[Libreoffice] EasyHack: Improved bug filing form / flow

[Ivan M.]

Hi all,

Well, I didn't get enough time to make a mockup, but I do have a
number of suggestions, as I hinted yesterday, so I'll run through them
here.

I would envision taking the existing steps (with a few tweaks here and
there) and turning them into a step-by-step wizard-like experience
with each step sliding in and out from right to left as it is
completed. So, for 'LibreOffice crashes', there would be a separate
screen for 'when does LibreOffice crash,' 'Operating System,' etc -
maybe with a progress bar to show the user's progress through the
process. I think this kind of simplicity and feedback would be a
user-friendly way of making this 'technical' process accessible (this
would also mean providing help and hints - e.g. how to take a
screenshot). I do have one question though: would the submitted form
actually submit a bug report in Bugzilla, or would it get sent to
someone for moderation/confirmation?

The first step would be to search for similar bugs. IIRC this is (or
was) a mandatory step when submitting a Ubuntu bug on Launchpad, and
it might help us to do the same. I realize that this is a careful
balancing act - making it easy and simple for the end user in order to
increase participation, but also not flooding the QA team with poor
quality time wasting reports. So, step 1 for me would be that -
perhaps in an iframe so that we can offer a link the user can click if
they can't find their bug (so that they can proceed)

A good number of these steps involve users submitting data, and I
think there should be more disclaimers around that (e.g. please be
sure to remove any private or personally identifiable information). We
should also inform the person about what's going to happen to their
material - will it be available online for others to examine? If so,
there may be potential copyright issues.

Concerning 'LibreOffice is hard to use', it may be difficult to
differentiate between a bug report and a feature request - is it a
feature or a bug? We could simply forward these reports (since they
could contain very valuable data) to people who are involved with UX
(i.e., Christoph's mailbox :P) where that decision can be made more
easily. Potential differentiators could include 'LibreOffice doesn't
do what I expect,' 'I find it difficult to use a particular feature,'
and one or two others.

With website feedback, the range of possible problems could involve
display issues, broken links, trouble downloading, typos (if we want
to be pedantic - maybe 'wording' might be a better term since it could
cover cultural/language issues, or instances where something is not
clear) and perhaps (if applicable) user account issues with LibO
websites (for now I can only think of the wiki - sure, we have
Silverstripe logins, but only for people who have a reasonable idea of
what they're doing).

I hope this 'brain dump' helps a little - I think this is something
that will steer LibO and its user in the right direction (especially
if we include a link to this from within LibO).

Regards,
Ivan.

On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 9:52 PM, Ivan M. <ivanm at patentpending.co.nz> wrote:
> Hi Christoph, Samuel all,
>
> Hey, this is pretty cool! :)
>
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Christoph Noack <christoph at dogmatux.com> wrote:
>> I CCed Ivan who might add his thoughts here ... and there. I know that
>> he's pretty busy at the moment (changes in his private life), but maybe
>> he'll be able to spend some minutes.
>
> Ah. the private lives of LibO community contributors :) Although I now
> need to improve my free-time management, things like this definitely
> get my attention (eventually - sorry for the late response).
>
>>> Actually, any graphical mock-ups of how it should look would be useful,
>>> if anyone fancies giving it a go. :) It's fairly ugly right now.
>>
>> Hoping for Ivan ;-) If he lacks the time, then we'll CC design / website
>> list. Personally, I fear that I'll be unable to help here, since my
>> private life changes as well - spending time for LibO gets more
>> difficult :-)
>
> I'd like to enhance the design by making it even more simple with
> one-step-at-a-time logic. I'll try to provide a low-fi mockup tomorrow
> as right now I'm reading through the backlog of LibO emails (a
> constant battle). jQuery could help here with some nice transitions
> that make the process (dare I say it) enjoyable. I'll think about it
> some more in the meantime, but will definitely try to have something
> done tomorrow.
>
> Regards,
> Ivan.
>