[hyades-dev] Hyades Datapool Usability Issues

[Wayne Ho <who@xxxxxxxxxx>]

As discussed during the last Hyades
UI meeting, please find attached a list of usability issues associated
with Hyades Datapools.  



Regards,
Wayne

-----------
w a y n e   h o   |   M.Eng.
Rational User Experience  |  IBM Toronto Laboratory
phone . +1 905-413-4461  |  t/l . 969-4461  |  fax
. +1 905-413-4974 
e-mail . who@xxxxxxxxxx
----- Forwarded by Wayne
Ho/Toronto/IBM on 09/23/2004 01:51 PM -----

Curtis D'Entremont/Toronto/IBM@IBMCA
Sent by: hyades-dev-admin@xxxxxxxxxxx

09/22/2004 01:24 PM

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Subject	[hyades-dev] Hyades UI meeting notes

Topic: 

Discuss datapool UI problems and enhancements. 

Attendees: 

Bianca Jiang 
Curtis d'Entremont 
David Hodges 
Joe Toomey 
John Hoover 
Kourken Aroyan 
Scott Sneider 
Wayne Ho 

Time: 

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 12:00pm (noon) EST. 

Notes: 

Performance testers were asked to use Hyades datapools in a recent usability
study. From this study, Wayne compiled a list of common problems that arose
while users were working with datapools. These problems will be described
in the document to be sent out by Wayne. Briefly, these are:

1. Terminology: testers may not be familiar with the term "equivalence
class" . 
2. Importing CSV files; the format is not the same as what performance
testers expect. 
3. Users didn't know where/how to begin. 
4. Zero-based indexing for equivalence classes can be confusing (already
noted and won't be fixed since API is already using zero-based).
5. When creating a new overview, it shows the overview. Users sometimes
couldn't find the actual table. This is a general problem with tabs in
eclipse. 
6. Inability to enter data immediately. The user has to right click many
times and jump through hoops to enter data. Users expected (and would like)
to be able to just click on a cell and start typing, like a spreadsheet
editor. This is very tedious for large input sets.
7. Can export to CSV, but don't have a matching import wizard (importing
is done via a new wizard). Having this would complete the roundtrip scenario.
8. Importing into an existing datapool. Not entirely clear whether it's
a valid use case or useful thing people would want to do.
9. Task flow: associating a datapool to an existing test. The user has
to stop in the midst of creating a test and divert to creating a datapool
because you can only specify an existing datapool. Whether this is a product
or Hyades issue remains to be decided. 
10. Types are somewhat meaningless and arbitrary in the editor. It was
proposed to have a set of standard types like boolean, string, integer,
etc and have combo boxes and range limits. 

Todos: 

- Wayne to send out document listing problems and potential enhancements
to attendees. 
- Curtis to see that UI.datapool component gets added to Hyades bugzilla.
- Bianca to update UX document with data entry improvements, etc.

If you have any topics for next week, let me know and I'll post the agenda.

Thanks, 
Curtis d'Entremont
Problem Determination Tools
IBM Toronto Lab

Phone: (905) 413-5754
E-Mail: curtispd@xxxxxxxxxx

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