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Difference between revisions of "UX/ProgramProposal"

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−
=== Program name ===
 
−
* '''Official Title:''' OpenStack User Experience
 
−
* '''Program Codename:''' UX
 
  
 +
==Detailed Mission Statement==
 +
The mission of the UX Program is to support and facilitate cross-project efforts to improve the overall user experience of OpenStack. 
 +
<Br>
 +
We provide user research to help teams identify any issues preventing adoption of their services as well as help the projects validate design and development efforts to address those issues. In addition, we help the project teams create solutions to address customer needs and pain points.  Finally, we will provide the OpenStack community with visibility into any user experience issues related to inconsistency across projects. 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
The UX team is not prescriptive; our goal is to collaborate with OpenStack’s projects to create better experiences.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
The name of the project will be OpenStack UX.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
  
−
=== Mission statement ===
+
==Definition of User Experience==
−
* '''Enable OpenStack users to be efficient and make their experience consistent and pleasurable.'''
+
For the purposes of this proposal, user experience is an umbrella term that includes the following disciplines:
 +
<Br>
 +
* User Experience Design
 +
* Information Architecture
 +
* Visual Design, and
 +
* User Research/Usability
 +
<Br>
 +
The focus of user experience spans the entire development cycle from needs finding to implementation.  For example, user research can be used to identify specific customer needs before development work.
  
 +
Finally, it is also interface agnostic and is able to contribute to development efforts on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), command line interfaces (CLI) and application programming interfaces (APIs). 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
==Project Contribution==
 +
Member contribution to the UX Project would be measured on three metrics:
  
−
=== Summary ===
+
* No. of mock submissions to Invision
−
* Our goal is to research OpenStack end users, define the use cases that they perform, design a consistent and intuitive application for them, test our designs with end users and then finally working closely with developers to make our vision a reality.
+
Members are able to create projects within Invision and add images of their proposed designs.
  
 +
* No. of  reviews/comments in Invision
 +
This is a measure of the number of reviews/comments that occur in Invision for a specific project.
 +
 +
* No. of UX studies conducted on behalf of the community
 +
This is a measure of the number of studies that are conducted on behalf of the different projects and include both quantitative and qualitative studies. 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
  
−
=== Detailed description ===
+
==Expected deliverables and repositories==
−
* Users utilize OpenStack because it helps to satisfy their needs. In addition to the reliable and stable services OpenStack provides, users require an efficient and consistent means to complete their use case. Efficiency and constistency are where UX plays a big role. By enhancing usability of our services, we don't just help users to be more effective but we increase their overall satisfaction with OpenStack.
+
===Patterns Library===
−
* User experience is a very broad field which impacts each area where users interact with OpenStack.
+
A patterns library is intended to standardize layout and interaction patterns for components within Horizon to drive consistency across the entire portal.
−
* Aspects of all OpenStack projects are included in UX focus where there is user interaction e.g., UI, API, CLI. Their unification and improvements are crucial for user's efficiency.
 
−
* By becoming a program we have better potential to attract more future contributors from various fields of all OpenStack projects.
 
  
 +
In reality, the library is a actually a visual specification that includes both components and patterns. However, design pattern is used consistently within the industry so we’ve adopted it to avoid any confusion.
  
−
==== Current work ====
+
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/PatternsLibrary
−
* Tracking, supporting and reviewing bugs and blueprints for Horizon / Openstack Dashboard
+
<Br>
−
* Filing new bugs and blueprints for Horizon / Openstack Dashboard
+
<Br>
−
* Defining and designing the User Experience in TripleO / Tuskar project
+
===Invision (repository)===
−
* Helping to discover useful metrics and alarms in Ceilometer
+
Invision is a platform that allows teams to post and review designs on their website and is currently being used as our design repository.  The value is that comments can be placed directly on a specific area of the image, so the context of the comment is immediately obvious. Invision provides the community with a free enterprise license provided that it was only used for community activities.
 +
<Br>
 +
We have 12 administers and 104 managers in Invision that can add users and create projects from companies including IBM, Mirantis,  HP, and Redhat.  We were very careful to make sure that no single person or company had complete control of the system. 
 +
<Br>
 +
As of June 26th, the following activity had occurred over the previous thirty days:
 +
<Br>
 +
* Six projects were added to Invision
 +
* Fifty-seven screens were added to projects
 +
* Two hundred and twelve stakeholder visits
 +
* One hundred and sixty-seven comments
 +
<Br>
 +
Invision is being provided to OpenStack at no charge as long as the projects are shared within the open source community.  Invision’s concern was that folks might use our platform for internal proprietary projects, which is not allowed. 
 +
<Br>
 +
It is important to disclose that Invision is not an open source tool.  The challenge is that there are currently no open source tools for design review that include the same feature set. 
  
