[mathesar-developers] Project update: product strategy

[Ghislaine Guerin]

Project Link 

We have made significant progress in identifying various use cases from social media posts, forums, and online resources that we've discovered through our Syften alerts. Our goal is to understand what users are seeking when considering products similar to Mathesar.

Currently, we're working on creating a more comprehensive dataset using Mathesar, encompassing all these use cases, including the features required for their implementation. Moreover, we're associating these use cases with their respective stakeholders and actors.

As an added bonus, through building this dataset we are also uncovering a lot of usability improvements for Mathesar.

[Ghislaine Guerin]

Project Link 

This week, we are continuing our work on the use case table. We have begun to add more use cases, categorizing all the information and associating it with stakeholders. This will subsequently lead us to develop personas once all the data is fully compiled. We've also discussed incorporating new data sources, such as use cases brought up by people opening GitHub issues.

[Ghislaine Guerin]

Project Link 

I forgot to send this on Friday. This week, we prepared and presented the general project strategy, along with updates on user research, including the presentation of use cases and the analysis of collected data. We are now focusing on aligning the research with the project goals and building personas.

[Kriti Godey]

A quick note that I'm probably not going to make much progress on the product strategy this week since I have some time-sensitive fundraising-related work.

[Ghislaine Guerin]

Project Link 

This week, we initiated a discussion on the general strategy for the project. In a team meeting, we talked about the various niches.
User research is still ongoing and has now shifted to focus on each niche individually. We are expanding our understanding by associating specific use cases with these niches for a better understanding of each area. Additionally, we're setting up calls with team members to get their feedback on the use cases database, aiming to make it as clear and useful as possible.

Our current focus is on creating or adapting existing surveys. The goal is to begin gathering input from community members, people on our mailing list, and those currently using Mathesar. By doing this, we hope to bring users' voices into our project strategy discussions.

[Kriti Godey]

The planned outcomes for this project were:

• A set of user personas / use cases that we’re targeting.
• A strategy document that outlines user needs and product priorities.
• A framework that can help us make feature development decisions quickly.
  • This includes a plan for ongoing user research and how it will be integrated into our roadmap planning.

We've made significant progress towards these outcomes, but we're not there yet. We'll be continuing work until we get to these outcomes.

[Kriti Godey]

I've updated the project wiki page with outcomes from the project (linked under "Results") and moved the project to the "Complete" section of the main projects page.