GitLab Create Editor Group, 14 Apr 2021

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From YouTube: Create:Editor Product/UX Weekly - 2021-04-14

Description

Weekly Editor group sync between Product, Design, and UX Research

A

Hello, everyone: this is the editor group, uh product design, ux research, weekly sync for april 14 2021, and I mixed up the agenda. I wanted to start with design today. So michael, you can take it away.

B

um Yeah, so thanks for that um so, like I said, this week's been a little bit interesting, a little bit frazzled. um I think part of that is just like finding ways that you know you can improve upon how you work personally. So for me, it's like, oh, I should have done better, so one of those things is when I saw the issue that uh paul had to create the icon, and I'm like. Oh that's my bad on that.

B

um So I am thinking this is another case of why we should start using these product development. Workflow labels in our group.

A

Better and I think.

B

It will help in in the near future once we start consolidating on an area where everyone's kind of focused on not like people in settings, nav people an editor or people doing random stuff. So I think once we have a better alignment. I think this kind of stuff will uh be spotted out quicker, but I think in the near term, starting using the workflow labels better.

B

So if there's some stuff that has the workflow design on it, but you know it's already in planning or scheduled for a milestone, and it's like someone's already coding on it. You know that's, probably not the right label and trying to be more proactive on that, so that we can use that to help with transparency as well. So um you know we don't have this issues where people are trying to find the latest designs or latest direction on certain things. um At least we make a decision and move on.

B

So that's my kind of recommendation and maybe my point of feedback for you. Eric is like what's the best way to start incorporating this into our existing work,.

B

Or is it like, when you're planning that, like the 1312, it's like you know they have the wrong labels? It's just like they're ping me just like please update, please update, or you know, or whatever, in the near term, yeah.

A

uh So I think that, yes, this is an area that our group can and should do better about process, um and I think we'd relatively.

A

uh We've gotten by without it, because we've had a relatively large amount of well understood, work that didn't require a ton of ui design, and um so we we haven't had as many scenarios where this handoff needed to occur, or you.

B

A

Dependency on final design wasn't as firm regardless. uh If we have something we do have a workflow board and if we have something scheduled for a milestone that is still in workflow design, that should be a red flag.

A

Everything should be in development or ready for development or whatever that one is and.

A

I think the probably the process improvements as simple as just working from that board and checking it, maybe even during the kickoff meeting or something like that which we're going to have tomorrow. So we can take a look and then that would be a prompt for engineers to to say like okay. Well, this had designed, but it hadn't moved out. Is it because just like needs the workflow label updated, or did you not get to it yet?

A

Is there any work that can be done before the design is ready, or are we waiting on on your input or whatever.

A

I I don't know I I have. um I have concerns about putting too many guard rails on that process and falling into like a waterfall mentality where they won't. You know we can't touch anything until it's gone from this bucket to that bucket and you're. The only one that's allowed to change the label, et cetera, et cetera. So if we go too hard on this, I feel like we'd fall into that trap.

A

I'm not saying we are the types of people that will we're all very collaborative, but um I think that would be what I would want to watch out for.

B

Yeah, I think that's a fair, um a statement because, like I do like the flexible nature of our group, the way we're working right now, I think using it as a signal. It's like you know like what's left on design, it.

A

B

It might be like one little thing that I'm like stressing over but like is in the grand scheme of things that I can like be pulled out or like okay. That makes sense to look at that, or so I think it might serve as a good prompt for discussions um on where things are at, and I think I suggested this earlier um like a few weeks ago, because I feel like sometimes I get stuck on little things, and I realize that, like oh, this thing could be split up a lot easier or like there.

B

There could be opportunities to approach the problem like either building the framework and foundation to support it or working on some other aspect or finding a simpler solution uh to something so yeah. I I want to use it less gatekeeping, like you said, but probably more conversation, starter.

A

Yeah, okay uh sounds good yeah. uh Let's, let's try and put that in place I'll uh bring it up during the kickoff meeting tomorrow. We'll look at the um workflow board updated if it needs to be I'll. Make a note.

B

um The other thing- uh the other point I have on here is um next week- is next week's ux showcase will be time, shifted to um to accommodate more of the asia pac region and with some overlap with um europe.

B

So with that, um because I'm in australia, I will do my ux showcase and that will be around the navigation work.

B

um The exact topic and the theme or angle of it will probably um is still to be determined, I'm working on it this week, which means today, because I want to get some feedback from people before and next thursday, so yeah I'll be looking at that um probably be really heavily influenced by some of the videos that marcel did recently and then your document um eric about you know where we're at and our future opportunities.