 +
However, we are constantly looking for open source alternatives including phabricator (phabricator.org) which is being discussed for adoption by the community as a code review tool.  Phabricator also includes a design review that enables users to leave comments on an image uploaded to the system.  An added benefit is that both code and UX review would be integrated into the same tool.
  
−
==== Areas where UX can continue to help ====
+
It is also important to note that projects can be downloaded from Invision as PDF files that include both images and any comments from users.  If the community moves away from Invision, the plan would be to make the PDFs available on the OpenStack UX wiki.
−
* User Interface:
 
−
** Information architecture improvements
 
−
** Unification and enhancements of current views
 
−
** Guidelines to improve consistency between views
 
−
** Design of new features
 
−
** Refreshing visual identity
 
−
** Prototyping User Interfaces
 
−
** Usability testing of designs
 
−
* Application Program Interface:
 
−
** Standardization of capabilities and extensions querying
 
−
** Unify API commands
 
−
*** list instances in nova cli: nova list
 
−
*** list images in glance cli: glance index
 
−
*** list stacks in heat: heat stack-list
 
−
* Command Line Interface:
 
−
** Make CLI commands more user friendly
 
−
* Installation Experience
 
−
* Researching users and building personas
 
−
* Use case architecting
 
  
 +
https://openstack.invisionapp.com
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
  
−
==== Expected deliverables ====
+
===User Research===
−
* Evaluation of current state from a UX point of view - filing bugs and blueprints (UX launchpad)
+
User Research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.
−
* Create proposals for enhancements based on the evalution of the current state
 
−
* Definition and proposal of new features
 
−
* Supporting designs for new features
 
−
* Proposals and documentation of standards, best practices and recommendations
 
−
* Testing with users and interviewing them
 
−
* Contribute to forming and defining vision of future direction of OpenStack based on user feedback
 
−
* Make sure that outputs and results are reflected in particular project's launchpad (blueprints, bugs)
 
−
* If needed, support interaction designs with prototypes
 
  
 +
A short list of specific methodologies that can be associated with user research includes ethnography, usability studies, card sorts, structured interviews, task analysis and focus groups.
  
−
=== Basic roadmap for the project ===
+
It is important that user research is not exclusively associated with graphical user interfaces.  For example, the team is currently planning a study to help the Neutron project understand why  operators are not transitioning from Nova-networks to the Neutron service.  We’re also planning to run a study on the OpenStackClient (aka OSC) command-line client.
  
−
==== Next steps ====
+
In those cases, the research proceeds designs efforts and are intended to help the projects frame and prioritize issues. 
−
* Get AskBot running and set it up
 
−
* Create separate launchpad project page
 
−
* Create git repository and connect it with gerrit
 
−
* Schedule regular IRC meetings
 
−
* Decide on and propose contributors evaluation criteria
 
−
* Continue delivering design proposals and solutions
 
  
 +
Here is a list of completed and planned studies:
 +
<Br>
 +
# Launch Instance Usability Study (generative, Feb 2014)
 +
# Launch Instance Usability Study (concept validation, Dec 2014)
 +
# Horizon Concept Study (University of Washington, Mar 2015)
 +
# Card Sort (open/unmoderated, Feb 2014)
 +
# Card Sort (closed/moderated, April 2015)
 +
# Launch Instance Validation Study (planned for July 2015)
 +
# Neutron/Nova Network Interviews and Survey (planned for August 2015)
 +
# OpenStackClient Usability Study (planned for late 2015)
 +
<Br>
 +
The UX team has a wiki that includes all studies conducted on behalf of the community along with the results presentations, which can be downloaded as PDFs.
  
