WebDev/DownloadDayPostMortem

Things we did well

• Certs, affiliate buttons, languages, map, website states. Good job on keeping everything under control. Very few big issues.
• 2 states to the website, kept people engaged. Map was good.
• Mailing went well. Only 3 remove me complaints. MailChimp was great.
• Teams worked really well together. WebDev, QA & Marketing.
• Tracking everything via bugs.
• Grouphub was good for external vendors & marketing
• Good that we had lots of languages.
• Affiliate buttons (43 million impressions). Localized too!
• Using SFX gave it more of a community feel.
• DD increased membership of SFX.
• Lots of press releases and social networking sites.
• Coordination of marketing team and volunteers.

Things we did not so well

• Tracking work items via Grouphub
• QA should be more active in initial design/requirements phase.
• Take a look at how much time it takes to add in a new locale vs. community size
• No more translated images
• No uploading po files, use svn or Verbatim
• No putting copy in multiple places. Need to store text in 1 location. Use Kubla to edit svn files?
• Didn't have data available at first. Data should be available via an API.
• Design was heavy/tight. Hard to localize and stretch. Webdev should be a part of design briefs during the beginning.
• Political sensitivity. Map caused lots of problems due to borders and country names. Work with an external group that can shoulder the complaints (UN, ISO).
• Avoid flash. Use standards-based mapping solution.
• Trying to do our own mailings. Outsource all emailings.
• Accusations of bad things happened before all the details are known.
• Expectations of email list didn't match execution. Track & quantify expectations.
• We jumped to conclusions on legality of some things before getting info.