2022-11-21 Meeting notes: UX patterns for common cross-app tasks III

Date

21 Nov 2022

Housekeeping

• Convener and notes: Martina Schildt
• Next meeting: 30 Nov 2022 

Discussion items

1. Continuation: 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)
   • Possible actions to take (Owen)

Minutes

Continuation of

1. 2022-10-24 Meeting notes: UX patterns for common cross-app tasks
2. 2022-11-07 Meeting notes: UX patterns for common cross-app tasks II

Next steps | Next call:

• put together list of cases where fast-add is a useful thing to do 
• we need members of the UX team | learn what the practical aspects are to make something happen here 
• define and document patterns for future use | Fast-add | UX patterns for common cross-app tasks

• question that we clarified: one of the records I am linking to each other needs to exist
• use case: create organization record and create and link interface or contact person 
  • NEW should not appear on modal to link interface/contact person
  • "add existing" interface/contact person would make process clearer
  • Marc in chat: Removing the add interface button from the create organisation form is a workaround for how we’ve designed these entities and the design of the form | A task / wizard oriented (rather than record oriented) UI could avoid that
• Brooks in chat: A more “wizard”-like “create” view would fit better with how I think most folks work/would like to work
  Where the UI collects the “new” information and links/creates any related data in whatever order they need to be done without exposing those dependencies to the user
  The problem you run into there is the situation where one of the new records fails to actually be created
  Due to some error
  The read-only detail view accordion edit/add UX is the better way to handle those for existing records, rather than combine the edit views.
• Marc in chat: 

  I think revealing some of the details of what owns what data in the UX is part of this jarring
  Brooks, yeah, I agree, that is where I land. | I’m biased in favour of task oriented UX. | I get the sense that isn’t what other folks think / want.

• sometimes user wants or needs to record just required information
• need to think about expectations if several records can be created in one step
• Zak in chat: I can imagine an alternative ui-plugin-find-user UI that has the search/filter and result panes, but pinned to the bottom of the result pane is a “new user” form with minimal fields. Each row in that pane would have a radio button. The UX would change from “click a row to select” to “click a radio button, then click save”.
  IOW, the “find-user” modal would include a “quick-add-user” form.
  
• UX perspective
• Gill in chat: I really like the idea of a wizard approach where the user can effectively create several records in one workflow and save process. In the "Open access" app we support the creation of a Invoice from the New/Edit "Request" form. The issue we have is that the Invoice could be created and then the Request cancelled, so the user must go to the Invoices app to remove it. Ideally cancelling the Request would cancel the invoice as well.
  
• Charlotte: do we need to walk all our apps to see where this fits?
• Do users like e.g. a 3 pages creation
• Owen: I think the point that Zak made earlier that ‘fast add’ is a slightly different thing is also relevant here
  
• Marc in chat: I think the form doesn’t have to be page per record type (although that might be more conducive to some of our technical approaches) | It isn’t necessarily an either or between record oriented and task oriented | One of the intentions of a wizard style UI is to take away the cognitive load of needing to understand the ordering and that they are separate records
  
• Charlotte: we need to document decisions per app | should be user oriented
• Owen: fast-add is kind of a wizard as well | collects stack of information | short-cutting usual approach
• 2 different use cases: creating individual records or creating records that have affiliated records
• Way forward:
  • a group will work on expectations for different use cases
  • reps of SIGs will be invited
  • discuss in AI with UX and dev team
  • present to SIGs

Chat

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