How to make it clear Snowdrift.coop is not, and we realize it's not, "ready for prime time"

[msiep]

Expressed as a driver statement:

[Current situation] The Snowdrift.coop home page currently does not provide any cues to inform the viewer that Snowdrift.coop is not yet a finished, fully functioning site. [Effect] This makes it likely that people who look at the site for the first time will have the experience of initially perceiving it as a finished, fully functioning site, and then later discovering that it is not, which may give a bad impression, perhaps including feelings of having been misled, or of being treated with carelessness. [Need] We need to find a way to provide an effective cue on all pages that Snowdrift.coop is not yet a finished, fully functioning site, [Impact] so that people who look at the site for the first time will understand the current status of Snowdrift.coop and be more likely to have positive feelings about Snowdrift.coop as a promising platform in the process of being developed.

Please comment on this driver statement and contribute ideas for what to do about it.

[wolftune]

My revised statement:

[Current situation] Snowdrift.coop does not indicate explicitly to visitors that it’s not yet a finished, fully functioning platform. [Effect] Some people may look at the site and initially perceive it as fully-launched. When they later find incomplete and broken elements, they have a distrusting bad impression, perhaps feel misled, and have no clear expectations or hopes for our future. [Need] We need to provide an effective cue on all pages that Snowdrift.coop is not yet a finished, fully functioning site. [Impact] People who visit should understand the current status so they can accept the incomplete parts and feel hopeful about the potential and perhaps have thoughts of how they might help.

[alignwaivers]

@msiep and @wolftune, nice work on the driver statements!

I like the detail and explicitly identifying ‘current situation, effect, need and impact’. Just for the sake of contrast, I attempted to parse what ya’ll wrote even further (to the length of 1-2 sentences as expressed as a goal to try for with driver statements in sociocracy) In theory this may mean it’s quicker to read/process but the caveat is there is less explicit detail.

The question I’m wondering is how much can the people looking at the driver statement infer from it, and if it is necessary to explain the specifics of how people may respond negatively to the situation?
Interested to hear other people’s thoughts, but here’s my ‘as-concise-as-possible’ version (that could still have the specifics of ‘feeling misled or being treated with carelessness, etc’, added to it.)

Driver statement:
The website does not accurately convey the current state of the Snowdrift.coop platform, which could lead to negative feelings for people/users visiting Snowdrift.coop. We need explicit cues on the website to clarify the unfinished status of Snowdrift.coop so that there is better understanding for anyone visiting the site, and assurance about the accuracy of the information presented.

for the record I actually like explicitly identifying the ‘current situation, effect, need and impact’ but wanted to emulate the sociocracy example driver statement for kicks and giggles

[wolftune]

Driver statement

• The website does not clearly convey the current state of the platform and project.
• Visitors may have unrealistic initial expectations and then a disappointing experience.
• We need explicit cues on the website to clarify our unfinished status.
• That could bring better understanding and assurance along with greater conversion of visitors into patrons and volunteers.

@team what do you think about my updated statement above?

[msiep]

I’ve created an issue in gitlab using this driver statement: https://gitlab.com/snowdrift/design/issues/111

[msiep]

@mray it would be great to get your feedback on this.

[fvila789]

For a start, maybe add a section with a name like “Where we are now” , with a couple of bullet point lists, headed by “Here’s what works right now:” and “Here’s what we are still working on:” . Possibly add in a 3rd list “Here’s where we can use some help:”

[msiep]

Thanks @fvila789. This will be helpful for drafting the page that explains our status.

I’ve posted a revised idea for how to draw visitors’ attention to that page, and link to it, on https://gitlab.com/snowdrift/design/issues/111 in response to feedback from @mray on my previous iteration.