Every milestone, we will ask Product Designers and Engineers to volunteer to partner in making self-directed usability improvements. It is an opportunity to fix the things that have been bugging you or that you've heard from users without worrying about prioritization.
Self-Directed: There are no restrictions on where in the product the pair can make improvements. The goal is to empower the pair to focus on usability improvements that they personally want to see fixed in a product that they use themselves almost every day.
No restrictions on product area: The pair is not required to work within product areas owned by their own stage groups.
No restrictions on pairings: The Product Designer and Engineer pair do not need to be from the same stage group. This is a voluntary initiative.
Work in MRs, not issues: Both the Product Designer and the Engineer should work directly in MRs to make changes. For the Product Designer, these MRs will likely be focused on less complex usability issues that the pair identifies, such as documentation, minor UI polish, or UI text changes.
Length of rotation: The length of the pairing will be 1-3 milestones, depending on what the pairing believes is appropriate for them. This means that multiple groups could be working on Beautifying our UI in parallel.
Prioritization: The Product Designer and Engineer will inform their stage group team of their involvement in the initiative, so that they can make time for it during milestone planning.
