[openstack-dev] How to best make User Experience a priority in every project

John Griffith john.griffith at solidfire.com
Thu Nov 21 01:34:05 UTC 2013


On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Rochelle.Grober
<Rochelle.Grober at huawei.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Anne Gentle wrote:
>
> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 9:09 AM, Thierry Carrez <thierry at openstack.org>
> wrote:
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> How should we proceed to make sure UX (user experience) is properly
> taken into account into OpenStack development ? Historically it was hard
> for UX sessions (especially the ones that affect multiple projects, like
> CLI / API experience) to get session time at our design summits. This
> visibility issue prompted the recent request by UX-minded folks to make
> UX an official OpenStack program.
>
> However, as was apparent in the Technical Committee meeting discussion
> about it yesterday, most of us are not convinced that establishing and
> blessing a separate team is the most efficient way to give UX the
> attention it deserves. Ideally, UX-minded folks would get active
> *within* existing project teams rather than form some sort of
> counter-power as a separate team. In the same way we want scalability
> and security mindset to be present in every project, we want UX to be
> present in every project. It's more of an advocacy group than a
> "program" imho.
>
>
>
> I'm not sure "most of us" is accurate. Mostly you and Robert Collins were
> unconvinced. Here's my take.
>
>
>
> It's nigh-impossible with the UX resources there now (four core) for them to
> attend all the project meetings with an eye to UX. Docs are in a similar
> situation. We also want docs to be present in every project. Docs as a
> program makes sense, and to me, UX as a program makes sense as well. The UX
> program can then prioritize what to focus on with the resources they have.
>
>
>
> +1  UX is, in SW parlance, the next layer above the mechanics of the
> projects.  It is separate from all the projects yet informs them all.  To be
> able to inform all projects consistently, there needs to be a place where
> all the project based UXs come together to create a consistent, overarching
> environment.  This is what UX does, and this is why it works better than
> having each project do their own thing.  You don’t get an environment when
> you don’t have someone architecting an environment.  You just get a bunch of
> projects glued together with more code.
>
>
>
> Since the current team is so small, as Anne points out, the team, working
> with the TC should decide which and how many individual projects need their
> attention first, and they also can prioritize what parts of the  UX
> environment get defined/specified first.
>
>
>
> However, as pointed out in the meeting, the UX resources now are mostly
> focused on Horizon. It'd be nice to have a group aiming to take the big
> picture of the entire OpenStack experience. Maybe this group is the one,
> maybe they're not. The big picture would be:
>
> Dashboard experience
>
> CLI experience
>
> logging consistency
>
> troubleshooting consistency
>
> consistency across APIs like pagination behavior
>
>
>
> Just like QA ends up focusing on tempest, UX might end up focusing on
> Dashboard, CLI and API experience. That'd be fine with me and would give
> measurable trackable points.
>
>
>
> What's more interesting is how does the user committee fit into this?
> There's an interesting discussion already about how to get user concerns
> worked on by developers, is it actually through product managers? What would
> an Experience program look like if it were about productization?
>
>
>
> The most efficient and effective way to get enduser concerns and issues
> addressed systematically is through one point of contact, not one for every
> project.  By having one place to collect up all inputs other than bugs and
> missing features in one place, problem areas are spotted much sooner, but
> also areas of excellence.
>
>
>
> So my recommendation would be to encourage UX folks to get involved
> within projects and during project-specific weekly meetings to
> efficiently drive better UX there, as a direct project contributor. If
> all the UX-minded folks need a forum to coordinate, I think [UX] ML
> threads and, maybe, a UX weekly meeting would be an interesting first step.
>
>
>
> I think a weekly UX meeting and a mailing list (which is probably already
> their Google Plus group) would be a good way to gather more people as
> contributors. Then we get an idea of what contributions look like.
>
>
>
> To summarize my take -- UX is a lot like docs in that it's tough to get devs
> to care, and also the work should be done with an eye towards the big
> picture and with resources from member companies.
>
>
>
> +1000  Devs tend to think they know how endusers are going to want to use
> and interact with their code.   Most don’t care that some endusers find the
> interface(s) confusing, opaque, inflexible or unforgiving.  The best way to
> get a unified user experience is to have a *Program* (like Docs and QA) that
> gives UX legitimacy and some authority beyond just the responsibility they
> feel to the usability and usefulness of the projects they are unifying.
> Program status would also bring in more UX participants because it
> acknowledges that OpenStack is serious about UX and understands its
> importance (especially in reducing pilot error and time spent by developers
> on technical support).  Give UX legitimacy and the power to effect change
> and the UX team will prosper and multiply.
>
>
>
> --Rocky
>
>
>
> Anne
>
>
>
> There would still be an issue with UX session space at the Design
> Summit... but that's a well known issue that affects more than just UX:
> the way our design summits were historically organized (around programs
> only) made it difficult to discuss cross-project and cross-program
> issues. To address that, the plan is to carve cross-project space into
> the next design summit, even if that means a little less topical
> sessions for everyone else.
> Thoughts ?
>
> --
> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>
> _______________________________________________
> --
> Anne Gentle
> annegentle at justwriteclick.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OpenStack-dev mailing list
> OpenStack-dev at lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
>
I was (and still am) one of the folks on the TC that was in the
unconvinced category yesterday.  I believe that the proposal by
Thierry of having a group akin to the security team is a win win.  I'd
at least like to try it before we jump to another extreme and have an
entire new project in OpenStack that nobody is even sure how it would
work or what the deliverables would be.

UX is always a problem in open source because of the very nature of
open source development.  I'm not saying it can't or shouldn't be
better but I don't think jumping right to having a project that
*controls* UX is the way to go.  Personally I would LOVE to have
involvement in Cinder from folks that have direct experience with
OpenStack (and specifically Cinder) users (operators and end-users)
and use their feed-back to make a better project.  Also what is UX...
some say logs, some say API's and Horizon, others say install, config
and docs.  I can say that the number one complaint I do hear from
folks is that OpenStack has way too many projects to make any sense
out of so adding another project to improve the experience for users
seems a bit contradictory.  There are key challenges around config,
install and quite frankly an understanding of *what* OpenStack is that
IMVHO should probably have some community based focus but not in the
form of yet another project.



More information about the OpenStack-dev mailing list