►
From YouTube: WorkItemsMentalModels Q3FY23
Description
Ben Leduc-Mills (Sr. UX Researcher) goes through the results of the Work Items mental model study performed during October of 2022.
Link to deck: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jcuXr34KPjocJrXH5RH1murt7WO67m3JzjMQCM3QNjI/edit?usp=sharing
A
A
We
also
found
three
common
workflows
in
our
models
that
connect
across
different
stages
and
were
neatly
segmented
within
the
mental
model.
Maps
task
is
a
really
critical
noun.
It's
an
inflection
point
between
planning-based
tools
and
code-based
tools,
which
is
sort
of
the
point
at
which
product
managers
hand
over
the
work
to
Developers
story
and
roadmap
are
two
important
work
items
that
are
not
currently
a
central
part
of
GitHub,
but
are
Central
to
how
many
users
think
about
their
work.
A
A
So
we
looked
at
hierarchy
in
two
ways,
from
the
study
by
the
parent-child
verbs
that
were
used
in
the
maps
and
also
by
constructing
a
network
graph
and
breaking
it
down.
Both
of
those
methods
led
to
the
conclusion
that
there
are
a
core
group
of
nouns
that
form
the
backbone
of
work
items,
and
these
are
epic
story.
Issue
and
task
task
in
particular,
is
an
inflection
point.
A
It
was
the
only
term
that
appeared
on
every
single
map
that
we
collected
and
it
serves
as
a
bridge
between
project
managers
working
and
obtaining
Centric
environment
to
developers
working
in
a
code.
Subject:
environment
tests
typically
get
translated
from
things
called
the
tasks
in
planning
tools
to
things
like
issues
or
branches
in
gitlab
of
the
nouns
which
are
not
a
central
part
of
gitlab.
Currently
stories
and
road
maps
were
the
most
critical
to
you.
The
work,
in
fact
none
of
the
gitlab
users
that
we
interviewed
mentioned
using
roadmaps
at
all.
A
However,
it
was
very
critical
to
a
lot
of
product
manager
workflows
and
in
segmenting
the
these
Maps.
We
found
that
planning
producing
and
protecting
were
appropriate
labels
for
the
different
divisions
and
natural
segmentations
that
we
found
in
the
models,
in
particular
the
nouns
associated
with
the
planning
segment,
can
provide
clues
to
help
attract
plan-centered
users.
A
My
recommendations
following
This
research,
epic,
is
a
main
character,
so
what
I
mean
by
that
is
that
it's
the
most
Central
most
well-connected
and
most
relevant
work
item
by
a
good
margin.
So
our
future
efforts
in
this
area
should
try
to
look
at
work
items
from
an
epic
centered
point
of
view.
Task
is
our
Bridge.
A
The
universality
of
tasks
is
our
Bridge
from
git
lab
to
other
products.
It's
currently,
as
I
mentioned,
the
handoff
point
between
product
managers
and
Developers,
using
our
tool
and
story
and
roadmap,
are
our
missing
links
in
order
to
have
a
sustainable
planning
workflow
within
gitlab.
We
need
to
support
these
objects
story
is
so
widely
used
elsewhere.
A
So
a
mental
model
is
what
a
user
believes
to
be
true
about
a
system.
Nielsen
Norman
states
that
these
are
some
of
the
most
important
Concepts
in
human
computer
interaction
and
that
what
a
user
believes
about
a
user
interface
strongly
impacts
how
they
use
it.
So
it's
critical
that
when
forming
work
items
we
mirror
as
best
as
possible
what
our
users
believe
to
be
true
about
the
system.
A
So
what
we
did
is
participants
were
given
a
link
to
a
mural
exercise.
You
can
see
here
that
there's
a
list
of
nouns
in
blue
and
verbs
in
green,
so
participants
constructed
a
map
connecting
two
nouns
with
a
verb
and
basically
use
all
of
the
nouns
that
were
common
in
there
in
their
work,
and
participants
could
also
add
their
own
nouns
and
verbs
as
they
wished.
We
also
did
some
pre-work
constructing
our
own
internal
map
with
our
group
to
compare
against.
A
So
the
work
that
we
did
on
the
map
sort
of
followed
a
three-stage
process.
You
know,
given
the
Raw
map,
we
cleaned
it
up,
put
arrows
cleanly,
Define
the
relationships
and
then
looked
for
segmentations
hierarchies
just
interesting
relationships
in
general.
We
also
exported
all
of
the
data
from
mural.
A
A
A
A
A
A
In
some
verbs
imply
the
same
kinds
of
relationships,
but
aren't
exact
duplicates
of
each
other,
there's
also
a
relatively
large
number
of
nouns
and
verbs
to
work
with
a
lot
of
possible
combinations
and,
of
course,
participants
added
a
lot
of
their
own
vocabulary
into
the
models.
