Re: [w3ctag/design-reviews] Blink Shipping Process (#516)

We had a chance to review and discuss the Blink process during few of our breakouts. The following is a summary of our discussions.

In general we feel that the TAG review expectations from the Blink side can be summarized as:
(A) Be useful
(B) Not delay or block the Blink product schedules

From TAG's side, we want to feel like:
(C) TAG reviews can be impactful
(D) TAG reviews are not perceived as rubber-stamping

To that effect we think that moving the start of TAG reviews from step 3 to step 2 could help with (C), and moving completion of the review from step 6 to step 4 may help with (D).

We do want TAG reviews to be able to be completed in a timely manner and at high quality. Having an explicit exit criteria for each step of the Blink shipping process can help a lot. For example, step 3 is supposed to be an iteration step, right?

Another missing point from the process is calling out polyfills. More often, polyfills are used for incubation and that's when/where most technical discoveries and decisions are made. There is a missed chance for TAG to engage here and what's worse is that such features get easily adopted and become de facto standards/expectations.

Another observation is that most of TAG's engagement and feedback comes a bit too late in the process. In turn, the feedback is harder to accept since ideas are closer to solutions that are sometimes ready to adopt and ship. One idea that seems to have good traction with TAG is to introduce an early stage review (let's call it Ideas Review for now). This stage should be very lightweight and time-bound in terms of TAG review turnaround (say 2 weeks turnaround time or consider accepted). In order to meet such time expectations we would expect explainers to be short and easy to review. During idea-reviews we will have a chance to look for general platform consistency, best venues for said ideas as well as spot any prior-art lessons we can suggest to authors so they can get familiar with before moving to design.

@cwilso, happy to get together and discuss these during one of our plenary sessions or continue here, let us know.

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