh, don't think.

A

G

E

C

Read it sorry, so the reason why I raised this was because of the time crunch we are on this uh last spring. Actually this is my first spring, so I believe that things will get better and I think javier is the same uh opinion maybe last week.

C

So if we, if the ux design can always be a sprint ahead of developers, it will be much more better so that we have everything that we want finalized, including the valve age of the content, because right now, even on the content that I just finished, I still see a lot of conversation on the trend that some people are suggesting another type of web age. So I think all those stuffs needs to be undo prior before the developers get into action.

C

So if this ux can always be almost a sprint tired, it will give us more time and flexibility to meet up with the deadline. That's why I noted that.

A

There just you and me sorry, uh I was just agreeing that's something. Definitely we were aiming for. um Lately it's been a bit of a struggle.

A

Unfortunately, I'm gonna be off for the next six days, so it's not gonna help anything, um but maybe with the holidays. We can kind of catch up again when other people are awful I'll be on, um but yeah definitely want to aim for like a minimum. A sprint ahead of preferably like a few sprints ahead or even a couple months ahead, would be ideal.

A

So we'll get there uh the next one long-term goal: vision, alignment, technology, side, javi, that's you.

B

um So I think our discussion about our roadmaps that we had yesterday were super super insightful and super helpful, because we need to kind of figure out like when we say design system. What do we mean by that and stuff like that? I think that's super helpful.

B

I think, on the technology side, there's still a little bit of murkiness in terms of like what that means in terms of how we're going to implement it, and I think I oh yeah right here. I listed a couple of different things that includes templating the static site, generator itself and the js framework conversation that are like the big elephants in the room.

B

For me personally and I know, people have different thoughts and opinions and different takes, and I just want to make sure that we're not just gonna keep iterating two weeks at a time and then at some point realize that we have to start over because we like just picked a different technology stack at some point.

B

So that's kind of like the concern that I have is that we get a little bit too focused on the short term, and then we just like forget that longer term goals are super important and working towards something more so than just working. Hard is like important.

B

So those are just things that I wanted to bring up and I think it would be helpful to have everyone on the technology side just have those conversations and make sure that we can find some sort of alignment on that at least within ourselves, and then talk to michael about that, because I think that there's a lot of room of murkiness and it's it's hard to make it's hard to start a design system work knowing that all right, like we're gonna, have to switch stacks all together at some point.

B

So those are just things that I wanted to bring up.

A

um So what would you say there are the action items we can take? I.

B

Think it's just like a yeah, so I think for that. What we really need- and I think this is similar to like the css discussion- is that we just need to have a meeting with all the technical people and sit us all down and just talk about these kinds of things um like the thing that the the meeting we had yesterday was a perfect example of that of just sitting, everyone in the same room and getting people to talk about what they mean when they say these things. So.

A

Cool all right last one um unless anyone else had any comments on that uh last one is consider looming brand changes that are going to happen six to 12 months. How do you think? That's you also.

B

I had a coffee chat with um god. I forgot his name matt, I believe in the brain yeah. So I just didn't want to like say a name and be like that person doesn't work here. So I just wanted to double check. Okay, so I had a coffee chat with him and I just wanted to make sure that that is considered so again kind of similar to like the we know. These. These changes are coming um longer term, and I just again I don't want to reinvent the wheel at some point. Yeah.

A

B

I just want to.

A

Are we gonna get any insights into those as they're coming along or is it gonna be like six months from now? It's like surprise, here's everything.

E

Well, I I talked to matt very briefly, sorry happy to jump in, and so what did he say? I asked him just how things were going um so they're still very early stage in discovery, so they're very they're, almost at the same point that we are relative to our work streams. So it's hard to if we were to stop and wait for them, we'd be probably waiting until you know april or may so. This kind of loops back into you know the vision, alignment, at least in terms of technology.

E

That javi was just talking about that if we can have some sort of an infrastructure set up with our javascript, any changes that we can make the code would be pretty easy, pretty easy, then, to um replicate in code because they'd be built in a framework that supports that and and then that ties into another part of the design system, which is more around the the documentation, slash versioning of things that if and when we did decide to release new updates to the library and teams need to consume those at whatever point they are in their work stream.

E

Versioning is a way that we can help manage that, so that if someone is really close to a deadline or launch, they don't have to adopt new styles, which would really just you know, stifle work and put put the cat amongst the pigeons almost so um it's definitely like. I would meet matt fairly regularly um and then there was a switch on the team structure.

E

So uh I think um we can be aware of it, but- and it's definitely something that's on our radar and we're gonna have to align anyway, because the core foundation or the core um the basis almost for any kind of the design system really like the very the very first like uh the what's called the foundations, is the brand it's supposed to communicate brand consistency. So we have to have a strong relationship with them, but they're at such an early stage that there's not really much we can get out of them. That's any use.

A

There are probably no action items for now. Is that safe to say.

E

B

Yeah, okay, it feels weird, um at least from my perspective, um to say, like to gay in alignment. We have to have more meetings, because I don't inherently believe that meetings create alignment but to some point like at some point, I think we have to just communicate. So maybe I don't know- maybe I just have a personal vendetta against the word meeting. So maybe I should just call it something yeah. That was my thought on that.

A

Okay, we'll keep an eye on that. One uh sounds like it's going to be a ongoing thing. um That is it for now um I mean, unless anyone has anything else, they want to add all right. We're done.