UI: Improving the navigation and orientation

[sefeg]

In the current round of usability tests, every one of the five test users experienced navigation and orientation issues. The most common observations are documented here. The goal is to engage in a discussion and to develop a concept that addresses mentioned issues.

Observations relevant to the navigation:

• Instead of directly using the designated elements in the navigation sidebar, inappropriate or inefficient elements in the top bar have been used intuitively (3 / 5 users)

  • When being asked to create an analysis or load a draft

    • The LHCb dropdown menu was clicked (2 / 5)
    • The home button was used (1 / 5)

  • When being asked to look at the shared analyses, (2/ 5)

    • one person first clicked on the CAP symbol in the top bar
    • one person used the search bar on the top and typed in the name of a working group

• “Please log-out”: The profile button was used first (2 / 5)

• Trying to proceed to the next step in the analysis description (e.g. from Basic Information to DST selection),

  • users scrolled down in the submission form (4 / 5)
  • users tried to select a category (e.g. DST selection) from the overview sidebar and were confused as it did not appear in the submission form. Clicked several times on the category and other categories in order to make it work or to test the sidebar. (4 / 5)

Orientation issues

• Most testers (3 / 5) lost track of where they are in the submission form at least once during the test. They scrolled up to orientate themselves. One person used his finger to understand that production information is part of DST selection.

[sefeg]

To address the observed navigation issues, the top navigation bar has been revised in this proposal: https://invis.io/ABBJTGN6C

It aims at providing clear guidance as to how some of the key tasks (Creating analyses / Looking for shared and private deposits) can be performed. Removing the side navigation bar generally allows for a more efficient use of the display and aims at easing the mental effort required for the navigation by providing only one distinct bar (on the top).

The linked mockup shows the "My deposits" screen and includes My drafts and My shared deposits. An explanatory title has been added to generate a better understanding, as some of the testers did not immediately understand the meaning of My Shared Deposits and Recent drafts.

[suenjedt]

Looks good. A few questions about the proposal @sefeg :

• the "my deposits" would get me again to the same page?
• clicking the LHCb logo and the "collaboration" button would bring me to the same page?
• where does clicking on "home" get me to?

[sefeg]

• Yes, the proposal page depicts "My deposits". Selecting it would get you again to that page
• For the moment, LHCb logo and "collaboration" would point to the same page. We have been discussing to remove the LHCb logo completely, but this needs further discussion / feedback
• "home" leads to the dashboard. So does clicking on the CAP logo (which might not be intuitive for everyone)

[suenjedt]

I understand that "my deposit" might be useful when "being somewhere else on CAP". It should be clear that one is actually on the very same page in that moment though. Redundancies should be looked at with users.

[sefeg]

The proposal (https://invis.io/ABBJTGN6C) has been edited

• to highlight that the top navigation buttons that point to a different, dedicated view change their state. In the depicted case, the user is in the "my deposits" view. The button reflects that by inverting the colors.
• to combine the home button with the collaboration (here: LHCb) label. Removes one redundancy. Needs to be tested if users expect to be pointed to dashboard or to "collaboration".

[sefeg]

As discussed, we further improve the navigation by

• [x] integrating additional navigation elements at the end of each workflow step (see also #447)

• [x] closing an analysis step when another one is selected from the analysis overview sidebar (e.g. closing LHCb Basic Information after selecting DST Selection)

[sefeg]

Closing as the above proposed actions are implemented.