Re: [wtp-dev] Improving discoverability of facets in WTP wizards

[Jaspreet Singh <jaspsing@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

"
list of configurations grows faster than the number of facets"
I would put this down to abuse of configurations
than anything else. Personally to me, it is much better anyday to select
a single item in configurations than having to go and select individual
facets. I just hope we address the right problem.
We might as well just rename the existing
"Modify" button to either "Modify Technologies..."
or just "Technologies...".

"Konstantin Komissarchik" <konstantin.komissarchik@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent by: wtp-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

12/24/2009 02:53 AM

Please respond to
"General discussion of project-wide or architectural issues."        <wtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>

To	<wtp-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
cc
Subject	[wtp-dev] Improving discoverability of facets in WTP wizards

I’d like to solicit feedback about some
proposed changes. The changes are tracked by the following bug, but I am
also repeating them in this e-mail for convenience.
 
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=298483
 
Facet selection page used to be the second
page in all WTP project creation wizards. A few releases ago it was removed
out of the wizard flow and placed into a separate dialog accessible via
the "Edit" button next to the "Configurations" combo
box on the first page of the wizard.
 
Since then, we have started hearing numerous
feedback from novice users that indicates that we have hidden facets too
much. The most recent feedback was a usability study conducted by a team
at Oracle where users who have never used WTP were tasked with writing
a basic application. One of the shocking discoveries is that they couldn't
figure out how to enable JPA. These weren't novice programmers either (the
team was composed of devs from our WebLogic Server group), but they were
new to our tooling.
 
Time is right to take another look at this
problem. I've had a discussion with a UI designer at Oracle about this
and together we have came up with a mockup (attached) that proposes the
following changes that should in principle make facets more discoverable
without doing anything too drastic:
 
1. Create a "Technologies" group
that merges the module spec version frame and the facet configurations
frame.
 
2. Eliminate the facet configurations drop-down.
Configurations (aka presets) is one of those ideas that I largely consider
a failure. They sound good in principle, but do not actually improve usability
as the list of configurations grows faster than the number of facets due
to the cross-product effect. Once the list is long, picking through it
is next to impossible, especially for novice users who this feature is
trying to help in the first place. This change doesn't propose that configurations
are eliminated completely (although that's something that we should seriously
consider in the future). They would still be available in the facet selection
panel.
 
3. Convert the edit button into a more
obvious "Choose other technologies to use in the project..."
hyperlink.
 
- Konstantin_______________________________________________
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