About this Document

This document summarizes the results of the RFC 2 discussion during the 2005 Cytoscape Retreat.

• Section 1 documents the final group ideas. Ideas which garnered the most ideas are shown first.
• Section 2 document individual ideas from Cytoscape retreat attendees.

Section 1: Final Group Ideas

Idea 1: Gather Feedback from Cytoscape Users

Total Number of Votes: 6

Summary:

• Cytoscape has thousands of users. We should develop a feedback and information gathering mechanism for this large user base.
• Feature prioritization should be based on user feedback.
• Display statistics on the Cytoscape site about most liked, wanted, and disliked features.
• Organize user meetings, perhaps in combination with another meeting users might attend.
• Provide easy mechanism to make feature requests, submit new ideas.
• Create a User FAQ

• Create a User Q&A forum online for new users (Cytoscape discuss seems very programmer oriented)

• Conduct user survey.

Idea 2: Create Development Coordinators

Total Number of Votes: 6

Summary:

• Partition and assign rotating responsibility for development areas.
• "Development coordinators" will be tasked with centralizing and facilitating communication between areas.
• Posts held for 1-2 years.
• May need one top-level coordinator to arbitrate development coordinators and cover misc. tasks.

Idea 3: Be Clear About Use-Cases and Long-Term Vision

Total Number of Votes: 4

Summary:

• Implement a process for defining use-cases, and building comunity consensus.
• Adopt a Mozilla-like process for development to reach these goals.
• Implement this for 2.3; maybe not possible for long-term vision.

Idea 4: Adopt a more Systematic Development Process

Total Number of Votes: 3

Summary:

• User requirements gathering (talk to our users more)
• Technical specs and documentation
• Coding
• Testing
• User Feedback
• Documentation for the end-user

Idea 5: Create a new Project Coordinator / Architect

Total Number of Votes: 1

Summary:

• Full-time position
• Central contact for both developers and users.
• Authority to make decisions, but answerable to core developers, PIs, and community.
• Must know the code.

Idea 6: User-Driven Functionality

Total Number of Votes: 1

Summary:

• Solicit feedback from biological users in outreach efforts (e.g. external demos, tutorials) in a systematic form, as follows:
  • ask a structured set of questions, including, "Why are you using the software?", "Can you perform this function now?", and so forth.
  • ask if users would be willing to weigh in again 6 months later.
• Have a designated Cytostaffer whose role is to assess feedback and identify key functionality to address major concerns, and works closely with core developerrs to communicate and track targeted developments.
• Track development efforts on the wiki, and open it up to users.