Matplotlib Documentation Working Group
A regular sync meeting to discuss documentation
Everyone is welcome to contribute to conversations.
5/2/2025
Survey timeline
- Getting questions as draft on GitHub for repo
- Alexandra and Francisco to review
- Aiming for sharing by SciPy (Jul 8-14) and PyCon NYC (November)
SciPy
https://www.scipy2025.scipy.org/sprints
https://ti.to/scipy/scipy2025
Interactivity guide
- Stageable in components for the work
- Chunks and scaffolding for this content
4/18/2025
Jerome
Documentation work to consider
- Logo usage guide
- Numfocus trademark guidelines
- Add survey information and upload folder of materials from 2020 survey
- Pull request from current 2020
- CSV → anonymize the information, remove anythign that could be identifying
- [Doc]: document "out-of-the-box" interactivity
- Pull together the interactivity tools as a tutorial for making a dashboard
- Add a box as an example → definitions and then smaller features that build
- Out of the box interactivity, tutorials to demonstrate how to use the functionality
- Improve install guidance
- Suggestions to improve based on current skillset as technical writer
3/21/2025
- alexandra: refreshing matplotlib skills (shout out for contributing ease)
2/7/2025
- impromptu new contributor meeting
- software developer, c++/Python, open cv user
9/6/2024
-
Jerome is primarily drafting questions
- has 9, potentially maintainers suggest 10th
- scales will be broken down into descriptive/context , so 1 has shared meaning etc
- working on the descriptions for answers
-
Tammy is primarily on the justification
-
helpful: one to five, temperature gauge, how do you feel about the docs? sentiment
-
value: short response, when do you use the docs? -> helping folks, building something, studying, sharing, etc, other: open response, substance
-
hannah follow up w/ scientific Python about plausible downloads
next steps
- once survey is approved, figure out distribution channels
- social media:
- linked in - ask projects/numfocus to share out
- reddit
- banner on webpage
- other social media: insta/ticktok/bluesky/X (mastodon?)
- possibly pydata nyc
List of questions and available responses
- How often do you use the Matplotlib documentation?
Scale of 1-5
- How helpful has the Matplotlib documentation been for your tasks?
Scale of 1-5
- What is the value of Matplotlib documentation for your tasks?
Selection: summary options
- What resources do you use to supplement your experience with Matplotlib documentation?
Rank choice responses
- What would you like to see change in Matplotlib’s documentation?
Table response
- What is your background for using Matplotlib?
Selection: expertise and use case contexts
- When you arrive at your intended documentation page for Matplotlib, how likely are you to go to another page?
Scale of 1-5
- How would you organize the importance of the following documentation categories for Matplotlib?
Rank choice responses
- Thank you for completing the survey! Any additional feedback is welcome!
Short response, open
- Open to suggestions
8/23/2024
- deciding how to make public/scope of involvement
- design study - what do folks get out of our docs/API, what do they want out of the docs/API
- move from describing the audience to audience expectations/reasoning
For next meeting:
- questions + justifications for questions
- broader study goals
8/9/2024
attending: @story645, @melissawm , @Tgmiller5, @jeromefv
Notes
7/26/2024
- Tammy - My name is Tammy and I am a software tester. My interest is working with data analytics in which I have experience from my past two jobs.