−
==== Short term goals ====
+
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HorizonUsability_Testing
−
* Get all needed tools ready
+
<Br>
−
* Form official processes
+
<Br>
−
* Spread word across OpenStack projects
 
−
* Support growth of our community
 
−
* Support Horizon / OpenStack Dashboard project
 
−
* Support Tuskar-UI project
 
  
 +
===Project Contribution===
 +
Member contribution to the UX Project would be measured on three metrics:
  
−
==== Long term goals ====
+
* No. of mock submissions to Invision
−
* Get involved with each OpenStack project
+
Members are able to create projects within Invision and add images of their proposed designs.
−
* Get feedback from outside the OpenStack community (close in touch with real users)
 
−
* Assure unified experience across various projects in OpenStack
 
  
 +
* No. of  reviews/comments in Invision
 +
This is a measure of the number of reviews/comments that occur in Invision for a specific project.
 +
 +
* No. of UX studies conducted on behalf of the community
 +
 +
This is a measure of the number of studies that are conducted on behalf of the different projects and include both quantitative and qualitative studies. 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
==Project Communication==
 +
===UX Meeting===
 +
UX meetings were scheduled to occur every other week on IRC but eventually slowed-down because most of the design efforts were specifically focused on improving Horizon. That will eventually change as the UX team engages additional projects.  In addition, IRC is a bit difficult to use within a discipline that is largely aesthetic.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
  
−
=== Location of project source code ===
+
===IRC channel===
−
* [https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/100954512393463248122 Community Sites] - Proposals and Discussions
+
An additional way to get quick feedback or have a discussion with the UX group is to join the IRC channel on freenode (#openstack-ux).  
−
* Plans to setup git repository and run special discussion tool
+
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
===Design Review===
 +
There is a design review that occurs every other week were community members are invited to share their design work with the community.  These meetings occur via virtual room rather than IRC because the reviews require the participants to “see” the designs in order to provide feedback.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
===User Panel===
 +
The user panel was formed about two months ago in order to provide feedback to the community from actual users.  In some ways, the user panel is intended to provide an alternative “voice” to the development community. 
  
 +
The panel is struggling somewhat because we haven’t agreed on a format for the meetings.  For example, one suggestion was to have a panel members talk about their specific challenges during a session. 
  
−
=== Programming language, required technology dependencies ===
+
Panel members include users from NSA, Cisco, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Orange, Yahoo and Time Warner Cable.  
−
* None - mostly document proposals.
+
<Br>
−
* (HTML, CSS, JS) - prototypes.
+
<Br>
  
 +
==Main Team Members==
 +
====Pieter C. Kruithof Jr, MS CPE ====
 +
Until we have elections, Pieter Kruithof will be the PTL for OpenStack UX.
  
−
=== Is project currently open sourced? What license? ===
+
Piet is an accomplished User Experience (UX) Designer and User Researcher with over fourteen years of focused contributions to both software and hardware development.  He is currently a Sr UX Architect with the HP Helion Cloud business unit. His specific focus is engaging with the OpenStack community and helping to drive improvement of the overall user experience. This includes tactical activities such as proposing new designs in addition to more strategic efforts such as providing platforms that help enable collaboration within the community.
−
* All contributions to OpenStack User Experience are considered to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported ([http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US CC BY 3.0]).
 
  
 +
Piet was also a former Director with the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics (BCPE). The board was established in 1990 as an independent nonprofit organization and is the certifying body for individuals whose education and experience indicate broad expertise in the practice of human factors, ergonomics and user experience research.
  
−
=== Level of maturity of project and team ===
+
His education includes a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University and master's degree in Human Factors Engineering from Virginia Tech.
−
* The current G+ UX community has currently over 120 members and is still rising. Initial UX work started at the Havana Summit (April 2013) and matured over time. The whole effort is being driven by contributors from Red Hat, HP, Rackspace and NTT I3 companies, who are actively responding to other contributors questions, proposing new features and designing solutions. Being close to other OpenStack projects is crucial for UX and we are trying to get members from various fields. The closest projects where our team members are active are Horizon, TripleO or Ceilometer.
+
<Br>
 +
<Br>
  
 +
====Jeff Calcaterra, Ph.D.====
 +
Jeff has ten years of experience at IBM as a User Interface Designer and Usability Practitioner on a wide range of platforms including ThinkPad mobile computers, marketing and support websites and Eclipse plug-ins.
  
