launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Deryck Hodge <deryck.hodge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 6:02 AM, Tom Berger <tom.berger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 2010/1/13 Graham Binns <graham@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> 2010/1/13 Gavin Panella <gavin.panella@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>> On Mon, 11 Jan 2010 11:46:49 -0600
>>> Deryck Hodge <deryck.hodge@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> ...
>>>> > This is one way of showing it, yes. We need to figure out how it looks
>>>> > on the listing, and if it's clear enough. The question on how to
>>>> > distinguish a bug with 1000 heat and another one with 10 is still on
>>>> > the table, no?
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> I assumed there would be X different icons/indicators representing
>>>> varying degrees of hotness.  So as a simple example, let's say there
>>>> are 3 icons (I think in practice 5-7 is more appropriate) --
>>>> low_heat_icon.png, med_heat_icon.png, and high_heat_icon.png.  The
>>>> total group of hot bugs would be split into these categories based on
>>>> the heat numbers for that project.  A heat of 500 might be low for an
>>>> active project with 1000 bugs having some heat value but high in a
>>>> project with only 20 bugs with a heat value.
>>>
>>> I think the display used by Spotify, amongst others, to display song
>>> popularity is quite good. I've attached a (tiny) screenshot. A log
>>> scale would stop any sun-hot bugs from dominating. It could be coloured
>>> too, redder to the right perhaps, as an additional cue.
>>
>> My vote is for simpler-is-better - i.e. 3 icons representing low,
>> medium and high bug heat. At least for the first iteration of this
>> feature (incremental improvement and all that).
>
> I very much agree. Not just because it's simpler for us, but because I
> think it will be simpler for the users. For the same reason I think
> that we should resist displaying any concrete number, as was suggested
> earlier. My concern is that the more we expose the machinery behind
> hotness (in the UI) the more users will fixate on it, trying to
> manipulate their pet bugs to get a higher rank, complaining when they
> don't and using the number as a voodoo device when they make decisions
> about bug. The information about hotness is only useful in relative
> terms, and will change over time, so I think that sorting + putting
> bugs in one of three bins (or should i say binns) will give users all
> the information they need, without distracting from the core
> information - the bug itself.
>

I agree that the main value in heat is as a relative indication, but I
do think there is some value is showing the actual number calculated.
I don't think we should worry about the number helping people game the
system.  People will try to game the system or complain whether or not
we expose any numbers. :-)

Having said all that, Graham's current mockups (made after talks with
Martin A. and me) show heat as a number of flames.  So a bug could
have 3 out of 4 flames, for example, and the graphic is 3 colored
flames with the fourth being gray-scaled out.  Picture how movie
reviews get 3 out of 4 stars.  We were trying for something mixing
flame icons and the progress bars Gavin suggested.  I think in
practice it looks pretty nice and works well, at least based on the
mockups we did.  Graham, perhaps you could post the example screenshot
you doctored up?  (We were having disagreement about placement, but
showing the icons and concept would be nice.)

Then, hoow I imagine the number showing is that when you mouse over
the flame icons a title tooltip would appear with something like "Heat
index of 8400, based on 50 duplicates, 200 affected users, and 150
subscribers."

Of course, that's just one idea, and I imagine people might be pretty
divided on showing or not showing the number.

Cheers,
deryck



-- 
Deryck Hodge
https://launchpad.net/~deryck
http://www.devurandom.org/