Displaying images and embedding external media

Display Images (WIP-228) and Embed external media (WIP-230)

Content for email to request contributions

The WIPII team have almost completed the initial workshops with faculties and schools (one to go). While still synthesising the observations and preparing our report-back, a few themes have already emerged that have been requested in every workshop to date. Without concluding that these are the only areas (of course there will be many more) we know that we need more detailed requirements for these following two areas:

1. Displaying images: Users require a (small) number of well-developed and supported methods to display still images (i.e. photos) and often associated text/actions. These include a single main image, tiled images, a carousel or gallery for collections, a listing style). Users have also mentioned specific requirements (that might or might not be in scope) around image resizing, automating manual tasks, and simplifying the editing work for frequently performed tasks.
2. Embedding external media: Both staff and students use many different external content sources, be it marketing/recruitment collateral or the course work and research outputs, embedded in to VUW web pages. There are benefits to displaying some of this on our website, even when the University is not best suited to host/stream. Examples include media streaming, collaborative work spaces, digital object repositories, etc. Users have also mentioned some general requirements such as guidelines on embedding that would reducing risk and increasing the quality, and even possible policy/rules on the terms of use and locations of different hosting and streaming services.

I am seeking your input to identify a small number of staff (ideally one or at most two per faculty) to form a working group to draft (or at least provide me and I do the drafting of) the detailed requirements for these two themes. The nominated people would need to:

• Be familiar with this area/topic
• Be responsible for pages that need this content/functionality
• Have an interest in specifying how this works in future
• Can make themselves available for a few discussion/workshops over the next few weeks.

I expect that some faculties will have the same person(s) for each group and others will have a different representation at each. And it is also perfectly acceptable to trust that your requirements will be catered for by the contributions of others and place nominate nobody.

Table of participants

Not all workshops will require representatives from all the following categories, but the table serves as a check list of who to consider.

Content for email to thank people for their contributions

Thank you to everyone who contributed to the requirements documents for Displaying images and Embedding external media. Your contributions were all sound and most were repeated by different contributors, showing a strong level of consensus for a small number of requirements. I have written these up as user stories (a tool used in Agile development to capture a description of a software feature from a user perspective) and am sharing these with you so you both know what I have captured and so you can feedback to me where I may have missed or misunderstood something you said.

Note that this is not a commitment to develop all these features, as that is a project management/governance decision. It is a check that I have accurately documented or expressed your requirements.

1. Displaying images: I have written five user stories:
   1. Upload and publish an image in one step: A drag and drop feature that lets you place an image on a page you are creating and it is uploaded in to Squiz and saved in the background.
   2. Resize an image easily: Many of you shared that image resizing is a challenge, so this story describes how it could be made easier. It has a linked story that is a cheat sheet resource on how to do this easier/better.
   3. Add a caption to an image: Without having to work in the HTML, with simple tools to reposition and preview your work.
   4. Publish an image alongside text: Images to illustrate a story/text block in an attractive way but easy to achieve.
   5. Display a collection of images: A template that makes this easy and looks great. For times when many images are appropriate.
2. Embedding external media: I have written two user stories:
   1. Scaffold the embedding of popular external media: Make it simple to embed from the most common external media sources, while being secure. It could have a linked story that is a good practise guideline on how to do this easier/better.
   2. Display a collection of embedded assets: Appropriate for resource collections such as recorded lecturers, tutorials, etc.