We recently started an informal User Interface group here at the TSSG to create a UI and design resource along with generating an awareness of the importance of design. The group consists of a bunch of interested people from different projects spread throughout the TSSG building. Some I work with on a daily basis and others I haven’t actually met face-to-face yet.
On setting the group up I ran into a lack of collaboration tools. The mailing list (MailMan Listserv) and blog (WordPress) are adequately served but beyond that there is not much that fits.
Link sharing tools such as del.icio.us and BlinkList work fine for individuals but aren’t setup for groups. We could all sign-up for del.icio.us accounts and then tag relevant links with “tssguigroup” but I already have a link stream and don’t want to pollute it. Polluting your tag list isn’t a good idea either. I also want a system I can host internally and customise to our needs. Anybody got the del.icio.us source code to share? Didn’t think so.
A link directory would also be very useful. A directory with tags but also categories that allows us to build up a collection of useful links to resources. This is different to a stream of links as needed above.
Another requirement is sharing of images for peer review. For example if Edel wants to get some peer review of a new design then she should be able to post up a set of images, notify us all and we can then weigh in with our comments. Flickr is not setup for this. Once again I don’t want to pollute my Flickr stream with work images and there is the problem of keeping it all private. A private Flickr Group doesn’t cut it.
Then there are books. We all have design books on our desks which we are willing to lend out. How do we collect the books together, making the others aware of them and manage lending of them?
I am also looking for a good forum system which lets us post questions and discuss issues. What has happened to forum development in this day and age of blogs and wikis? There is still a need.
Speaking of blogs while WordPress works for our central blog I would love a system that allowed multiple blogs within a company. Setting up copies of WordPress for each person who wants a blog in the group is not ideal. Members should be able to just hit a “Create Blog” button and it gets added to a directory of blogs. Enterprise blogging! Tools?
I am looking forward to BlogBridge’s Library system as this would be great for getting group members up to speed with useful design feeds. For now though it will have to be a manually updated OPML file.
If you know of any tools that fit what I need then please speak up. I am not looking for a system that does it all, those generally don’t work.
