Pain Points & Problem Spaces
This page serves as a collection point for identifiable generic recurring user-problematics. User testing and walkthroughs are used to reveal pain points, such as those gathered at the Fluid Summit, which are synthesized into problem spaces. Component ideas are subsequently teased from the problem spaces.
Feedback Problem Space
When a user takes an action, she needs immediate and clear evidence of its result. Sakai in particular often fails to provide this feedback. For example, a user in the Resources Tool may click on a folder low on a page and expect to see its contents. The contents are displayed, but not necessarily shown to the user, since the page reloads from the top, hiding anything "below the fold." Many actions do not provide "success" messages.
A slow process, such as a large file upload, should let the user know that something is happening and if possible should let her know how much longer it will take. When an error occurs, the user should see a message that tells her what is happening and what she can do about it.
This shades into situations where the issue is not feedback in the strictest sense but a matter of poor orientation and multiple design issues of workflow, layout, language, etc., that leave the user unclear as to the meaning of an possible action or where to begin/what to do next. This was the "WTF?" sheet at the summit and is grouped here under feedback.
File Management Problem Space
The Resources Tool in Sakai tries to do too much. It is the file manager within a site, the place for all site members to view files in a variety of contexts, the place users can pull files from other sites into the current site, the place to set conditions for content availability -- it even allows users to create links and in-line documents. It does so much that it can be difficult to know how to accomplish the particular task in view. General consensus is that the functionality needs to be chunked out in different ways and the UI generally simplified. The Resources Tool is also challenged by several usability issues for specific interactions. Those details will be fleshed out through the work of this project. For some examples, check out Allison's UX Walkthrough which focused on the Resources tool.
File management is a common activity and users have expectations based on their experience with their personal computers and the desktop metaphor.