Refine Contributor Orientation Tool for the Make WP Contribute page

[sereedmedia]

Summary

The Contributor Orientation Tool (COT) is live on make.wordpress.org/contribute. The Contribute page is the landing page for the primary Call to Action (CTA) for two sections of the WordPress 6.3 About Page, which will display to WordPress users after upgrading to 6.3.

This ticket is for the Marketing Team to track and manage the content updates and process for team suggestion outcomes, prior to the launch of WordPress 6.3 on August 8, 2023.

Longer term suggestions for improvement or Issues with the tool's functionality that may need additional iteration or development can be suggested and tracked by filing an issue in the official COT GitHub repository.

Goal

The goal of this debut version of the COT is to create a better-than-MVP tool for the Contribute section and provide some onboarding guidance for any WordPress user that clicks on the two WordPress 6.3 About page CTAs.

Timeline

All know updates should be able to be completed by August 3, 2023.

All updates must be complete prior to WordPress 6.3's scheduled launch on August 8. I recommend a page freeze on August 5.

Status

Pending the merge of #13 , the new version of the COT includes selection options that allow for suggestions that include all teams that have new contributor onboarding processes in place.

Next Steps

After testing that the most recent version of the COT works and closing the existing issues, I will share the COT in the team reps channel in order to:

1. let the team reps know the tool exists and will launch in 6.3
2. ask the team reps to review their team's potential onboarding paths and handbook landing pages with this new contributor audience in mind
3. encourage the team reps to review, and if needed update, their team handbook's "Get Involved" landing page and/or headers prior to the launch of 6.3

After the team reps have had time to review for accuracy and functionality, we can do a final pre-launch PR with any updates or edits.

Future Plans

Once 6.3 launches, we should likely focus on addressing any issues or bugs before revisiting the COT's content and outcomes, possibly at WCUS Contributor Day.

Future ideas currently include:

• link to LearnWP modules for contributing (doesn't yet exist)
• link to LearnWP modules for onboarding to each MakeWP team (doesn't yet exist)
• link to Contributor Mentorship information (doesn't yet exist)
• create a dynamic module for People of WordPress that updates with each new feature

Additional suggestions for future COT development are welcome. If they are out of scope of this ticket, please post them here to be collected for reference.

[sereedmedia]

Here is the Google doc that has the current content and team suggestion outcomes. Please add all comments as suggestions. Ideally after launch we could put this into a MD file in the main repo.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ljozcs3jTY2b9JgfuRF7fwtjozn596HTptGp2E_SI9I/edit

[sereedmedia]

The latest PR is merged and all desired teams are being displayed as possibly suggestions! The PR closed the first round of fixes, so now we have an MVP that is "good enough" for the 6.3 launch. However, it is possible we can make it better before then as well!

We need to refine the team suggestion options and get Team Reps input. To facilitate this, I've created a Google Sheets doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DWIwleGfs6speweui2SJwzEiFjcCcwiJo_NLoPfu3NY/edit?usp=sharing

On this sheet, Team Reps can select which options are on their team suggestion path. I'll put it into #team-reps Slack.

I haven't yet selected the teams that are currently showing for each option. That would be a lovely thing to have in, but not necessary. Perhaps it's better to have each option be opt-in.

We can also update the Google Sheet to provide some text output for each options for easier inputting into the next PR. I will try to get to this.

[sereedmedia]

I've added the formula to output in the last column a list of the teams selected for each option.

[nalininsbs]

I like the option being an opt-in if it is possible if this gives new people a choice and reduces feeling overwhelmed.

Is this page to be promoted for translation? It will not be part of the translations for 6.3 as this deadline I believe has gone.

[sereedmedia]

@nalininsbs I'm not sure what you mean by this being "opt-in". Could you clarify?

To my understanding, this page isn't slated for translation because it is on make.wordpress.org, which is not translated! Many local-language site have their own page as part of their Rosetta site, which is a translation of the primary wordpress.org.

I actually had a similar question yesterday, which resulted in this conversation in Polyglots and this edit to 6.3. Please check out those Slack conversations for full context, and let me know if you have more to add!

[sereedmedia]

Posted the Team Options sheet to #team-reps, and also posted it individually to each team channel!

[jpantani]

I went through this flow today to test it out. I chose—without knowing the outcome—what I did because I wanted to ensure that I'd get a marketing result.

Step 1 — I checked:

• I design WordPress websites, layouts, graphics, interfaces, or experiences.
• I build, customize, manage, or work with WordPress for myself or clients

Step 2 — I checked:

• Making complex information digestible and easy to follow, ensuring information is understandable and accessible
• Creating content, including blogs, photographs, or videos

Step 3 — I checked:

• Market research, strategic planning, branding, communications
• Photography, video production, and editing

My results were Community, Documentation, and Sustainability.
Based on the spreadsheet, I should have gotten marketing too or in lieu of.
Hopefully, this "test" can help refine the tool and make it easier to promote as well.

[sereedmedia]

The options selected on the spreadsheet isn't necessarily what is on the live tool at the moment. And as you noted it isn't generating the correct results in this iteration.

The spreadsheet is to make sure that the appropriate options are selected for each team. I am aiming to do a PR update to the tool using this data by Friday, August 18, 2023, so that it is updated before WordCamp US Contributor Day.

@jpantani Can you ensure that the boxes for the options you've noted here are checked on the spreadsheet for Marketing? (Please select any other options you think are relevant as well).

[abhansnuk]

@sereedmedia great to see progress on this. Is this task refining the fields for options and then going to the GitHub repo for the tool itself for the code work on this?

Can I suggest moving this task on marketing to ‘in progress’ from ‘to do/ status review’ to help give it visibility if you are still wanting feedback on the selected options.

Is the spreadsheet still open to further descriptors from core this week? Thanks

[sereedmedia]

this task/github issue is to manage the content development of the tool and the outreach to the teams. once i synthesize the responses i plan to make a PR that updates all of the options/outcomes.

there is plenty of time to add new option descriptions/suggestions. we will likely need to continue to work on the new suggested options past the WCUS-targeted update, because most of the suggestions are VERY specific and the language isn't yet standardized to a more neutral/general/approachable tone.