Jenkins UI/UX Hackfest
This event is over, thanks a lot to all contributors! Results are being processed at the moment, this page will be updated later. |
UI/UX Online Hackfest is an online event, it will take place on May 25-29. The goal to improve the Jenkins user experience, including but not limited to user interface and documentation. We also invite participants to share experiences about Jenkins and to participate in UX testing. The event will have the Jenkins is the Way theme. The most active contributors will get special edition swag and other prizes, see below!
Results
We had 53 participants who did hundreds of contributions during the event (full list). Thanks a lot to everyone who helped to improve the Jenkins User Experience during the event! During this event we have improved the Read-only Jenkins Configuration support, created a new dark theme for Jenkins, migrated and renewed 40+ documentation pages, migrated almost 20 plugins to Documentation-as-code, and performed a lot of user experience testing for the hackfest stories. Also, there were many enhancements delivered in Jenkins components: new script approval management pages, credentials UI navigation, etc.
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List of reported contributions (multiple contributions per issue)
What is Hackfest?
This hackfest is NOT a hackathon. We do not expect participants to dedicate all their time during the event timeframe. Instead of that, we organize it as a hop-in/hop-off event where everybody can spend as much time as they are willing to dedicate. Spending a few days or a few hours is fine, any contributions matter regardless of their size. Jenkins experience is not required, we have newcomer-friendly stories. See the Contribute and Participate page for more information about how to contribute.
During this hackfest, we will organize online meetups and ad-hoc training sessions in different timezones. There are no mandatory events you must attend remotely, all sessions will be recorded and published on our YouTube channel. At the end of the event we will be inviting participants to join our demo sessions or to record and upload these demos to share asynchronously.
Getting started
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Register to the event if you have not done it already.
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Join our Gitter channel. We will use it for Q&A and discussions during the event.
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Join the kick-off meeting (May 25, 1PM UTC) or watch the first 20 minutes of the recording. If you want to start early, we will also have a small opening session at 8AM UTC.
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You are all set, start contributing!
How to choose a project?
Check out the list of ideas below. Try to find a project or an area interesting to you. If you do not have a strong preference, we recommend finding something that could improve your own experience and address the UX issues you hit with Jenkins personally. If you do not use Jenkins personally but want to explore it, consider working on newcomer-friendly issues or documentation for newcomer users: getting started guides, tutorials, etc.
How to report contributions?
We deployed a special GitHub repository which will be used to collect contributions and to generate reports from the event. Please report your code and non-code contributions as GitHub issues, there are issues templates for common types of contributions. You can find full guidelines here.
How to communicate during the event?
Here are the following communication channels at your disposal:
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Chat: UI/UX Hackfest channel in Gitter
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Mailing lists: User Experience, Documentation, Advocacy & Outreach - for event tracks. There is also a Developer mailing list for common matters.
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Office Hours: We will be organizing sessions in two timezones during the event (in Zoom or Google Meet). See the Jenkins UI/UX Hackfest Calendar for meeting links.
Tracks and Project ideas
There will be 3 main tracks:
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User Interface - Improve look&feel and accessibility for Jenkins users, work on new read-only interface for instances managed with configuration as code, create and update Jenkins themes, etc. All stories can benefit from UX testing and documentation!
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User Documentation - Improve and create new user documentation, tutorials and solution pages. Also, there is ongoing documentation migration from Jenkins Wiki to jenkins.io and plugin repositories.
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Spread the word - Write user stories for Jenkins Is The Way site and the Jenkins blog, post about your Jenkins user experience and new features, record overview and HOWTO videos, etc.
Below you can find some project ideas we have prepared for this event. Everyone is welcome to suggest your own ideas in this Google Doc.
User Interface
This track focuses on projects related to the Jenkins web interface. It includes not only the UI improvements and bug fixes, but also the related user documentation and UX testing. This track is coordinated by the Jenkins User Experience special interest group.
Project idea and Keywords | Description and links |
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Look & Feel updates (project page) |
We want to modernize the Jenkins Web interface styling and appearance. It includes updating and restyling the commonly used layouts like main page, job pages, build console outputs, etc.
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Web UI Accessibility (project page) |
We would like to make Jenkins usable by as many people as possible. It includes multiple groups of users: people with disabilities, ones using mobile devices, or those with slow network connections. In general, all Jenkins users would benefit from better navigation and layouts.
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A read-only view of Jenkins configurations, jobs and agents is important to plugin:configuration-as-code[Jenkins Configuration-as-Code] users. Soon we will release a new feature which extends support for read-only views (announcement draft). It is a great time to do crowd testing and to improve support for the feature in plugins.
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UI Themes |
Jenkins UI themes are widely used in Jenkins instances, and they contribute to better user experience. We invite users to improve the existing themes and to create new ones. UI Themes Documentation.
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Pipeline Visualization and embedded docs |
We would like to improve the built-in Pipeline visualization in Jenkins. This is an advanced topic requiring some expertise in Jenkins development. Some ideas raised by contributors:
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Credentials Management UX |
plugin:credentials[Credentials Plugin] User interface is often reported as overly complicated. It would be great to improve it and make it easier to use.
