Alpha Decay 1.0 main checklist

[jbphet]

Alpha Decay 1.0 main checklist

Design

Prep

• Sim folder and design doc created
  • Create sim folder in PhET Sim Design Folder on [Google Drive]((https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B6CMwxdP0NGYUUhvZnlCUDF0bGc) AND Microsoft Sharepoint
    • In the SharePoint folder, add link to Google Drive folder
  • Create design doc in the sim folder on Google Drive

Scope

• Review user feedback
  • If a Port: Google Form suggestions reviewed
    • Ask developer to move tickets from Unfuddle to GitHub (and create the new repo if not done)
  • If a new sim: Google Form suggestions reviewed
• Schedule kick-off meeting
• Scope of additional features for this release (Basics Sounds, Core Description, Alternative Input, Pan and Zoom, Interactive Highlights, Dynamic Locale, PhET-iO/Studio are assumed as of Nov 2025)
  • Sound & Sonification
  • Interactive Description
• For Ports: Paste all issues that will be included OR list features (useful for release notes):
  • See "Included Features" section of design spec
• Create feature-specific milestone deadlines for simulation sub-epics in Monday. Reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

Design (Pre-QA)

• Ensure design doc has sections for relevant features or create feature-specific design docs
• Learning goals and standards identified
• Design concept complete
• Create "Interview-Prep" issue in sim-specific repo (Template)
• Wireframes complete
• Mockups complete
  • Mockups checked for color contrast
  • Essential Exceptions noted
• Carefully review ?showPointerAreas for mouse and touch areas
• Check strings using ?stringTest=dynamic for layout changes and readability
• Core Description reviewed by external designer - CORE REVIEW CHECKLIST
• PhET-iO
  • (after wireframing) Determine any custom PhET-iO needs (schedule separate PhET-iO design meeting if needed)
  • PhET-iO tree review complete
  • phetioFeatured elements identified
  • Create examples.md
• Interviews complete (Date: //)
  • Results reported to team
  • Notes pasted into design doc
  • Interview recordings backed up to Sharepoint
• No more feature requests (Date: //)
• Lead designer final review before QA (Date: //)
  • (if applicable) Obtain external design team/partners approval

Publication Prep

• When RC.1 is submitted to QA, complete the following sub-tasks (on average the publication date has been 3 weeks after submitting RC.1 to QA)
  • Set a Target Publication Date
  • If a Port: If the sim is being ported from JAVA or Flash to HTML5, notify the website team (example)
  • The sim url will be https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/sim-name/latest/sim-name_all.html (for use in teacher tips, activities and marketing materials)
  • Schedule Newsletter/Emails here
• After submitting RC.1 to QA and at least 2 week(s) prior to the Target Publication Date (to be used for marketing communications):
  • Teacher Tips created, uploaded, and added to sim design folder on SharePoint
  • Verify credits with team (Team, Contributors, QA, Graphic Arts, Sound Design, any Thanks - see conventions)
  • Create Main screenshot and Auxiliary screenshots (up to 3 additional) for sim assets folder (read this)
  • Create Screen-specific screenshots for metadata service (
    see naming convention)
  • Upload screenshots to Assets folder in Github
  • Receive Release Notes from Developer(s)
    • Draft newsletter entry

Post Publication

• Prepare and Update Sim Page Info (keywords, (filter) categories, description, learning goals, related sims, inclusive features)
• Make sim visible on website (Invisible -> Published)
  • Clear "Metadata caches" on
    the Basic Administration Caches
    page
• If a Port: Review legacy gold star activities. For appropriate activities, tag the HTML5 version and UNTAG the deprecated version. Contact Diana for support.
• Ask web devs to add to PhET Studio (#website-public Slack channel)
• Create 2-3 example PhET Studio presets (guidelines)
• Announce sim publication in #general Slack channel and celebrate!
• Create a GitHub issue for Oliver @oliver-phet to alert translators that a new sim is available for translation for new sim publications OR if there have been significant string changes (manual process since Nov 2024)
• Legends of Learning (LoL) Partnership Tasks
  • Icons for each
    screen created and uploaded to Drive
  • Metadata
    for each screen (description, vocab words, questions for before/after sim use)
  • Deliver
• Send Simulation Notification from the Admin page (to alert translators)
• Decide as a team if a postmortem is applicable, and schedule (Date: //)

Developer Implementation

• Repository created by
  following new-repo-checklist.md (
  Date: 3/4/2025)
• Development started (Date: 3/6/2026)
• Sim is "feature complete" (Date: //)
• QA team "first look" (Date: //)
• Interviews may happen around here (see above)
• Sim team sign-off (Date: //)
• Code review completed (Date: //)
• Sim dev test completed (Date: //)
• Submit RC.1 to QA and create Release Notes
• Sim RC tests completed (Date: //)
• Pre-publication items
  • Add CT tests for public query parameters that need testing. See examples
    in listContinuousTests.js
• Published (Date: //)

QA

• If a Port: Legacy sim tested for bugs; issues reported in repo
• Dev testing issue created (Date: //)
• Dev testing started (Date: //)
• Dev testing completed (Date: //)
• First RC published (Date: //)
  • Test matrices put
    in Testing Matrices Folder
• RC testing completed (Date: //)