Changes in the redesign:

• Not allowing multiple groups to be chosen on the right (was making things rather complicated).  Editing a category allows for batch edit.
• Right side of screen is only about potential members.  Current members can be seen the left.  Definition and notification/invitation will be handled in other ways, likely overlays.

Outstanding questions / refinement:

• Undo needs a better location.  Do we allow multiple undos or just one?
• Adding people (and creating new groups) is not a frequent task.  Is there a good use of the "people" space when the focus isn't on that?  Does it matter that half the page is useless most of the time?
• Need to make people look more "draggable".  Some relevant ideas perhaps in the Fluid Layout Reoderer.
  • What about outside the site context?  If this is simple, we want to look into it but save for last.
• Could/should X at bottom of left pane be used for communication?
• Overwrite # of members allowable?  Scenario:  Classroom size constrained by room size but after informal conversation, prof decides to let one more student in.  Do we need to allow for this?

Refinement To Dos:

• Need to work on referencing groups
  • Write a couple scenarios:  email & giving access to a file.  Other?

Wireframes

Accessing Group Manager

User comes in fresh, no groups are part of this site yet. They can create a category or a group. 

Creating Group

If user clicks on Add Group, by default they are given the opportunity to name 1 group.  They can also add it to an existing category or create new one and/or add more groups.

Creating Category

Robin has clicked Add Category to create groups for her Business Plan activity. She names the category and sets the optional defaults.

Workflow 1 - Specifies the number of groups in her category

Robin knows she wants 4 separate groups for the business plan activity so she sets the category up in that way.

 
Because she elected to say exactly how many groups are in this category, she is prompted to enter names. Group names default to numbered versions of the category name, but she changes them to the names of fictitious companies that will be used in the business plan activity.

When she completes this action, she sees that her category and groups have been added. The settings for the category and groups are visible (if not set, a _ will appear, rather than a specific #). If she clicks on the edit icon (that appears on rollover or selection) OR double clicks the group name of either a group or category, she will get a dialog box to edit definition.

Workflow 2 - Specifies maximum number of group members

Robin knows she wants students to work in groups of 3 but isn't sure how many groups she'll end up with.  For now she's leaves the number of groups open.

She is then given a chance to select the site members that she wants to include.  If she's not ready she can choose to skip this step for now.

Selecting group membership -

Below Karen has selected a specific group; the potential membership is displayed at right. She can also drag members to selected group. If she begins to drag, as soon as she gets to the left pane, the people are dropped into the group.

 
Below, Karen has selected the new category "business plan" so the potential membership is displayed at right. She's selected picture view (which might be the default). Dragging people to a category can help her automatically add people to multiple groups; see the post it note at right for specific situations.

 
This shows when 7 people have been added to 3 groups (note, right side needs work, per note). You can see up to 3 thumbnails of people (if there were more there might be an arrow to scroll them out, or just an ellipses to indicate there are more than 3 members. You can also expand the group to list people by photo and name, as is shown for dbco. Those members on the left can be dragged to new groups, assuming there is room (need to decide what to see if group is full).

Adding group definition

Ignore below, first base drawing