1048558 - [UX] Front end redesign for status tool

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Firefox :: Toolbars and Customization, defect)

Description

[Chad Weiner [:chadw]]

Objective: In order to make better use of Benjamin's status tool and to enable faster daily updates from the Firefox team, we'd like to update the front end design of the tool.  The key requirements are expressed in the link below attached.

Comment 1

[Gregory Szorc [:gps]]

Why are we asking people what they did when tools like Bugzilla and Mercurial already know the answer (at least to part of the question)?

Comment 2

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Hello to all the new CCs!  I just wanted to mention that most of the work is going on at https://github.com/bwinton/mozilla-weekly-updates/tree/buglist so you may want to follow there, too.  (Also, pull requests there are welcome, if any of you wanted to contribute.  ;)

Comment 3

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Attachment: A screenshot of the new ui.

Okay, what I have so far is up and running at http://theflash.corp.tor1.mozilla.com:8080/
I'ld appreciate it if people could try posting statuses (statii?) there, and let me know how it works.

(In particular, if your bugmail is different than your ldap email, do your bugs show up?
 Do you hit any errors?  If so, please send me the timestamp, so I can check the logs!
 Are there any things you can think of to make it easier/more pleasant?)

Thanks,
Blake.

Comment 4

[Chad Weiner [:chadw]]

Thanks, Blake!  Some reactions:
*the radio buttons feel more connected to the text field than the "committed bugs" section
*the weight between the top section (the current update) and the bottom section (the previous updates) feels a little off to me.  The focus should be on the top--is there a way to give it more prominence?

Otherwise I think the functional requirements are pretty well hit here.

Comment 5

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Attachment: Newer screenshot.

(In reply to Chad Weiner [:chadw] from comment #4)
> *the radio buttons feel more connected to the text field than the "committed
> bugs" section

I've added a border around them, and moved them to the other side, so that the buttons are more obviously linked to the bugs.

> *the weight between the top section (the current update) and the bottom
> section (the previous updates) feels a little off to me.  The focus should
> be on the top--is there a way to give it more prominence?

What do you think about a nice, soothing mint green background, and a bit of extra vertical padding?  (I'ld also like to hear Madhava's thoughts on it.)

> Otherwise I think the functional requirements are pretty well hit here.

Excellent, and thanks for the comments!

Comment 6

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Comment on attachment 8473178 [details]
Newer screenshot.

I got a verbal ui-r+ from Madhava for the most recent version.

Comment 7

[Chad Weiner [:chadw]]

Comment on attachment 8473178 [details]
Newer screenshot.

Approval on the latest screenshot (not the one shown here at time of approval)

Comment 8

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Attachment: 18-Aug screenshot.

For the record, the screenshot, as of today.
(Note the "1 day remaining in iteration 34.2" :)

Comment 9

[Blake Winton (:bwinton) (:☕️)]

Resolving fixed, as per comment 7 and comment 6.

Comment 10

[Nicholas Nethercote [inactive]]

> Why are we asking people what they did when tools like Bugzilla and
> Mercurial already know the answer (at least to part of the question)?

Because purely machine-generated summaries are inevitably boring. To make interesting summary requires a human to add extra information about why a change is interesting, its consequences, etc.

Example 1: In my status report I typically put the bug title and number and a short follow-up sentence describing its impact.

Example 2: The releng folks have been writing "This week in Releng" posts. At first they were just lists of fixed bugs, which was deathly boring. I encouraged them to add a human-generated summary highlighting the important points, which has made those posts much more interesting. (There's still a list of fixed bugs at the end; I know I always skip reading that.)

(Of course, it's useful to use machines to provide inputs to this process. E.g. I have a saved bugzilla search called "My bugs resolved in the past week".)

Also, lots of work can be done that isn't know about by hg/bz, such as stuff that isn't yet finished, blog posts, etc., etc.

Finally, I personally find compiling this summary a useful activity for me to get a reminder of what I've done in the past week. It only takes five minutes.