2022-10-24 Meeting notes: UX patterns for common cross-app tasks

Date

24 Oct 2022

Housekeeping

• Convener and notes: Martina Schildt
• Next meeting: Nov 2nd  

Discussion items

1. UX patterns for common cross-app tasks (e.g. would it be useful to have a UX for a 'quick add' task that could be used in different contexts when you need to create something in another app). I think it would be good to have UX specialists (Kimie, Gill) present for this, and possibly also some Stripes devs (e.g. John C/Zak)
   • Laura will demo fast-add
   • Owen will demo examples from invoice creation

Minutes

• Where this topic came from: at Wolfcon there were cross-app situations about taking data from another app / creating data in another app
• user experience should be as seamless as possible
• example: create objects in one app from another app | creating instances and items when working in circulation/course reserves | in those cases a plug-in offers the needed functionality
• example from AI last week: hard for the end user to tell when user is looking at data that is copied or live data | Laura agrees this should be considered further
• so examples are object creation and signalling where objects are coming from
• example for an unclear situation is receiving which is built on top of the orders back-end
• one possible downside: might be confusing for new users / users that do not do diagnostics 
• question: can we do something from the UX perspective to improve the situation
• Laura: would requests be a separate example? | requests can be created in different ways | how is it apparent that there is a request on an item
• Dung-Lan in chat: If a hold request is entered after an order is opened, an alert shows on the screen during receiving to indicate the item being received has a hold request attached to it.
• question: do we need consistency? TBD
• best user experience should be the goal | more important than strict consistency
• Laura demos fast-add in Inventory settings |there are some defaults that can be selected
• From check-out users can create a fast add record in Inventory
• Owen in chat: The same functionality is available from Course Reserves as well
• Marc in chat: The check in note is possibly meant to say - this item should go to cataloguing after it’s checked in, given it got a very limited description to get it checked out
• Owen in chat: Which makes sense in that context, but not in course reservers
  Which is a situation where we actually have different needs in different contexts
• Orders does not load a form to do a fast add | orders can create instances when opening an order | the quick add plug-in did not exist when this functionality was created | users rather want to have the order generate instances
• Owen demos a workflow related to Open Access publication requests
• integrates with invoices | there is information on charges | usually there is no order | charges can be linked to invoice lines
• new invoices can be created | this is not a plugin but built in the OA app | as a second step a new invoice line can be added without the possibility to change any information
• Maura in chat: So the Open Access form passes the information to Invoice?  Does the information “live” in Invoice?
• Yes, user can decide just to manage charges in OA and manage invoices in Invoices or use the functionality to link charges to Invoices
• Dung-Lan in chat: If the open access APC will be paid with library budget, I didn't see fund info tracked in the invoice creation?!  If it's not paid with library budget then we may not have to track which fund used to pay for it, of course.
• Owen: that is correct, users would like to have the system behave differently but is a weekness of the system
• Dennis: should a create invoice plug-in be explored? Needs calrification
• Owen demos linking agreement lines to eholdings where the agreement lines needs to be existing already
• question: when fast-adding, do we want to display the minimum required information
• Are there different permissions for fast-add | Marc in chat: At the UI level, probably, behind the scenes, no; If a fast add permission existed, that would likely grant full access to create instances, holdings and items behind the scenes
• Dennis: maybe there needs to be a link records functionality | Owen: that can be done by a plug-in; this exists in agreements for linking to eUsage | Owen will demo in next meeting
• MartinaS in chat: Fast-add new interface or contact person in organizations would be helpful | Martina can demo next time
• Owen will work on possible actions
• we will come back to this topic in next meeting on Nov 2nd

Future topics

• Topic proposal by Owen Stephens for October:
  • Use of shortcut keys and macros for more effective cross-app working  - it also be good to have UX and Stripes/dev knowledge for this discussion I think. I know @Laura (she/they) uses macros so might have insights into the potential for cross-app working
  • Potential for external 'workflow' solutions for cross-app interactions
    • I think 'workflow' is a dangerous term here - in this context it's more about automation than user workflows, although I think there is overlap
    • I was particularly struck by the solution in production at TAMU (Jeremy Huff and Sebastian Hammer presented, the recording is at https://prod-zoom-recordings-openlibraryfoundation-org.s3.amazonaws.com/50dc6c87-3912-43fa-8287-56ec73b12bbb%2Fshared_screen_with_speaker_view%28CC%29.mp4 starting at 3 hrs, 14 min) - I think getting someone from TAMU to talk about how this is used would be v interesting
    • There was also a presentation on the use of a tool called Airflow at Stanford for "bibliographic workflow" but I've not watched that yet so not 100% sure if it is completely applicable - I think the core use case there was systems migration but it may go beyond that
• UX/UI and implementers topics
  • should be Wednesdays

Attendees

Action items