1541690 - Future of the `uiwanted` keyword

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: Administration, task)

Description

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

We have a uineeded keyword defined as:

For bugs that require UI design support, either for a requested feature enhancement, some new function which needs some UI, or a fix to existing UI.

These are the open bugs with this keyword: https://mzl.la/2K37mTz

Who monitors this keyword? Is it still necessary?

Comment 1

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Stats-wise

• Thunderbird&Calendar = 123 bugs, but none created since 2014-05-27
  -- almost none fixed that were created since 2014-05-27
  -- So "who" is probably almost no one
• Firefox & friends = 346 bugs, 1/3 of which are newer than 2014-05-27 https://mzl.la/2uXCsBD, approx 1/6 created in the last two years https://mzl.la/2KhagVa, and approx 1/2 haven't been touched in last 5 years.
  -- again almost none (13) fixed [1] that were created after 2014-05-27, and total of 26 resolved FIXED in that time period
  -- conclusion: for bugs created in last 5 years it's usage has probably declined. And "who" is almost no one, unless the majority of bugs touched in last 5 years added the keyword in that period.

[1] https://mzl.la/2UM914p

Comment 2

[Tiffanie Shakespeare [:tif]]

Hey Emma! Thanks for working hard to clean up bugzilla :)

I can't speak for others but my team is mostly in Github and I generally don't really monitor bugzilla requests. I've tried to convey that via my bugzilla name with varying success. Hope that helps!

Comment 3

[Gemma Petrie (she/her) [:gemma]]

Hi Emma - The design team (Stephen, Markus, Anthony, etc. - in addition to Tif who chimed in above) would typically be the group working on UI changes. I will defer to them. The UR team does use this keyword, but we do use bugzilla.

Comment 4

[Alessandro Castellani [:aleca]]

Hi Emma, I'm Alessandro, the new UX architect at Thunderbird (nice to "meet" you all).

I started a bit over a month ago and I'm still getting used to bugzilla and the whole process. I've never used the uiwanted keyword, so I'm OK with whatever decision you end up taking. If you decide to keep it, maybe it should be renamed as uineeded to be more consistent with the uxneeded keyword you mentioned.

From next week, I'll will start triaging all those TB bugs Wayne listed, hoping to help keep things more organized from our side.

Cheers.

Comment 5

[Markus Jaritz [:designakt] (UX)]

For all the 'uiwanted' bugs related to Firefox Desktop, Stephen and I will find a solution. I will work with him to define a process, and will start triaging new bugs.
So far UX hasn't triaging bugs on bugzilla for years, but only reacted to direct need-info's. Those are still the best way to get a quick reaction.

Once we have an idea for a process, I would appreciate some intro to how to best triage bugs on bugzilla, and especially how to deal with the giant backlog.
I will help clean this out. At least the stuff touched in the last years... or since Photon. Not so sure about bugs last modified 5 or even 10 years ago.

With the current workload on active projects, I expect at about a month before I can get to this.
(setting a need-info for myself to get back to it.)

Comment 6

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to this. I think for now, going through the backlog of bugs with this field, and disabling it for new bugs is the right choice.

ETA: :jdavis said that they are using this keyword and a member of the UX team is monitoring it.

:designakt, let's consider the best way to get UX invovled when you have time. I sent a meeting request for May.

One thing we could do is to use something similar to what the performance team does to prioritize bugs, but using a tracking/status flag for it. An example is.

ux:p? is work for which ux has been requested, but is not triaged
ux:p1 is work for current release
ux:p2 is work for next release/stretch for this release
ux:p3 is backlog

Or similar. Or you might want to use milestones rather than priorities.

Doing this makes reporting on backlogs a little easier.

Comment 8

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

(In reply to Markus Jaritz [:designakt] (UX) from comment #5)

So far UX hasn't triaging bugs on bugzilla for years, but only reacted to direct need-info's. Those are still the best way to get a quick reaction.

Aaron from the team is monitoring that keyword for the Activity Stream team.

Once you have bandwidth, we can go through the non-Activity Stream instances of that keyword.

Comment 9

[Emma Humphries ☕️🎸🧞‍♀️✨ (she/they) [:emceeaich] (Pacific Time) use needinfo]

After more review with UX managers and teams using it, we can disable the keyword. Please NI the UX team member you are working with (if they are accepting NI) instead.