2023 Q2 - KR3: Establish a Blog posting process for Community Contributions for Actionable Insights (AI)

Background

As part of a UX Key Review the following question was asked by Sid: Is research leading to implementation or is implementation the bottleneck?

Tracking AI scoped labels shows that AIs are more often opened than they are closed. UX Research will only be most valuable if insights are acted upon and result in implementation. Hence the idea was brought up to engage the wider GitLab community and encourage community contributions to close Actionable Insights.

As a side-note, part of the FY23 Q1 OKRs, research was conducted to understand better why it takes so long to address AIs. More exploration will be done as a FY23 Q2 KR for AIs.

The Problem

We're in the process of learning that there are a variety of reasons why AIs aren't addressed in a timely manner. This results in a backlog of AIs that teams aren't able to address or keep on top of. As a result, the research being conducted isn't as impactful as it could be because findings aren't being implemented at a reasonable rate.

The Solution

The current thinking is that by opening up the AIs for community contributions, they will be addressed faster, ultimately leading to a better UX through improved usability.

This KR aims to establish and pilot a process to allow the following:

  • Publish monthly/bi-monthly/quarterly (cadence TBD) blog posts calling for community contributions to implement solutions that address user problems we identified in UX research.

Each blog post describes:

  • Research topic (What we did)
  • Insights (What we learned)
  • Solutions (What we want to change, and why)
  • Link to Actionable Insight Issues for community contributors to pick up

Scope

This KR will result in an effective process that any stage group can utilize. However, we would like to pilot it first. The pilot's scope will be focused on the learnings from the Create Benchmarking research.

The process for creating the blog post

Refer to this slide deck for higher resolution images. (Anne to fix this next week).

The process consists of two distinct parts:

  1. The first part is focused on turning the Actionable Insights into a solution that the community can then help with implementing. This process is driven by UX Design in collaboration with PM and EM and completed once the "Ready for Blog" label is applied.

Screenshot_2022-05-25_at_18.18.34

  1. The second part is focused on creating and publishing the blog post, which is driven by UX Research in collaboration with the Code Contribution PM and the Editorial team. Screenshot_2022-05-25_at_18.19.53

Requirements

  • Understand how code contributions by the community are made today
  • Learn about any pain points, so we don't magnify those
  • Create a process that merges existing process with our own UX processes
  • Pilot before launching broadly
  • Obtain feedback from the pilot
  • Goal is to have 5 actionable insight issues addressed from the Create blog post

Steps

  • 2022-05-10 @alasch Understand the existing workflows and processes associated with Code Contributions and Community Contributors
  • 2022-05-20 @alasch Propose a new process that allows UX research insights to be distributed via a blog post
  • 2022-05-25 @alasch Determine who the logical DRI would be for each step of the process
  • 2022-06-01 @asmolinski2 Obtain sign-off from @clenneville @vkarnes
  • 2022-06-02 @alasch Hand process to Create UXR to pilot with Create's usability benchmark findings
  • 2022-07-10 @alasch Obtain feedback from the pilot
  • 2022-07-20 @alasch Implement any changes to the process
  • 2022-07-27 @alasch Create a handbook page detailing out the process for others to replicate
  • 2022-07-29 @alasch Communicate out the new process

Measured steps for the KR

This KR is measured on 5 things: completion of 5 actionable insights be the community. Check each when completed:

Edited by Anne Lasch