B

So I think I'm going to remix some of those things and mixing it up with uh a topic that katherine and I kind of talked about a lot about like where.

A

B

Start with this thing, and why do we start uncertain things, because you know inheriting hundreds of issues and trying to find a path? um I think the way we did it with doing research and kind of design work in parallel and trying to find out what was going on there there's some kind of story there. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on.

A

That sounds great. I have the utmost confidence that you'll come up with a great presentation. If you want feedback on it, I'm happy to give it, but don't feel like you need to run it by me. If you need okay, just to bounce ideas or drive around or anything, let me know awesome.

B

I appreciate that um and then the last point in the design section is uh this one one of these things where I deliberate over and whether it's worth deliberating so much over is like. I need some feedback, uh whether we named the first menu item project information, uh where it's currently project overview right now, there's good cases for it like like. I think we could go ahead with it. It's a great idea. It's a positive change, like the thing holding me back is like I'm 100 sure.

B

If we'll stick with it like, I don't know, if we'll keep it for one or two milestones and then change it, because we change the interaction pattern or people get confused. That there's no overview like the word overview. Is that distracting um to be missing?

B

uh So the concern I have is like there's a lot of documentation to be changed and unit tests to be changed, and it's just like, and we talked about this in the past eric that like we could leave it, but then this is also like a right time to make the change if the people are already in those areas.

B

um Yeah, um like I like part of me, is like what am I looking for. It's like. I just need someone else's signal uh like within the group, uh because I think from from the design side from my side, yeah, it's it's a fair move, whether we reverse it. That's like my kind of like concern like like is: is it safe to delay? Yeah like like that? That's I'm yeah, I'm kind of back and forth on this one.

A

Yeah uh so I've been following the issue uh before my my gut and what I, what I've done in the past personal decisions like this, you just decide and then, if you feel disappointed, then you know you. You should do the other one right like just say, like I'm, going to try this one on for size and then see how you feel. um But I think since amy's on the call like.

A

Maybe you could weigh in on not only your the impacts to docs and and like the work that it would take the actual real work that this implies. But like this semantics and and whether which one is more appropriate.

C

I want to give you an orthogonal answer to what you're, what you're asking for here michael, do right by our users. Our job is to clean up on the technical writing team. Do what you need to do? Okay, okay, the rest is my problem.

A

It's a good stance. Go ahead.

D

Yeah, uh maybe michael, you could walk us back to why project information would be better than project overview.

B

Yeah and yeah, I think that um so the change that we're proposing is changing the label project overview to project information, because the initial page that a user will land to now in our new proposal is actually the project name itself. So that will be the main landing page of the um project.

B

So if they have repositories enabled it will be like the the variation that has like the repository information there.

B

If repository is turned off, it's actually like an issue list that appears as the details page and because of that, the the current menu item with the home icon and the label project overview is no longer really fitting, because it's not really an overview if the stuff that will be in there now is no longer like an overall details, kind of view, it's more just like remember, like activities releases, you know if, in the future, labels or members goes in there.

B

um This kind of area of like general, like these are pieces of the product that make up the project, but they're not really an overview, because neither of those things gives you a good overview of. What's going on in the project, um so that is the concern with keeping the name project overview, um some other suggestions in the past and plus the home icon. So it's no longer in the home, though, because the home will be the project name.

B

So the other change that we're doing is changing the home icon in the project world to be the project icon and in the group's world it'll be the group icon, that's cool!

B

Now, when you look at the name project overview, some other considerations was like more, um but that's too random and and kind of nondescript, and it feels like that would be like going against our top nav navigation. Whatever we're saying more is non-descript and useless uh as a menu label to help people find what they need. So we debated back and forth in the discussion and landed on the name, information which activities releases and labels yeah.

B

I think they fall in the definition of information like this is extra information about their project and then at the time like at the moment. Right now, I think.

A

B

The best name we have- and I think that name is better than project overview, so in the spirit of what's best right now, based on the current information, unlike project information.

B

The concern I have is that some explorations of the designs and stuff that we're thinking about has the project overview as just project like just the name project itself, and I'm like. I don't know how that's going to turn out.

B

There's other ideas of yeah. You know grouping the labels together and maybe there's a pattern that, like all this information lives under project overview, but.

A

B

Like this is kind of like a big unknown right like- and this is where I think maybe in investigating the grouping or the labeling of the menu items, we might find a better name. So the question is like: do you delay this decision now uh in in hopes of something uncertain?

B

Or do you go with something that you're confident right now with the possibility of backtracking in the future, and I think my biggest concern with documentation was the screenshot stuff, but I think amy, if you kind of if we treat that screenshot stuff as like a separate kind of initiative as in like moving forward.