−
=== Proposed initial program lead (PTL) ===
+
For the last five years, Jeff have driven user experience improvements into Systems Management software, including patch installation, problem determination and automation. I have a history of innovation including 8 patents pending and several publications.
−
* '''Jaromir Coufal'''
+
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Rob Cresswell====
 +
Rob Cresswell is a software engineer at Cisco Systems. He previously worked on an internal project as a full stack engineer, managing all aspects of system design and UI. He is now a core reviewer for Horizon.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Richard Jones====
 +
Richard is a software developer with over a decade's broad experience working with multiple languages and tools in data archive, metadata systems, computer graphics, business systems, e-commerce and communications. Before joining Rackspace he developed telecommunications and web services for ekit, OpenGL interfaces for Blue Box Devices, and web-based interfaces and support systems for Common Ground and Bizar Software.
  
 +
Richard is active in several Open Source projects and communities.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Ju Lim====
 +
Ju Lim is a Consulting Engineer at Red Hat.  She has over 12 years experience focusing on User Experience on a wide range of platforms including storage, compute, networking, cloud, and SANs.
  
−
=== Core team ===
+
In recent years, Ju has been driving user experience improvements in several Open Source projects.  She has 4 patents awarded to-date.
−
* '''Liz Blanchard''' (Red Hat) <blockquote>Liz is a Senior User Experience Designer at Red Hat working on all things User Experience. She focuses on the Usability side of things at times in creating personas and going on site visits to perform usability tests and contextual inquiries. She also spends a lot of time on the Interaction Design side of things working in an agile process to create use cases, context scenarios, wireframes, higher fidelity mockups, and prototypes.</blockquote>
+
<Br>
−
* '''Jaromir Coufal''' (Red Hat) <blockquote>Jaromir Coufal is a Senior Interaction Designer (Software Engineer) at Red Hat. His expertize is in between of design and development world. He is focusing on user experience, UI design, web front-end development and adaptive user interfaces (monitor, tablet, mobile, etc.).</blockquote>
+
<Br>
−
* '''Toshiyuki Hayashi''' (NTT I3) <blockquote>Toshiyuki Hayashi is a Senior UX Designer at NTTi3.  He has been engaged in developing, designing and researching UX for consumer web services for over 15 years. Also he has great knowledge of Web front-end technologies.</blockquote>
 
−
* '''David Lyle''' (HP) <blockquote>David Lyle is a Senior Software Engineer at HP.  He has over 15 years experience focusing on User Experience and implementing User Interfaces for enterprise, personal systems and mobile.  He is a member of Horizon Core.</blockquote>
 
  
 +
====David Lyle====
 +
David Lyle is a Senior Software Engineer at Intel. He has over 15 years experience focusing on User Experience and implementing User Interfaces for enterprise, personal systems and mobile. He is a currently the PTL for Horizon.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Melissa Meingast====
 +
Melissa is a Master Technologist & UX/HF Research Program Manager at Hewlett Packard.
  
−
=== How 'contribution' is measured within the program ===
+
She is currently the manager of the human factors and usability research program for the Industry Standard Server (ISS) division, as part of the HP Enterprise Design Group. Her primary responsibility is to interface with a variety of engineering and product teams to understand and evaluate their strategic and tactical user research needs, to design and lead research programs to meet these needs based on current scientific research as well as domain expertise, and to serve as a usability advocate throughout ISS. Awarded the title of HP Master Technologist in 2012 for her achievements in this role.  
−
* Activity in UX repository (number of delivered solutions)
 
−
* Activity in UX AskBot tool
 
−
* Activity in UX Launchpad
 
−
* Activity in Mailing Lists
 
−
... more detailed metrics of contributors recognition will be discussed and officially announced later in time.
 
  
 +
Additional responsibilities include the management of usability consultants to execute user research programs, budget management and forecasting, and the design and implementation of usability testing for servers, storage systems, enterprise applications and software, and portions of the hp.com web site, as well as the production of both strategic and tactical design recommendations and development guidance based on research results. Research methodologies employed include laboratory based user testing, heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, customer interviews, needs analysis, and ethnography.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Timur Sufiev====
 +
Timur is a software engineer with Mirantis and contributes to the Merlin, Mistral and Murano projects. 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Alex Sulgrove====
 +
Alex is a User Experience Architect with the HP Helion Cloud business unit. Alex brings 5 years of operational and consulting experience in UX research and strategy, Usability testing and analysis, Interaction Design, and Information Architecture. Alex has also authored several journal and technical papers on HCI and Interaction Design.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Thai Tran====
 +
Thai Tran is a software engineer at IBM. He has worked on internal prototypes that made it into several IBM products, everything from designing to implementing. Now he is actively involved in the OpenStack Horizon community as a core reviewer.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Travis Tripp====
 +
Travis is a Horizon core reviewer and an architect for HP Helion where he is currently focusing on improving the OpenStack user experience. He's led multiple cloud software products intermingling between lead product architect and lead developer roles. He's presented cloud concepts to Gartner, Forrester, and IDC and has contributed to several OASIS specifications.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
  
−
=== Infrastructure requirements (sources) ===
+
==Relevant Links==
−
* Git repository connected with Gerrit - for storing documents and related materials
+
====UX wiki====
−
* Launchpad - for planning and tracking a progress
+
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX#Horizon_Proposals
−
* AskBot - for broad discussions
 
−
* Mailing List - for official announcements
 
−
* IRC channels - immediate discussions
 
−
* (? official calendar of planned events)
 
−
* (? stored audio/video sessions)
 
  
 +
====User Research wiki====
 +
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HorizonUsability_Testing
  
−
=== Have all current contributors agreed to the OpenStack CLA? ===
+
====OpenStack UX patterns====
−
* Yes, all contributors are currently members of other OpenStack projects.
+
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/PatternsLibrary
  
 +
====OpenStack Invision Community====
 +
https://openstack.invisionapp.com
  
−
=== Trademarks ===
+
<Br>
−
* None
+
<Br>
 +
 
 +
==Abstract==
 +
The full project proposal can be found at https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/ProgramProposal.
 +
 
 +
The mission of the UX Program is to help the teams improve the overall user experience of their projects.  We provide user research to help teams identify any issues preventing adoption of their services as well as help them validate any efforts to address those issues.  In addition, we help the teams ideate and implement solutions to address any existing issues or opportunities.  Note that the UX team is not prescriptive; our goal is to collaborate with the other projects to create better experiences. The name of the project will be OpenStack UX.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
===Contribution===
 +
Member contribution to the UX Project would be measured on three metrics:
 +
<Br>
 +
* No. of mock submissions to Invision: 
 +
Members are able to create projects within Invision and add images of their proposed designs.
 +
* No. of  reviews/comments in Invision: 
 +
This is a measure of the number of reviews/comments that occur in Invision for a specific project.
 +
* No. of UX studies conducted on behalf of the community 
 +
This is a measure of the number of studies that are conducted on behalf of the different projects and include both quantitative and qualitative studies. 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
===Project Communication===
 +
====UX Meeting====
 +
UX meetings were scheduled to occur every other week on IRC but eventually slowed-down because most of the design efforts were specifically focused on improving Horizon. That will eventually change as the UX team engages additional projects.  In addition, IRC is a bit difficult to use within a discipline that is largely aesthetic.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
 
 +
====IRC channel====
 +
An additional way to get quick feedback or have a discussion with the UX group is to join the IRC channel on freenode (#openstack-ux).
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====Design Review====
 +
There is a design review that occurs every other week were community members are invited to share their design work with the community.  These meetings occur via virtual room rather than IRC because the reviews require the participants to “see” the designs in order to provide feedback.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
====User Panel====
 +
The user panel was formed about two months ago in order to provide feedback to the community from actual users.  In some ways, the user panel is intended to provide an alternative “voice” to the development community. 
 +
 
