Solution Validation: MVC-2 of "Add panel to Metrics"
What’s this issue all about?
In gitlab#220180 (closed) we worked on the new "Add panel" experience in Metrics.
We've defined and validated the MVC proposal in #960 (closed). As an MVC, you can preview your panel YAML and copy it.
The next step is to make it possible to add the panel directly to a dashboard without having to go to the repo and manually pasting the panel YAML.
This issue will focus on solution validation for gitlab#228661 (closed)
Who is the target user of the feature?
What questions are you trying to answer?
We want to test whether:
- Users can navigate the UI to define and preview a chart
- Users understand the commit flow for adding a panel
What hypotheses and/or assumptions do you have?
- Users are familiar with a commit flow and will understand how to use it to make changes to dashboards.
What's the latest milestone that the research will still be useful to you?
13.4
🔍 Results
Participants sample
- DevOps Engineers and SREs
- 7 testers total, 3 internal (GitLab SREs), 4 external
🤔
- Some participants had trouble finding the "Add panel" action. Two participants clicked on the "Settings" button instead.
- It was unclear to users that the panel will be added to the current dashboard.
- The commit flow was cumbersome for some users.
👍
- 6 out of 7 participants chose to add the panel on a new branch, which is the default we chose. One participant chose to save on master branch.
Most interesting quotes
"The Add Panel button might be a bit move discoverable"
"I first thought I also need to select a dashboard file somewhere to which the panel changes should be applied to. On a second read I understood that it is for applying to the current dashboard only."
"yes, when i clicked the cog in the top i was not able to get back to the main page without clicking back."
"The whole interface is quite confusing. It is not obvious that the panel add menu was at the place where it is. Also, why do I have to commit the change every time I want to add a panel? "
"Add a separate '+' panel button"
"Perhaps the second dialog with additional settings could be incorporated to the initial 'Add Panel' workflow"
"A link to a pipeline would be nice after committing the change for the panel - this way there is some way to see the progress."
And my favorite quote
"Check out how Grafana does charts. "
🚀 Outcomes
- How can we make the Metrics actions menu as a whole more discoverable? Seems like the "..." icon isn't the best at communicating what's in the dropdown. Consider using something more explicit. Something like "Dashboard actions" dropdown, or "More actions".
- Consider making "Add panel" action more discoverable. However, does it need to be the most prominent action in the dashboard controls? We should make this decision based on whether the "Add panel" action is the most commonly used action in Metrics.
- We should consider moving "Settings" button into the main menu instead of having a separate button for it. We've already gotten this feedback from another solution validation effort before that the "..." button next to the "settings" cog is confusing as you don't know what to expect from either of them. We should make the decision to move the settings button based on how often users will be using settings. Makes no sense to separately surface Settings if they're only used occasionally.
- Explore ways to make it more obvious that users are adding the panel to the current dashboard. Also, consider allowing users to select a dashboard they want to add the panel to.
- Consider integrating the commit flow within the "Add panel" screen like we do in the Web IDE.
- Consider adding a link to the pipeline in the confirmation alerts once the changes have been committed.
Follow-up issues: