Design a feature discovery tool

[JonellaCulmer]

What we're after: From the research completed in an effort to improve navigation, we should also consider the addition of a feature discovery tool to promote the data visualizations we've developed and launched on the site. Currently, we don't have a consistent and effective method of announcing new enhancements to the site. This is one way we can make updates to the site easy to discover. This tool will help get more eyes looking at our features and can help identify if there are pain points, or other desires we have yet to fulfill for our users.

Possible solutions:

• Tooltips: although we already have a specific pattern for the use of tooltips
• Change log: can use a plug-in or add-on with some front-end alterations
• Pop-ups: most disruptive of all the options, would have to use this in a very specific way that limits who sees what and when

Related issues

• https://github.com/fecgov/fec-cms/issues/3764 Add links to visualizations in search results
• https://github.com/fecgov/fec-cms/issues/3763 Design navigation menus to improve path to landing page
• https://github.com/fecgov/fec-cms/issues/3766 Identify places to track navigation to data viz through Tag Manager

Completion criteria

• [ ] Design and make a recommendation for a feature discovery tool
• [ ] Open an implementation issue

[JonellaCulmer]

@patphongs @rfultz @johnnyporkchops Wanted to get your thoughts on how we might go about building something like this in-house. It's a window that opens on the right side of the screen. I thought we could use the shell of the glossary pop-out but make it wagtail editable so that we can easily make updates.

Some functionality that would be nice: include text, images, gifs, and buttons

[JonellaCulmer]

We discussed this morning starting with a prototype of a webpage instead of building out a pop-out window. Some decisions that still need to be made (and we can start with the prototype to spur discussion):

• What kind of content will be included?
• Will we retain some, all or discontinue the release notes?
• How often will the page be updated?

Here's a mockup of what the homepage could look like with the addition of an icon at the top of the site:

[JonellaCulmer]

Through some experimentation and discussion, we're going with the resource template in Wagtail to highlight our completed work and replace the release notes on github.

A draft page can be found here: https://fec-feature-cms.app.cloud.gov/admin/pages/11638/view_draft/