Indicate issuable type change via system note in discussion

FYI @ameliabauerly New issue for system note indicating the type of an issuable has changed

changed milestone to %13.9

added Category:Incident Management devopsmonitor direction grouprespond sectionops typefeature labels

changed the description

@uhlexsis - I've got kind of a last minute issue related to the changing issue types work. We wanted to introduce a system note letting users know when the issue type was changed, and by whom. I was hoping to utilize an existing icon for this note for the first iteration. I proposed the "history" icon as a first pass here, though I suppose I could also use the edit icon that we use for changing the description (which you can see directly above this comment). Since I know you've also been looking at system notes for issues, I just wanted to see what your thoughts were about this proposal. Does history seem okay for a MVC or is there something else that you think would be more appropriate? Would love any thoughts or suggestions :)

Thanks for the ping @ameliabauerly ! Hmmm, so my gut reaction is that the safe option for MVC would be to use the Pencil-Square/Edit icon like we use for updates to the description. It is already used for Title and Description- things that are accessed by clicking the Edit icon. The Issue type selector is grouped with these icons and also accessed through the Edit icon. I like that this also gives some subtile indication of where the changes were made. The History icon also looks sort of similar to the milestone icon to me, which may be a bit confusing when scanning. That is just my eyeballs though.

For a future iteration - if we think that differentiating that system note even further would be valuable - maybe we could create an Issue type icon? I am assuming this may be useful anyway as we add in more functionality like filtering etc.

Do you have any preference for icon choice here, or thoughts on creating a new icon for issue types in the future @jeldergl @jareko ?

@ameliabauerly My initial reaction is to use the same icon we use when someone changes the description (pencil-square):

However, all of our other system note icons tell me that we use icons based on what was edited, not how it was edited:

Since this is the case, as a side issue, I think we should be using the text-description icon when someone changes the description to indicate what was changed.

And if we were to align on this principle, I would suggest we use the issues icon to indicate that the issue type was changed.

Thoughts?

cc @uhlexsis @jeldergl

@jareko I think as MVC your suggestions make sense.

@jareko the way you frame this challenge is so amazing! Thank you for that!

This opens up kind of a larger can of worms in my brain. That pencil-square icon is I think attempting to do what you are envisioning. Strangely I didn't literally interpret this as an Edit icon- I think it is trying to indicate the action of editing something on a page (ie a description or title)- whereas the pencil indicates edit. I have no idea, most importantly, what users expect here though.

I do love your suggestion of getting a bit more granular though. Basically thinking about, does the description need a separate visual indication from the title, etc? What level of granularity is helpful for users? I don't think we need to explore it in this particular issue but I think it would be amazing to iterate on.

I think either the issues icon or the pencil-square could work! I worry somewhat about using an issue icon when the user is on an object/issuable that is "not an issue" (ie a requirement, epic, etc) in our current way of thinking. We are changing this way of thinking with Issue Types however, so maybe that is me being stuck in the past.

Lots of thoughts here @ameliabauerly .. I hope it is helpful! Maybe you could run a super quick validation session internally and/or on usertesting.com? @jeldergl also does a ton of amazing icon validation on Dribbble.

Thanks for this wonderful feedback, @uhlexsis, @jareko and @jeldergl! Really appreciate it

I think either the issues icon or the pencil-square could work! I worry somewhat about using an issue icon when the user is on an object/issuable that is "not an issue" (ie a requirement, epic, etc) in our current way of thinking.

I feel similarly hesitant about the issue icon for that reason. Also, since that icon is primarily used for "related issues," I wonder if it would be surprising to see it here, in a different context?

However, all of our other system note icons tell me that we use icons based on what was edited, not how it was edited

This is an excellent point. Thank you for framing it that way! Your comment makes me think we need a more systematic approach to assigning icons in these scenarios. I don't think we've ever outlined it officially?

Since there are a couple concerns with using the issue icon I'm thinking I should use what was most people's first reaction here, pencil square. I don't think that's technically inaccurate since, the way we're implementing it, the issue description is both the what and the how in terms of the editing process. But, I think we should probably create a specific issue type icon so that we can be more specific about the what being editing, in future. Iteration 2!

Again, thank you all for weighing in and adding these excellent points. I appreciate all of you!

This is an excellent point. Thank you for framing it that way! Your comment makes me think we need a more systematic approach to assigning icons in these scenarios. I don't think we've ever outlined it officially?

@ameliabauerly Correct. I just created an issue to add this documentation to Pajamas.

gitlab-org/gitlab-services/design.gitlab.com#793 (closed)

Awesome, thanks for creating that, @jareko! I also created gitlab-org/gitlab-services/design.gitlab.com#794 (moved) for defining a new "issue type" icon so we can properly follow what I assume will be the new guidelines in this scenario. I added it as a linked issue to the one you created

As an update on this thread - now that gitlab-svgs#170 (closed) is closed, we have a new icon for changing the issue type The issue description has been updated accordingly :)

Is anyone assigned to this currently?

No, not as far as I know. Are you looking to pick some additional items up, @oregand? It's scheduled for 14.1 so I'm guessing we should double check all the 14.0 things are done before starting this I also guessing #331831 (closed) might be more important in terms of experience than this one. WDYT?