Configuring SSH in GitLab

Background:

Configuring SSH is a notoriously hard thing to do, for something as fundamental as the ability to quickly push to a repository / GitLab. We see that this is hard reflected in searches in our documentation, where ssh is the most searched term every single week for the past year or so.

Given this is something we ask our users to do, once they've signed in for the first time, and it's crucial to using GitLab (that, or using HTTPS), it's important that this is actually easy. The high amount of searches for this implies that it isn't easy enough.

What questions are you trying to answer?

• how and why are users struggling to add their ssh key?
• how can we make this easier?

Are you looking to verify an existing hypothesis or uncover new issues you should be exploring?

This is exploratory

What is the backstory of this project and how does it impact the approach?

See background.

What do you already know about the areas you are exploring?

The user-side of setting up SSH is hard. You need to walk through several steps that you are unlikely to repeat many times. We have documentation on how to do this, but it might be worth making that more obvious and/or bringing these steps fully to the application.

What does success look like at the end of the project?

We identify a number of (small) improvements that will make it easier for people to add their SSH key to GitLab.

Results

Highlight reel

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1rf5N55mwukawrgBFhM8OMjgBNVd5IHb2

Report

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14PG6O8eqOyyHZtUQ3DRwXNu5s0yzamwv/