So,
for
instance,
what
I
mean
here?
Is
it
epic,
as
a
parent
of
story
is
exactly
the
same
relationship
as
story
as
a
child?
Epic.
We
actually
have
the
same
relationship
here,
which
begs
the
question
of
how
we
can
find
these
hidden
duplicates.
A
So,
in
fact,
while
looking
for
this,
we
noticed
that
many
of
the
commonly
used,
verbs
reply
to
hierarchical
relationship
and
hierarchy
is
critical
to
sort
of
understanding,
information
architecture
as
a
whole,
and
it
was
very
important
to
the
work
items
team,
so
I
filtered
a
list
of
the
relationships
to
focus
only
on
hierarchy
and
basically
normalize
the
list
so
that
all
of
the
all
of
the
parent-child
relationships
were
sort
of
the
same.
This
gave
us
134
non-unique
parent-trail
relationships
which
allowed
us
to
build
a
tree
map,
and
this
is
what
it
looks
like.
A
So
you
can
see
here
that
you
know
a
lot
of
things
are
as
they
are
in
in
git
lab
and
with
the
inclusion
of
some
of
the
terms
that
don't
exist
yet
just
gives
some
clue
as
to
how
we
might
incorporate
them
in
a
hierarchy
in
the
future.
But
it's
important
to
note
tree
maps
are
are
not
you
know
meant
to
be
statistically
valid.
This
is
not
the
only
way
to
think
of
of
hierarchy.
It's
just
one
way
that
we
constructed
it.
A
Based
on
this
particular
data
set,
I
think
the
main
takeaway
here
is
that
gitlab's
current
schema
was
largely
reflected
in
the
hierarchy
that
we
produced.
So
if
we
leave
out
the
nouns
that
don't
exist
in
gitlab
sort
of
hierarchy,
that
we
have
project
board,
epic
issue
task,
Maps,
quite
well
with
our
participants,
mental
models.
A
And
what
I
mean
here
is
that
we
end
up
with
something
like
this.
Where
blue
circle
here
represents
noun
and
each
line
represents
a
relationship
from
one
noun
to
another,
the
bigger
the
circle,
the
more
relationships
it
has
with
other
nouns.
So
each
of
the
lines
here
is
a
verb
relationship
and
you
can
see
hopefully
the
arrows
there.
So
it
is
actually
a
directive
relationship
and
several
things
sort
of
jump
out,
but
there's
a
lot
of
ways
to
look
at
this.
A
One
way
of
looking
at
this
graph
is
by
counting
the
number
of
connections
that
it
has.
In
this
case,
epic,
which
was
only
the
third
most
frequently
used
noun,
is
actually
the
one
with
the
most
connections,
task
story,
roadmap
and
issue
round
out
the
top
five,
and
you
can
sort
of
easily
pick
those
apart
visually,
but
there's
a
lot
of
other
ways
that
we
can
measure
a
network
graph.
A
I
will
leave
it
to
you
guys
to
read
exactly
what
relevance
between
this
closeness
and
cornice
are,
but
they're
different
ways
of
measuring
the
importance
or
centrality
or
connectedness
of
nodes
in
a
graph,
and
what
we
find
is
that
by
most
of
these
other
measures,
the
same
nouns
always
tend
to
come
to
the
top.
In
this
case,
epic
is
at
the
top
of
all
four
of
these
measurements
story.
Tasks
and
issue
also
appear
at
or
near
the
top.
In
all
of
these
cases,
there's
a
few
interesting
side
notes
here.
A
A
A
You
know
some
of
the
hierarchy
like
epic
is
above
story
stories
above
task.
One
thing
to
tease
out
is
that
issue
and
task
are
sort
of
siblings
more
than
they
are.
You
know
a
parent-child
relationship,
and
so
some
effort
will
need
to
be
made
to
to
sort
of
make
sure
we're
reflecting
those
in
a
way
that
reflects
our
users,
mental
models
and
expectations.
A
A
A
A
A
Basically,
you
know
we
need
to
review
these.
You
know
early
on
in
our
in
our
process
to
ensure
that
the
alignment
of
our
product
is
aligned
with
our
users.
Basically,
that's
it.
The
next
steps
here
are
to
hold
an
actionable
insights
Workshop.
So
there's
a
lot
to
digest
here,
we'll
build
a
workshop
to
identify
and
prioritize
which
issues
to
tackle
first,
some
of
these
insights
will
likely
need
further
research,
we'll
need
to
collaborate
across
design
and
products
to
prioritize
those
research
efforts.