Radicle IDE Plugins - UX Design
- Status: Open
- Proposer: @gsaslis
- Your Project(s): [optional]: N/A
- Projects you think this work could be useful for [optional]: smoother onboarding onto radicle
- Teams/People that could deliver the RFP [optional]: @gsaslis
Overview 
āWalkā into any online forum / chat room / mailing list and you are absolutely certain to find a healthy number of debates over developer tools. These debates come up time and time again. People are invested in their particular tools of choice. Once they are, they feel compelled to share that knowledge with others in the community (āit makes life so much simplerā, āit helps me reduce mistakesā, āit helps me stay in āthe zoneā ā, and so onā¦)
One common topic for debate is the choice of Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Rather than a single tool, IDEs are really an opinionated collection of tools and it is common for developers to settle on a particular IDE they will subsequently use for years to come (and resist to change).
Ecosystem Fit
In this context, it is important for Radicle to adapt itself to the existing tooling ecosystem, rather than introduce an entirely new set of tools that developers will have to learn how to use.
Rather than forcing developers to drop their existing toolset, in order to use Radicle, we can take a complementary approach: What if developers could continue using their existing toolset and gradually start using Radicle ?
This can become possible by introducing Radicle in their IDEs of choice, as an IDE plugin.
Project Description 
This application for a grant will cover the UX design for an early alpha version of IDE plugins for Radicle. We will focus solely on establishing the UX for how developers can collaborate over radicle using their IDE.
The resulting UX design from this project will then be used to inform the implementation of the IDE plugins, in subsequent grant applications, and can also be used as feedback to the interface design of other existing client interfaces (CLI, Upstream, etc).
Methodology
Below, we describe the UX process we intend to follow:
Cycle | Methods |
---|---|
1. DISCOVER | Field Studies/User Interviews |
Requirements & constraints | |
Competitive testing | |
2. EXPLORE | Design review |
Task analysis | |
Journey mapping | |
Prototype feedback & testing | |
Write user stories | |
3. TEST | Qualitative usability testing |
Accessibility evaluation | |
4. LISTEN | Surveys |
Feedback review | |
Community |
Rapid Prototyping
Before we beging working on the code itself, it is important to know what we are going to build. Especially because we will be working on creating a Graphical User Interface (GUI), it is important to be able to iterate quickly, using low-fidelity prototypes (commonly also called paper prototypes ).
We consider such āpaper prototypesā to be necessary components of our Definition of Ready, so we can later begin working on the first alpha versions of the IDE plugins.
Field Studies/User Interviews
As part of this work, we will be tasked with gathering existing users from each IDE and creating distinct user groups that can inform our UX design and validate our early designs.
As part of each milestone, for the respective IDE, we will also need to find community users who are interested in participating in the user research for the IDE plugins. Users will be incentivized to participate (by means of a digital gift card).
Developer Journeys in Scope
The envisioned functionality to be included in the first version of the IDE plugins will include the following UX journeys:
- Create new radicle identity and manage key pairs
- Initialise and publish a git project on radicle
- Configuring seed nodes
- List projects available on the seed node
- Track and checkout projects
Deliverables 
- Total Estimated Duration: 6 calendar weeks
- Full-time equivalent (FTE): 39 FTE days
- Total Costs: 22 640 EUR
Milestone 1: IntelliJ IDEA Plugin - User Research & Paper Prototypes
In this milestone, we will focus on establishing the User Experience (UX) of the IntelliJ IDEA plugin and producing paper prototypes showcasing how the plugin works.
We will evaluate the existing plugin for GitHub in the Jetbrains marketplace and use that to inform our own designs. It is important to note that this DOES NOT mean that we will blindly replicate the existing UI/UX, only useful key elements that will be taken into account as they form the basis of the current developer experience.