 +
The panel is struggling somewhat because we haven’t agreed on a format for the meetings.  For example, one suggestion was to have a panel members talk about their specific challenges during a session. 
 +
 
 +
Panel members include users from NSA, Cisco, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Orange, Yahoo and Time Warner Cable.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
===Interim PTL===
 +
Until we have elections, Pieter Kruithof will be the PTL for OpenStack UX.
 +
 
 +
Piet is currently a Sr UX Architect with HP Helion Cloud and specifically focuses on improving the user experience of OpenStack.  This includes tactical activities such as proposing new designs in addition to more strategic efforts such as providing platforms that help enable collaboration within the community.
 +
 
 +
Piet was also a former Director with the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics (BCPE). The board was established in 1990 as an independent nonprofit organization and is the certifying body for individuals whose education and experience indicate broad expertise in the practice of human factors, ergonomics and user experience research.
 +
 
 +
Team members include engineers from IBM, Cisco, RackSpace, HP and Mirantis.
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>
 +
 
 +
===Links===
 +
====UX wiki====
 +
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX#Horizon_Proposals
 +
 
 +
====User Research wiki====
 +
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HorizonUsability_Testing
 +
 
 +
====OpenStack UX patterns====
 +
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/PatternsLibrary
 +
 
 +
====OpenStack Invision Community====
 +
https://openstack.invisionapp.com
 +
 
 +
<Br>
 +
<Br>

Latest revision as of 21:28, 14 July 2015

Detailed Mission Statement

The mission of the UX Program is to support and facilitate cross-project efforts to improve the overall user experience of OpenStack.
We provide user research to help teams identify any issues preventing adoption of their services as well as help the projects validate design and development efforts to address those issues. In addition, we help the project teams create solutions to address customer needs and pain points. Finally, we will provide the OpenStack community with visibility into any user experience issues related to inconsistency across projects.

The UX team is not prescriptive; our goal is to collaborate with OpenStack’s projects to create better experiences.

The name of the project will be OpenStack UX.

Definition of User Experience

For the purposes of this proposal, user experience is an umbrella term that includes the following disciplines:

  • User Experience Design
  • Information Architecture
  • Visual Design, and
  • User Research/Usability


The focus of user experience spans the entire development cycle from needs finding to implementation. For example, user research can be used to identify specific customer needs before development work.

Finally, it is also interface agnostic and is able to contribute to development efforts on graphical user interfaces (GUIs), command line interfaces (CLI) and application programming interfaces (APIs).

Project Contribution

Member contribution to the UX Project would be measured on three metrics:

  • No. of mock submissions to Invision

Members are able to create projects within Invision and add images of their proposed designs.

  • No. of reviews/comments in Invision

This is a measure of the number of reviews/comments that occur in Invision for a specific project.

  • No. of UX studies conducted on behalf of the community

This is a measure of the number of studies that are conducted on behalf of the different projects and include both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Expected deliverables and repositories

Patterns Library

A patterns library is intended to standardize layout and interaction patterns for components within Horizon to drive consistency across the entire portal.

In reality, the library is a actually a visual specification that includes both components and patterns. However, design pattern is used consistently within the industry so we’ve adopted it to avoid any confusion.

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/PatternsLibrary

Invision (repository)

Invision is a platform that allows teams to post and review designs on their website and is currently being used as our design repository. The value is that comments can be placed directly on a specific area of the image, so the context of the comment is immediately obvious. Invision provides the community with a free enterprise license provided that it was only used for community activities.
We have 12 administers and 104 managers in Invision that can add users and create projects from companies including IBM, Mirantis, HP, and Redhat. We were very careful to make sure that no single person or company had complete control of the system.
As of June 26th, the following activity had occurred over the previous thirty days:

  • Six projects were added to Invision
  • Fifty-seven screens were added to projects
  • Two hundred and twelve stakeholder visits
  • One hundred and sixty-seven comments


Invision is being provided to OpenStack at no charge as long as the projects are shared within the open source community. Invision’s concern was that folks might use our platform for internal proprietary projects, which is not allowed.
It is important to disclose that Invision is not an open source tool. The challenge is that there are currently no open source tools for design review that include the same feature set.

