Over the past few months, we have conducted extensive community outreach and documented user feedback. I have listed two potential projects below and included links to some of the most recent results from community feedback.
As Thad mentioned, depending on your interest and time availability, there could be hundreds of areas to work on. Reviewing those reports may help you identify interesting topics to work on. Let us know what picked your interest.
1. Ease new user onboarding
We are aware that OpenRefine has a steep learning curve. How can we make it more accessible? This was in the top request of our last two large outreach:
- A better UX (3 requests), which makes it easier for newcomers to use OpenRefine (3 requests). OpenRefine's 2022 user survey: the results are in! | OpenRefine
- Make OpenRefine easier to learn and get started with: better or easier UX / interface. (Results of two user surveys for Wikimedia Commons users of OpenRefine)
This work may be done by following one of the existing online courses, and identifying what makes user onboarding hard.
On a similar topic, from User Interviews Results Part 2: Exploring Feedback Regarding OpenRefine Feature and User Experience, "Four users mentioned that the current menu management is hard to navigate" (see the related section in the linked post).
2. Working with GIS data
At our recent Barcamp, we discussed working with GIS data. Analyzing how OpenRefine interacts with GIS data can help guide our future support for this data type.
- https://barcamps.eu/openrefine-2024-barcamp/sessions (see session proposal mentioning GIS)
- OpenRefine 2024 Barcamp: If only OpenRefine could be more like
- Teaching the use of OpenRefine with GIS data