Review admin interface in context of new re-users

[garethrees]

Think about the process of getting an Alaveteli set up:

• Easy to add public bodies?
• Easy to test out and learn the admin interface?
  • Purge test requests before go-live
  • Use test email address for outgoing FOI requests while in tests
• How easy is it to use the same install to move from staging to production?
• Investigate blank slate page designs
• User test the admin interface
• Make it easier to style basic theme. Set these values and everything else should Just Work with scss transforms:
  • banner-color
  • body-background-color
  • font-family
  • font-color
  • link-color
  • button-color

[crowbot]

There's some interaction here with https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/1075, I think, in that some of these things should be documented there.

[garethrees]

[garethrees]

http://www.useronboard.com/onboarding-teardowns/

[garethrees]

Some notes I made a while ago (I think after just having set up Rwanda and Nicaragua and the complete difference in the two experiences)

Why have some partners succeeded?

Think about stages in growth:

[test FOI, alaveteli demo, seeding, startup, growth, WDTK]

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My guess is because they have better tech skills. Even if we host, the platform itself was written by and for technical people.

Our customers are the admins. We need to understand them better and do all we can to help them. If we do a good job of looking after admins they'll do a better job of looking after users.

Doesn't need to be super pretty; just smooth and helpful. Bootstrap is fine.

We're more like Shopify. We sell a platform. Out main customer is the shop owner. We focus on making their job easier and trust that they will look after their users. But we help them do that by providing sensible defaults (themes) and slowing them to do just enough to tweak the experience for their audience, without allowing them to get it really wrong.

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Our main customers are reusers. They are the ones who will make an install successful. The admin interface is the thing they use day to day and if it's too hard then they'll give up.

It does too much. Overwhelming for start-up phase. Need to be able to turn stuff off until they need it.

It's too technical. We should hide technical details but make them available when needed.

We should design blank states so that they don't have to trawl through an incomplete and foreign language docs site.

We should include built in help for each page for the common use cases for the same reasons as above

We should include easier ways to get non-technical support: links to mailing list, irc, email, maybe live chat.

Ensure the UI is good. Currently issues with poor design.

Make it easier for us to contact them. Announcements feature for general announcements and code updates.

Make it easier for them to upgrade.

More stats and visibility of how they're doing – motivational

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All this is great but if they don't upgrade then they won't get the features. Reusers don't upgrade.

Need to make it easy to upgrade

[RichardTaylor]

These ideas for making Alaveteli sites easier to administer could also assist with:

• Retention of administrators
• Releasing admins from the details of running the service to focus on using and promoting the service, and on pursuing other aims eg. societal and legislative change.
• Making administering an Alaveteli site accessible to a broader range of people, which could in-turn impact the content/success/focus of those services. Consider for example that the set of public bodies of interest to highly technically competent people with lots of time to spend running a service might be different to the set of bodies of interest to those who are relatively time poor, and less technically skilled.