launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Curtis Hovey <curtis.hovey@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2010-03-02 at 13:10 +0000, Martin Pilkington wrote:
> On 1 Mar 2010, at 5:33 pm, Curtis Hovey wrote:
> 
> > Hi Martin.
> > 
> > Thanks for making this proposal.
> > 
> > 
> > The sidebar of global actions and current actions is missing from
> > the
> > design. Since it does not overlap with the proposal, restoring it
> > will
> > be easy. the sidebar contains Public/Private, Change details,
> > Delete,
> > Contact this team, and the team poll portlet for voting.
> > 
> 
> 
> I don't believe it will be easy. From a technical point of view
> possibly, from a UI point of view it won't. The issue is that the page
> was designed without the sidebar as an intended design decision.
> Actions such as the team type and change details are moved onto the
> left. I may be wrong but I see deleting a team as being a rare action,
> one that doesn't need to be on the main page (it would probably be
> better going under change details). 

Deleting a team is a common action actually. It is cheap to create and
should be cheap to destroy. We place delete actions in the same location
so that users do not need to relearn the action.

> For the contact the team link, I forgot to make the email address a
> link. It just seemed odd to me that you would list an email address to
> contact the team, but then have a link that makes it seem you can't
> see the teams contact details. And as for the poll, I forgot to add
> it.

We moved the Contact this team from the team email address because they
are not connected. Most teams do not have email address. Who you contact
is dependent upon your relationship in the team.

The poll is not a successful feature on Launchpad. It was hard to find
for many years, and it was lost again during the 3.0 redesign. I had to
put it back. The sidebar is the correct place for it because it is meant
to be an action for members. An review of the current polls of Launchpad
(which requires a db report) may show that the content does not fit in
the location.

> To add the sidebar in again would require another iteration on the
> design, which I'm happy to do, I'm just pointing out it isn't just a
> case of adding it back in ;)

We do need the sidebar back. Asking users to learn exceptional locations
for privacy and global actions will lead usability issues, reopen bug
reports, and cause security issues as users assume the team is public
because the privacy box was not in the location they expect.

...

> > I like the recent activity. I think we need to see more information
> > about the items in it. Such as Questions are there because they are
> > assigned, but do their placement in the list change if I reply to
> > the
> > question? I think bugs are in the list because they are assigned as
> > well, and do bugs move to the top of the list if their status
> > changes
> > (this is the behaviour I see in many bug listings)
> > 
> 
> 
> If you reply to the question it would add a new item saying the
> question was updated. I designed it just to be a timeline of events,
> so any new event goes in at the top.

Okay, this is karma action as a changelog. That is fine and is something
the launchpad team has discussed using in he past. This is also
something I think I can implement in my after hours.

/me pines for the return of sparklines.

> > As a team member, do I see a prioritised list of bugs and blueprints
> > I
> > need to work on? As an team admin, I can see the pending members on
> > the
> > left, but would it also make sense to see it in the right?
> > 
> 
> 
> I don't think the recent activity list would be best for that. We
> would need a completely separate view to show what you need to work
> on.

I do not think I agree with this. Working items are more important than
much of the information on the page for team members, and this team
exists for the member's benefit. There are private teams you cannot see;
the only purpose of a private team is to enable members to work.

> > I think we also aspire to show branches in the list of events:
> > https://code.launchpad.net/~cairo-dock-team
> > 
> 
> 
> UI wise that shouldn't be hard to add. The hardest thing with the
> activity list is how it will be implemented. The reason I'm trying to
> make the design as simple as possible is to make the implementation as
> simple as possible, as I don't know how the internals of Launchpad are
> structured.
> 
> > [1] I do not link this rule, but users are quick to report
> > inconsistencies in the UI. Dropping the floated see-more requires
> > someone to change all the current portlets first.
> > 
> 
> 
> I think this is an important point. You stated in an earlier email
> that you think it would take everyone stopping work for 2 months to
> improve the UI. I think if users are willing to live with a little
> inconsistency, that the UI could be improved gradually, one section at
> a time. Personally I think improving the UI gradually over time and
> having some temporary inconsistency is better than waiting for a time
> when the UI can be completely overhauled. It is simply a case of
> release early and release often. The other advantage is that is allows
> for laser focus on a certain area. I've found when you try to focus on
> too many things with UI design, you end up starting off well, but
> trailing off into the mediocre, so concentrating on just one area at a
> time would lead to a much better Ui in the long run.

We are not willing to live with a little inconsistency for a while. We
tried that in 2007 and 2008 and work was never completed. 1.0, and most
notably, 2.0 updates were failures that lead to a tremendous number of
bugs. There were also specific changes made to apps that proved to not
apply to other apps, and users had to suffer these exceptions for months
and years. These UI changes also had commitments from 30 Launchpad
engineers. Since we are not planning UI changes this year, no
incremental UI changes should be planned to introduce inconstancies.

We require contributors to get a design approved and update all pages in
a single release. Launchpad engineers can do the reviews and help land
them, but they cannot work on these features during work hours.

Note that I do hack on Launchpad in my after hours. I do use the team
page, and I am on the team that owns the page. I am committing my time
to make the page better, I cannot speak for other pages and other
Launchpad engineers.


-- 
__Curtis C. Hovey_________
http://launchpad.net/

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