Kubernetes Usability Special Interest Group, 2 Feb 2021

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From YouTube: Kubernetes SIG Usability 20210202

Description

Happy Ground Hog Day!

- latest updates for user research study
- plan to invite more people to participate in shadowing user research meetings
- plan to participate in LF internship program

A

Hey everybody welcome to our regularly scheduled sig usability meeting uh today, gabby and carl are going to talk more about our user research study uh and I'll probably talk a little bit about kubecon eu too.

B

Cool, uh so I I guess I'll go ahead and get started. um Just a quick update from january, uh we were able to uh do two user interviews, which is um you know, one of our goals to do two user interviews per month, um so josie was able to lead one and uh carl was also able to lead one. So so thank you both of y'all. For that um I think right now.

B

Our next steps are just to kind of like keep on doing uh keep our goal of two interviews per month, um but I think we're also at the point where um I'm kind of open to just kind of like talking. I want to maybe like just like bring it up with y'all.

B

um We have um kind of like a spreadsheet where we're tracking interviews and kind of like who's going to be the lead, note taker and people that are interested in shadowing, and so I'm just trying to like open it up a little bit more just to see, like you know, what's the best way of making people aware um yeah that there's kind of like shadowing opportunities.

A

So, like shadowing would be like learning how to conduct the user research interview.

B

Yeah, because I mean like I feel like with the um with the zoom recordings and with the transcriptions, uh are they're super nice, and so you know we we started out kind of just like thinking like well.

B

We wanted at least two people per interview, just like one leading and then the other one note-taking, but for not taking it's kind of like you know you can no take if it'll help you kind of like you know, digest and like listen, um but I feel like, even if you just have never sat through like a jobs to be done, interview and just kind of wanted to like shadow and or also just like drop in, because your pers you're interested in kind of like helping with analysis later um and so just listening in on the interview, um I'm thinking like you know, we have a spreadsheet for that, and so you know some people.

B

um You know sj on the call, and just some people in the slack channel um have expressed interest in signing up, and so I'm just thinking like you know, maybe like sharing out the spreadsheet, like on the slack channel.

A

Yeah, something like.

B

That would that be the best way of finding people.

A

Yeah, I would say slack channel and um and the google google email list, google group um and so what but make the ask really concrete, yeah right like and so be like hey.

A

I have a spreadsheet if you want to join a user interview, you know and then to have like the time and like the zoom link uh and just make it really as easy as possible, because you know it's like any volunteer organization, people flake all over the place, uh and so, if you just make the ask really concrete and like here's, a quick and here's the time and then sign up right here, I think people would be definitely interested.

A

um I think people are going to be really interested when we start rolling up what we're learning and presenting it about it at kubecon eu, because people are kind of always really hungry for user stories and user data, especially upstream I get pinged for it all the time. So that's going to be. I think people will be super down for that. uh The other thing that I was thinking about was um we so gabby and I work together to um put together a mentorship proposal.

A

So uh cncf does a mentorship two or three times a year where you can basically post a project and then people apply to your project and then it's a paid internship. So you pick an intern based on the applications, and so we've posted a user research internship opportunity as part of that. So if anyone knows any groups where potential interns hang out feel free to drop them the link to check it out and apply, but I really like the the program that the cncf does, because it's really easy, really straightforward.

A

um You know it's not as complicated as a bunch of the other programs that I won't name drop.

A

But it's a it's a nice little internship program and it's really nice too, because the people who sign up for it, then often it may be one of their first experiences with an open source project and I think, what's kind of unique to what we're doing is it's an opportunity for a user researcher or someone who's getting a university degree in user research usability to kind of come and participate in a way that they might not have an opportunity to do so.

A

Yeah. I think that person will be not only shadowing but leading, hopefully pretty soon,.

B

So and then some background behind uh kind of like what the mentorship uh description that we posted or the project description. Yes, you mentioned that like, since we have um recordings of these like qualitative interviews that we've done that you know we are looking for several people ourselves included to kind of just like go back and listen to those recordings and start synthesizing or start annotating, um the interviews themselves.

B

So we figured that you know if there's somebody uh like use a research background that wants to contribute to open source for the first time that this might be like a good thing um for them to help us out with.

A

Yeah, I'm just pulling up our mentorship description right now and I can share it.

A

But yeah I keep talking, I was that was like kind of a tangent.

A

B

About the mentorship or.

