Fluid Academic
Fluid Academic is a project funded by the Mellon foundation to focus on improving user experience in higher-ed open source software applications. The Fluid community grew out of this work as did the Fluid products. Early releases of Fluid Infusion, the Fluid Design Handbook, Fluid OSDPL, and VU Lab were deliverables for this project. These products represent the core of Fluid activities.
We have worked closely with our partners to achieve the following goals of Fluid Academic:
- Create an architectural framework and the development tools to support modular, flexible and transformable user interfaces within community and open source projects
- Define community processes to support the implementation of this architecture within several community source projects, including Sakai, uPortal, and Kuali Student
- Create interaction design resources including usability reviews, heuristic analyses, design models, and UI design patterns within these projects and other software projects
- Provide mechanisms to share, test, and iteratively refine UI components within community source and other open source software projects
- Recruit and delegate individuals with UI design and development expertise within community source projects
- Offer support for individuals in positions where design is only one aspect of their duties (through U-Camps and other events and resources)
- Build bridges between the design and development communities through the adoption and modeling of best practices in software design and development adapted to the unique constraints of the open source environment
The Fluid Community continues to work closely with our partner projects from Fluid Academic - a lasting collaboration that has enhanced the quality of Fluid products and also had a large impact on the usability, flexibility, and accessibility of our partner applications.