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Developer tools for Jenkins Web UI |
Development tools could help developers to create better user interfaces in Jenkins. There are some areas that could be addressed:
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User Documentation
We have several projects which are specifically related to user documentation. It includes user and administrator guides, and also tutorials and installation guidelines which are referenced from this page. This track is coordinated by the Documentation special interest group.
Project idea and Keywords | Description and links |
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Improve User and Administrator Documentation (project page) |
Let’s improve the documentation for Jenkins end users and administrators. Located on the Jenkins website, it follows the Documentation-as-Code approach. We would like to extend this documentation and to also make it more accessible and discoverable.
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Installation guidelines |
If you are interested to do UX testing, Jenkins installation guidelines could be a great subject for you. Some guidelines were created long ago, and they could benefit from a refresh.
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Document Jenkins use-cases (project page) |
Help us to improve documentation for real-world Jenkins use-cases!
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Improve Plugin Documentation |
We are moving plugin documentation from Jenkins Wiki to Documentation as Code so that it is stored directly in plugin repositories. There are hundreds of plugins that need to be migrated. We invite contributors to help with migrating plugin pages and improving existing ones. More info.
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Spread the Word
Contributing to a project is not just about submitting code. We invite you to help us to contribute by sharing experiences and creating new content about Jenkins. Such information is essential to Jenkins users when they search for solutions. Below you can find some ideas about how you could contribute:
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Write user stories for Jenkins Is The Way site!
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Write case studies and feature overviews for the Jenkins blog and other resources.
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Tweet/post about your Jenkins user experience and new features, use the
#jenkinsIsTheWay
hashtag. -
Record videos and publish them on YouTube or other services, use the
#jenkinsIsTheWay
label there. -
Create new demos for Jenkins features.
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Present UX-related stories at our online meetups.
This track is coordinated by the Jenkins Advocacy & Outreach special interest group.
Online events
We have organized multiple online sessions during the hackfest to share experiences and do knowledge transfers. All these sessions have been recorded and published on our YouTube channel. You can find materrials from all these sessions here.
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May 25, 08:00-09:00 AM UTC - Small Early Bird opening session (slides, recording)
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May 25, 01:00-02:30 PM UTC - Hackfest kick-off (details)
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May 25, 03:00-04:00 PM UTC - Beautify the UI of Jenkins reporter plugins by Ullrich Hafner (details)
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May 25, 04:00-04:30 PM UTC - Jenkins is The Way program overview by Alyssa Tong (details)
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May 26, 10:00-10:45 AM UTC - Migrating plugins to Documentation-as-Code by Oleg Nenashev (details)
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May 26, 13:00-14:00 PM UTC - System Read Permission: Demo and contributing by Tim Jacomb (details)
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May 26, 15:00-16:00 PM UTC - Migrating documentation to jenkins.io by Mark Waite (details)
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May 27, 04:00-05:00 PM UTC - UX SIG meeting: mid-term hackfest updates and demos (meeting links)
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May 27, 10:00-11:00 AM UTC - Using and developing Jenkins themes + new dark theme project by Tobias Gruetzmacher, Oleg Nenashev, and Tim Jacomb (details)
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May 29, 11:00-12:00 AM UTC - Demo: GitHub Checks API Plugin prototype by Kezhi Xiong (details)
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May 29, 03:00-05:00 PM UTC - Demo Sessions by hackfest participants (details)
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Jun 01, 11:00-12:00 AM UTC - Demo: Custom Jenkins Distribution build service by Sladyn Nunes (details)
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Jun 01, 02:00-03:00 PM UTC - Hackfest results by Oleg Nenashev and Mark Waite (details)
More links:
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Jenkins event calendar - full list of events in the Jenkins project.
Swag and Prizes
Thanks to our sponsors (CloudBees, Inc. and Continuous Delivery Foundation), we are happy to offer swag to active contributors!
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50 most-active contributors will get an exclusive "Jenkins Is The Way" T-shirt and stickers
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Active contributors will get Jenkins stickers and socks
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We are working on special prizes for top contributors, to be announced later
Frequently Asked Questions
See here.
Code of Conduct
We want to make this event a great experience for everyone, please be nice to all participants! All event participants must follow this the Jenkins Code of Conduct, Unacceptable behavior will make trespassers ineligible to get swag and prizes, and it may lead to other actions defined in the Code of Conduct.
Acknowledgements
We thank all contributors who participate in this event as committers! We especially thank all reviewers, organizers and those who participated in the initial program reviews and provided invaluable feedback. In particular, we thank User Experience, Documentation and Advocacy and Outreach SIG members who heavily contributed to this event.
We also thank sponsors of the event who make the swag and prizes possible: CloudBees, Inc. and Continuous Delivery Foundation (CDF). In addition to swag, CloudBees donates working time for event hosts and reviewers. CDF also sponsors our online meetup platform which we will be using for the event.