A

I I yeah, I just realized that, like we hadn't chatted with it about the with the bigger group about it um cool, so here is uh here's our mentorship, and this is the platform that the linux foundation uses um so yeah we're just kind of described exactly what we said um and then people can come and apply and so gabby. I think you may have an invite in your inbox to become a mentor.

A

I just saw it okay, cool yeah, so when you accept, when you click accept, you'll be listed as a mentor here too, and then people can apply through this.

B

A

They'll often hit us up on slack and stuff just to ask for more uh details and kind of how to get started and everything, um but yeah. This will be fun like in the past. um I've done this with multi-tenancy, with the work multi-tenancy working group a couple of times um and there's a lot of really interested in interns, um and so it's kind of a cool way to get people started on their kubernetes.

A

B

You know that some of the people our selection has been has been growing, which is kind of cool, but I know that some of the people on there might be in masters, programs and yeah. um You know like it had may have even come to like a meeting or two like in the past. Like is that somebody that would be eligible for something like this.

A

Yeah, I think so um the thing I really like about this program is it's not too prescriptive, so other programs that I've tried to do um with kubernetes.

A

If the student gets a job like they can't take the internship, um even though it's like the internships, you know only 10 20 hours a week or if the intern is in school, they're not allowed to take the internship like there's all these barriers, but the linux foundation is pretty flexible. So it's just kind of you know we determine if the intern is doing the work that we want them to or not, and then we thumbs up our thumbs down. So it's.

B

A

Really pretty relaxed, which is great because it's a it's a more flexible opportunity for people to really get started.

A

Where's the link for the mentorship, um I'll drop it in chat and add it to our meeting notes, so the project itself got added to the linux foundation um mentorship platform, but there's also a github pull request that we added it to that. I don't I don't know if that really matters like, I think it's just what um uh uses to copy and paste stuff over and like approve things um but yeah yep. When does it open? um It should be opening pretty soon.

A

I think they just extended the deadline, because gabby- and I were like running around trying to get this in uh before the deadline last weekend and I think they didn't they have more budget or something so they're like re-extended the deadline for more projects um until the end of this week and then uh they'll probably just announce that it's open on their various channels um and then the uh gabby and I will start getting lots of emails like approve your intern.

A

So that's kind of like how I track everything is just the email pestering it really works. Don't tell them, though I.

B

A

B

Yeah, maybe I'm just thinking like you know, back back to the master's program question like you know, if we all have like alumni email like channels or something like that, like maybe like, that would be a good way, a good place to share it.

A

Yeah, I think that's great you know, and over time, if we get really great interns and we're like wow, you know this person could do like so much more. We can just participate in future internship programs and just pitch different ideas right because this one that we're doing is pretty simple right like and I think an undergrad or a master's student could do a great job.

A

But if we start realizing that, there's like a pool of people who are very talented that you know we pay to do work for us, like maybe we think of something more strenuous. I don't know.

B

And you may have mentioned it before, but um if this is paid uh and the person has a current job, is this kind of like um in addition to that.

A

Yeah, it's just a separate program, um and so that's nice because in the past you know you'll have we had uh students in other countries who you know are getting their first job opportunity and you don't want to be like don't take the job right like they need a paycheck for their can still participate. So that's why I really appreciate how flexible this program has been in the past.

A

That's awesome.

A

Cool um yeah, so uh was there anything else people wanted to talk about? We do have our uh talk proposal for kubecon eu in. um I think that using that so that's in may, so we have a couple months between now and then and then hopefully, we'll have our intern on board and up to speed too.

A

So I think it would be a pretty good goal for us to have to just go in there and start really talking about some of the data that we've collected over the past months and then set ourselves up for kubecon north america six months later uh so yeah um other than that. I think we're just kind of chugging along right now.

B

Yeah, I have to send out emails for the to get our uh next two people for for february, but after that um yeah I'll eat the google group, uh just to kind of like try and get some people into the process. Awesome.

A

Yeah yeah, I think it'll, be uh just to kind of go back to what you were saying about alumni networks. I do think it'll be really interesting to see if we get people signing up for this like organically, because normally people really want to work on kubernetes stuff as part of the internship program, but they're also, like you know, newbie go programmers who would like a mentor to help them learn how to hack on apis?

A

And so you know, I don't know if we'll get people who want to do user research through the regular pool we might. um But it might be good for us to do a little reach out to our networks too. So yeah, cool, cool.

A

Okay, I think that's it for today stop the recording.