Caveat: Work in Progress: there's more from 3/29 to be added this weekend.

Guiding Principles for Gnomepal IA

• IA exercises can get pretty bogged down with ceremony. The objective here is to keep this one streamlined, so achievable requirements can be derived from it. For subsequent revs, it may be appropriate to apply more rigor, but this is a sprint, so keep edits concise this round.
• Patterns, patterns, patterns! Abstract all models. Remember, we're building a tool that builds communities, not a community itself. Avoid single use or one-off scenarios.
• Avoid thinking "what would I do?" Instead, come back to the Personas, and try to put yourself inside the head of the one that will face the problem you're thinking thru.

Personas:

Personas are a representation of the live humans we're designing for. While they roughly map to what Drupal treats as "roles," Personas are meant to be archetypal - there will obviously be many sub-classes within these types.

Community Leader - A community site adminstrator.

Goals:

• Serve the community (the reason to create a community site to begin with).
• Attract new and existing community members.
• Promote interaction among community members and external communities.
• Maintain the health and well-being of the community.
• Manage community infrastructure ("plumbing").
• Monetize intra-community interactions for the accrual of value to the community owners, the community at large, or to individual members within an intra-community economy.

Deputized Member - A community member who the Community Leader has granted some (arbitrary) privileges. (Example: Editor.)

Goals: - Assist the Community Leader(s). - Execute the site maintenance duties allocated to them. - Be recognized and rewarded for their efforts. - Shares many of the community health goals with Community Leader(s) and service acquisition goals with Basic Member.

Basic Member - A site visitor who has completed the adminstration and profile process and been granted access by the site's adminstrators.

Goals:

• Contribute to the community.
• Create content.
• Acquire commuity services.
• Interact with ofther community members.
• Pursue interests.
• Engage in activities.
• Get help.
• Meet new people.

Visitor - An anonymous visitor to the site who can browse just enough content to decide if they want to join the community, but does not have access to the community's core material.

Goals:

• Evaluate the community.
• Assess interest in membership.
• Find out what services the community offers.
• Find out what activities are ongoing within the community.
• Find out how to join the community.

Scenarios

Scenarios are a representation of real-world experiences that occur online. Scenarios aren't use cases, they're more narrative and intended to capture the totality of the experience, but they often break down into conditional sets of use cases.

Set Up a Community Site

• Download
• Arrange for hosting
• Run installer
• Receive installation confirmation email
• Log in to new site
• Begin set up wizard

Set Up Wizard

• Name your community
• Compose mission statement
• What do you want your members to be able to do? (check boxes)
• Why should people use your site?
• Do you want advertising on your site?
• (if yes) Do you want to share advertising revenues with members?
• What percentage of do you want to donate to (Gnomepal NPO)
• Choose a Theme (radio button)
• Hobby or Affinity
• Sports / Leisure / Travel
• Games / Entertainment / Arts
• Business or Professional
• Non-profit Organization
• Neighborhood
• School or Class
• Fan Club
• Conference
• Organic / Generic
• Do you have... (TOS/T&C, Code of Conduct, Privacy Policy, Copyright notices, etc.)
• Security Settings
• Do you need your entire site password protected?
• What behaviors do you wish to forbid? (check boxes)

Deeper Setup Configuration

Become a Member

Establish Identity

Create Content

Edit Content

View Content

Critique Content

Find Friends

Join an entity

Affiliate (Link to) External Content

Content Types

• Text
• Audio
• Video
• Images

Sections

• Blogs
• Classifieds / Coupons / Store
• Q&A
• Wiki
• Schedule / Calendar / Events
• Groups
• Group FAQ
• Group Forums / Email List
• Aggregate Schedule / Calendar / Events
• Aggregate Media
• Aggregate Q&A
• Aggregate Wiki
• Polls
• Tags / Categories
• Forums
• Activities
• Aggregate Local Track
• Aggregate Off-site Track
• Profiles
• Local Track
• Off-site Track
• Relevant Activity
• Interests / Shared Interests
• Chat / Live Video
• External Community Links / Shared
• Internal Group Links / Shared
• Shoutbox
• Media
• Contact
• Email
• Address
• Instant Messaging
• Private Messaging
• For Sale
• Local "Relatives"
• Awards
• Points
• Age on Site
• Site Content Favorites
• Library / Help / FAQ / Documentation
• Media
• Audio
• Video
• Images

Activities

• Add Friend
• Chat
• Tag
• Post Content
• Post Comment
• Answer Question
• Ask Question
• Edit Wiki
• Add Favorite
• Join Group
• Send Private Message

Dynamic