- Estimated Duration: 4 calendar weeks
- Full-Time Equivalent (FTE): 22 days
- Costs: 12 720 EUR (including 20 EUR participation incentives for 20 Field Study participants)
Number | Deliverable | Specification |
---|---|---|
1. | Paper prototypes - 1st Iteration | Paper prototypes will be created that showcase each UX journey described in the Project Description section. |
2. | Field Studies/User Interviews research results | After the paper prototypes are conceived, two (2) group studies will be run, aiming at a minimum of 10 participants each (IntelliJ Users), to help us validate the functionality of the conceived prototypes. |
3. | Paper prototypes - 2nd Iteration | This deliverable will include the version of the prototypes that will be used in the subsequent milestone where the PoC version of the plugin will be created. |
Milestone 2: VSCode Extension - User Research & Paper Prototypes
In this milestone, we will focus on establishing the User Experience (UX) of the VSCode Extension and producing paper prototypes showcasing how the plugin works.
We will evaluate the existing plugin for GitHub Repositories and use that to inform our own designs. It is important to note that this DOES NOT mean that we will blindly replicate the existing UI/UX, only useful key elements that will be taken into account as they form the basis of the current developer experience.
- Estimated Duration: 3 calendar weeks
- FTE: 17 days
- Costs: 9 920 EUR (including 20 EUR participation incentives for 20 Field Study participants)
Number | Deliverable | Specification |
---|---|---|
1. | Paper prototypes - 1st Iteration | Paper prototypes will be created that showcase each UX journey described in the Project Description section. |
2. | Field Studies/User Interviews research results | After the paper prototypes are conceived, two (2) group studies will be run, aiming at a minimum of 10 participants each (VSCode users), to help us validate the functionality of the conceived prototypes. |
3. | Paper prototypes - 2nd Iteration | This deliverable will include the version of the prototypes that will be used in the subsequent milestone where the PoC version of the plugin will be created. |
Future Plans
This application marks only the start of a long journey working on IDE plugins as clients to the Radicle network.
This particular application to the Radicle Grants program is kept limited in scope and does not include a working version of the plugin on purpose.
This is so that work on the plugins/extensions themselves can be decoupled from the UX work that needs to happen before implementation can begin.
In addition, future work will also cover additional UX journeys that will be added to the plugins, depending on usage / demand from the pluginsā early users.
This is because we strongly believe in iterative approaches and we want early iterations to inform future ones. As such, this application is the first in what will likely be a series of applications, each of which will address a different part of the whole problem area. In this way, through these micro-grant applications, we believe we can make a Grants program compatible with the iterative software development practices that have become standard in the industry today.
Team 
Team members
- Yorgos Saslis
- Nikos Kampitakis
- Michael Meimaroglou
Contact
- Contact Name: Yorgos Saslis
- Contact Email: I can share this privately on discord.
- Website: https://webtrails.io/
Legal Structure
- Registered Address: Science and Technology Park of Crete, Heraklion, Greece
- Registered Legal Entity: Cytech Ltd.
Teamās experience
- [Yorgos] 15+ years of experience in various roles of the full Software Development Lifecycle: writing code, agreeing on specs with clients, architecting systems, establishing product priorities, designing testing and CI strategies, and co-creating department-wide processes - with an itch for driving āwasteā out the door. Co-founder of developer communities (DevStaff, Heraklion Software Crafters, Web3 Greece) and co-organizer of open space unconferences (AgileCrete, JCrete) on the (paradise!
) island of Crete!
- [Nikos] 20 years of experience in coding and 12 years running my web agency - Webtrails.io - working mostly as a product manager for various software projects.
- [Michael] 15+ years of experience in various roles as front-end developer, graphic designer (print and digital applications), creative director and the last 8 years focused as a UX/UI designer of SaaS apps in Greece and abroad. Member of the GGDA (national association for professional graphic designers in Greece).
Team Code Repos
- gsaslis (Yorgos Saslis) Ā· GitHub
- kabitakis (Nikos Kampitakis) Ā· GitHub
- micmeistudio (Michael Meimaroglou) Ā· GitHub
Team LinkedIn Profiles (if available)
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/gsaslis
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/kabitakis/
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmeimaroglou
Additional Information 
How did you hear about the Grants Program? Radicle Discord