B

This is why we want to not include navigation and stuff like that, then we can make these iteration changes without being too concerned, because I think that was, I think you estimated the screenshot part as an eight, whereas, like the changing of the text itself um is a less. uh I think it was a three, so it was less daunting, so maybe, like I'm, conflating both of those two issues into like one big one and versus uh like so it's like a 11 point. Yes, I mean go.

C

We're already on it the issue that I linked in here and I'll drop it into the agenda.

C

We are already starting to clean up and crop screenshots and there yeah, because you all gave us a heads up on this. We got started.

B

C

So do it, I'm just gonna, keep saying this: do what you need to do: okay,.

B

Okay, so so like in the spirit of that today, I feel very strongly with the moving ahead with project information and then.

A

B

Create a separate issue to say change, project overview instances in the docs and everywhere to say, project information um and.

A

B

You know whether amy does that or we break it up and I think that's a separate kind of discussion, but.

C

I would say for now: cr go ahead and create a doc specific issue that way it can be assigned to me and assigned to a milestone, because we're trying to get everybody in create used to the idea that amy parcels her work out into milestones like engineers do so that I can point to it and say: did this has to be busy right now or hey? This is done or hey.

C

I need help, but it all filters back into this issue, so give me give me a solid place to start from in an issue and we'll go from there.

D

And I was going to follow up with a question of when would this change like what milestone would this change happen?.

C

You're gonna say fourteen: oh aren't you.

B

Is it fourteen like looking back and forth because yeah.

A

B

A

D

If it's fourteen, you know, it seems like there's still time in between to solidify it so plan for it, um but because there are still some open proposals. That's what would make me hesitant to say we're going to change this tomorrow, but if there's still some runway to maybe sort out those different proposals, then.

B

D

Think we have time to.

B

Sort out the different proposals, I think the different proposals will like inform a future direction um and that's my kind of uncertainty like whether we roll back or like change. I don't think it's a rollback. It's more like a change of decision like like this feels like the best decision right now, um whether we change it, because what yeah there's it's an interesting one, because essentially you were removing home like this illusion of home, which is another kind of yeah.

B

Part of me is like not I'm sitting on like halfway, because it makes sense in one one sense, but I would say yeah we go for.

A

You've made a decision.

B

A

D

I so give you. I was gonna.

A

I was gonna, take a stance and just say: leave it see what happens because who knows, what's gonna end up in there they're both kind of ambiguous, but I had no stake in that decision. So I think you have successfully had plenty of points and you've summarized it very well that you feel confident about this change now.

A

That's all we can hope for right now, like it's, okay to overthink things and it's okay to not feel 100, but you shouldn't um not act on it in anticipation of having to revisit something later, we'll just change it again later. You know I mean it'll be work but it'll be fine.

A

It's not the first thing that we will have changed twice in a year right like in the that's. That's not that shouldn't be a blocker to making a decision. That's got clear benefits right now. Yes, okay,.

C

I put instructions for you in the agenda, let's start with essentially a research spike for me to find out. What's this going to entail that way, if it turns out that I have a problem, I I know about it in 1312 and can get the work distributed to my team in 14o.

B

All right and that's good. um Thank you. um So next point uh is a ux research land, so with the multiple navigation interaction patterns that exist out there that popped up in the last three weeks, so this is like mainly around putting analytics and settings into the navigation, somehow whether it's um on the left, the top uh in tabs. um All of these things, potentially even a third pattern um of like with the collapsed menu items and the secondary uh sub nav, is actually presented like a primary navigation.

B

um These kind of three you know solution validation, um putting together a plan um which is looking at it more like from an epic level of looking at these three uh navigation patterns and comparing all three of them together.

B

um What I'm planning to use here is the same kind of scenarios that catherine used for sending the baseline in the tree, jacks studies and then extending that to like here's, the ui of those menu patterns and seeing uh a and the tasks says roughly the time um it's hard to judge time like, um but that's something we're just going to take a look to see, but hopefully um through this we'll, compare and contrast and use that to inform future navigation direction for well yeah for the responsible for that in the future, um because there's potentially three different solution, navigation solution, validations to be done, I may be investing some of the designers who are keen on navigation work to help out, but that's um to be determined after I get the planning stuff done.

B

So I'm planning- I was planning to finish that this week, um so katherine used this week to like catch up on life and like today's and everything. um But you know probably next week I'll ping, you um again to just uh maybe set aside some time to discuss the design and the solution. Validation, research, because there is ceo interest on one of the patterns.

