7 Components: the Function Pages - Developers

Visuals
Keeping a log
with wiki
During the
meeting
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We must admit that computers are not the best tools for creative
processes, since they indeed prescribe technical behavioral patterns
and set limits. However, you should still take advantage of any existing
room for design in creative processes. Especially when ideas are
sought, the forms of design can differ greatly and consciously stretch
beyond the scope of traditional structures, such as when images are
also integrated because colleagues express their ideas and utopias
via images or other data formats. Thus, include pictures and graphic
images, and submit sketches and mindmaps from team meetings if
they serve to substantiate your ideas. However, before you rush off
and integrate a bunch of images into your page, you should frequently
ask yourself if the visuals are truly fitting, and what functions
they are to serve. Too many pictures can be overwhelming.
18.3
Keeping a Log with Wikis
All possible sorts of texts can be generated in a cooperative effort:
project outlines, invitational texts, blurbs or reports. Naturally, logs
and reports also play a vital role in projects. After a meeting, the
minutes of the meeting can be submitted to the wiki, either as a
downloadable file, or, even better, as normal text.
In this regard, wikis offer the advantage that modifications can be
made after the fact. Team members have another week's time to
think things over. If, for instance, it was agreed that the “Finances”
group will subsequently submit the cost estimate of the cave operator,
it can be directly entered on the group's own wiki page. Similarly,
unclear formulations can be corrected or existing ambiguities
debated using all available texts. Such discussions can clear up misunderstandings
at an early stage that otherwise would only crop up
once execution of the project has already begun and that would endanger
the success of the project. That is why it can also be of assistance
to highlight new entries in a different color and specifically inform
the project management of such entries.
Of course, meeting minutes can be entered in the wiki during the
meeting itself, if the technical requirements are available. In addition,
a beamer would provide visualization. However, the experiences
of moderators and lecturers have shown that these measures
are not optimal for a wiki project. Firstly, such technology assumes
that the keeper of the minutes has sufficient experience in dealing
with TWiki. Technical problems could quickly hamper the discussion
flow and ruin the meeting's spontaneity, productive atmosphere
and content context. Secondly, minute takers hide behind their lap-
18 Conceptual Phase: Collecting Ideas and Outlining the Project