Should responsible dev/designer file be expanded?

[amanda-phet]

From https://github.com/phetsims/phet-info/issues/176:

@terracoda said

Perhaps a shared responsible designer file is needed that just defines features as they progress? Does the responsible dev file already track this information?

@amanda-phet said

The responsible dev file has a responsible dev and responsible designer. For most sims, there is a "lead", whether the design includes visual, audio, description... the last person to lead the sim is the lead. So I think we might want to think about what new column(s) that file needs. In many cases, the lead designer is the lead pedagogical and visual designer. When that's not the case, maybe we can just add an additional designer (and even specify their lead role?).

[amanda-phet]

Since a larger group of people might have contributions to this discussion, I have marked it for status.

I don't think a file makes sense for tracking progress- those get stale way too easily and are a burden to keep up to date. Instead, I think the information can live somewhere after a sim is published- the sim design doc always has team members listed at the top, the sim page credits are usually an accurate resource, or the responsible dev/designer file can have that info.

[terracoda]

@zepumph, mentioned that the json files have what features have been turned on. Something to considered.

[markgammon]

From status meeting: adding time for additional discussion at next week's design meeting (3/3/22).

[zepumph]

Adding this info to the responsible-dev list can be very very simple.

Currently there is a simFeatures section of each sim's package.json. This could be easily scraped into this file, and automatically updated each night (like is currently being done for https://github.com/phetsims/phet-info/blob/master/sim-info/responsible_dev.md)

10 minutes later. . .

This is easy enough that I just went ahead and added it. We can easily remove or change it as we want. It isn't perfect, (note there is no "Alt Input", because in the code that is a subset of "Interactive Description", but perhaps it will help us have a productive conversation.

Here is picture of what the table looks like now:

[terracoda]

That's great @zepumph.

And my design concern was that inclusive features overlap, so when a sim is being designed fresh, or being ported, and will include inclusive features, it is really good to have the entire team aware of what it might mean for both design and implementation.

[terracoda]

I just want to add, that even though Interactive Description came after the visual design in many cases, I have never been listed as a lead designer for a simulation.

I do not feel that I should be listed as a lead designer if I only design one feature. I always consult with the visual designer if description design requires changes to the visual design. I think what is important is that if there are changes made to the visual design that the team also always check for any unintended side effects to any inclusive features that may already exist.

[arouinfar]

Listing the sim features in responsible_dev.md is great.

It's unclear what the goals are here, but if more refinement of this file is needed, we should prioritize it for an iteration. I'm going to unassign myself.