D

B

Okay, cool and then in the spirit of um sharing research insights, better, um I'm hosting a session later today, which I call the debrief it'll be your morning eric. So the idea here is just for me to go through the insights and observations of the solution, validations that were done recently and then it gives. The idea here is to help refine my writing and of and reporting back once.

B

We like make it more public that here's the findings, um but also giving uh the team to ask any questions in real time about what went on in the solution- validation. Maybe it's not thorough enough. Maybe it's good, maybe it's not whatever whatever that may be. So that's the goal this session. um So that's going to be run later today for me, but um it will be u.s morning, u.s, east coast morning.

B

The meeting is in the shared calendar for the editor group, so you know feel free to jump in, but it also will be recorded for the group to watch because of the raw nature of it. I am not comfortable with making it public by default, but um yeah unlisted for sure, so that we can view it. So that's um fyi in what I'm planning to do to wrap up this week.

A

I I like this format thanks for setting up, I think also yeah, if you're presenting findings and maybe think you might fall into a trap of mentioning a customer name or something like that, probably best to plan on making it um private.

A

um I wouldn't go unlisted because you could still find it just go ahead and make it private if, when you upload it or just put on a google drive- and we can just decide which ones are worth uploading later, um one request would be for async discussions like maybe the artifact could be an issue somewhere and it could be um in a design team project or something not on gitlab.com.

A

If you don't want other people to see it or you can make it, I guess if you make it private, anybody on gitlab.com could see it so yeah make it on like get live, org or, and we can make it in product or I'm sure, there's a design project you could put it in and um I guess editor group would probably be the best one.

A

So, of course, put it in the editor group create an issue, so we can discuss afterwards async and leave it out of slack, because I think those will be some really valuable discussions and I'm just assuming that I'm going to make it. I have an overlapping meeting towards the end. So if I could come in afterwards and like jot down my thoughts in an issue where I don't feel like, then I'm dominating the conversation by spitballing with you and stuff like that. uh That would be helpful.

B

Okay, yeah, that sounds good uh I'll, create like an agenda like thing in in our editor group world. So it's good to start cool.

A

um Thanks everyone for all those updates. I didn't have anything really uh important to um discuss from the product side. I was trying to take a break of just talking about settings and navigation from a product standpoint. I mean we're gonna record, I'm going to record the kickoff tomorrow. 1312 is largely going to be um continuing work on 1311.

A

uh we're we're moving towards 14-0. We have our three priorities: nothing's really changing there. um So to outline them again. The three priorities are: the content, editor mvc in wiki, the consolidated top navigation and the updated left navigation, we're making progress in all three and really no change to product strategy there or any kind of product insights. But I did see this issue not issued this slack message come across.

A

I think, on our um competitive analysis channel. I can't remember what channel it was in, but that was really interesting. I put it in the agenda and it is a comparison of a bunch of different hosting options for jam stack sites specifically, so this would include github netlify cloudflare firebase.

A

Anyway, it was a nice little matrix. It's not the easiest thing to read: it's not the easiest! On the eyes, as far as the presentation goes, if I'm honest but uh there's it's packed with um some good data, I'm actually um impressed how git lab pages stand up, and I can say that because we don't own the feature but like I, I didn't realize some of these things that are just like global um gitlab, um tiering decisions or or limits application limits, um work out in our favor for get lab pages and hosting on there.

A

I think um we stack up pretty nicely, so it's just interesting food for thought. I was pouring over this as I was settling in yesterday. I think and figured I'd share in case you missed.

B

It cool thanks for sharing that.

A

So yeah I mean it's, uh you know pages is not our category, but we work a lot in the mindset of somebody who's making a jam stack site, so it's good to keep an eye on what pages can do and what other competitors are doing in that space. I I do like that. It didn't come right out and say like this is the best one. This is more of just like data. In comparison, you can draw your own conclusions based on your own priorities.

A

um I did not know that we had a three hour.

A

Runner timeout, which seems dramatically higher than most of the competition like nullifies, is 15 minutes, for example. So if your job can't run in 15 minutes, it's not going to run. That's my understanding anyway.

A

uh I'd like to dig deeper with the.

A

With the pages team to understand, benefits and drawbacks to.

A

A

Anyway, just something different on my mind, uh still thinking about jam stacks stuff, so you can't take the statics or too far out of my mind,.

A

I think that covers anything that I needed to bring up sync discussion wise, so uh we can call it a meeting unless anybody else has anything to add.

D

B

All good over here.

A

Cool great all right: well, thanks everyone for joining and uh look forward to seeing you again next week and for those uh if, if you're gonna make it to the kickoff or any of the other various things. I have a lot of sync meetings tomorrow. I'll probably likely see at least one of you in one of those so take care.

D

A