Something that's happening quite regularly now is (a) someone suggests new feature or change and (b) I realize we've already got a detailed design that covers this feature, in our internal issue tracker, and (c) I explain what we want to make, and regret not telling that person in advance.

Since I'm doing a lot of the UI design in Wikidot now, with a focus on making it simpler and more obvious to use, I figured it would be nice to bring the design process into the open, and also give everyone with good ideas a place to work together. Over the next days I'll publish a series of user-interface designs that we've already made. Each time I'll explain the reason for making the changes.

The first example - the Rating module is a good example of what I'm aiming at. It makes the rating module simpler to use (no configuration) but also more general purpose. This is a good goal of all designers: as you learn how people use things, make them simpler. Bad designers just add more and more complexity, to no-one's benefit.

There is a wiki section (taken from the Wikidot packages project. Use this if you want to work on new designs, alone or with others. Please use this way to submit a design.