However, we are constantly looking for open source alternatives including phabricator (phabricator.org) which is being discussed for adoption by the community as a code review tool. Phabricator also includes a design review that enables users to leave comments on an image uploaded to the system. An added benefit is that both code and UX review would be integrated into the same tool.

It is also important to note that projects can be downloaded from Invision as PDF files that include both images and any comments from users. If the community moves away from Invision, the plan would be to make the PDFs available on the OpenStack UX wiki.

https://openstack.invisionapp.com

User Research

User Research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.

A short list of specific methodologies that can be associated with user research includes ethnography, usability studies, card sorts, structured interviews, task analysis and focus groups.

It is important that user research is not exclusively associated with graphical user interfaces. For example, the team is currently planning a study to help the Neutron project understand why operators are not transitioning from Nova-networks to the Neutron service. We’re also planning to run a study on the OpenStackClient (aka OSC) command-line client.

In those cases, the research proceeds designs efforts and are intended to help the projects frame and prioritize issues.

Here is a list of completed and planned studies:

  1. Launch Instance Usability Study (generative, Feb 2014)
  2. Launch Instance Usability Study (concept validation, Dec 2014)
  3. Horizon Concept Study (University of Washington, Mar 2015)
  4. Card Sort (open/unmoderated, Feb 2014)
  5. Card Sort (closed/moderated, April 2015)
  6. Launch Instance Validation Study (planned for July 2015)
  7. Neutron/Nova Network Interviews and Survey (planned for August 2015)
  8. OpenStackClient Usability Study (planned for late 2015)


The UX team has a wiki that includes all studies conducted on behalf of the community along with the results presentations, which can be downloaded as PDFs.

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HorizonUsability_Testing

Project Contribution

Member contribution to the UX Project would be measured on three metrics:

  • No. of mock submissions to Invision

Members are able to create projects within Invision and add images of their proposed designs.

  • No. of reviews/comments in Invision

This is a measure of the number of reviews/comments that occur in Invision for a specific project.

  • No. of UX studies conducted on behalf of the community

This is a measure of the number of studies that are conducted on behalf of the different projects and include both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Project Communication

UX Meeting

UX meetings were scheduled to occur every other week on IRC but eventually slowed-down because most of the design efforts were specifically focused on improving Horizon. That will eventually change as the UX team engages additional projects. In addition, IRC is a bit difficult to use within a discipline that is largely aesthetic.

IRC channel

An additional way to get quick feedback or have a discussion with the UX group is to join the IRC channel on freenode (#openstack-ux).

Design Review

There is a design review that occurs every other week were community members are invited to share their design work with the community. These meetings occur via virtual room rather than IRC because the reviews require the participants to “see” the designs in order to provide feedback.

User Panel

The user panel was formed about two months ago in order to provide feedback to the community from actual users. In some ways, the user panel is intended to provide an alternative “voice” to the development community.

The panel is struggling somewhat because we haven’t agreed on a format for the meetings. For example, one suggestion was to have a panel members talk about their specific challenges during a session.

Panel members include users from NSA, Cisco, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Orange, Yahoo and Time Warner Cable.

Main Team Members

Pieter C. Kruithof Jr, MS CPE

Until we have elections, Pieter Kruithof will be the PTL for OpenStack UX.

Piet is an accomplished User Experience (UX) Designer and User Researcher with over fourteen years of focused contributions to both software and hardware development. He is currently a Sr UX Architect with the HP Helion Cloud business unit. His specific focus is engaging with the OpenStack community and helping to drive improvement of the overall user experience. This includes tactical activities such as proposing new designs in addition to more strategic efforts such as providing platforms that help enable collaboration within the community.

Piet was also a former Director with the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics (BCPE). The board was established in 1990 as an independent nonprofit organization and is the certifying body for individuals whose education and experience indicate broad expertise in the practice of human factors, ergonomics and user experience research.

His education includes a bachelor's degree in Industrial Design from Western Washington University and master's degree in Human Factors Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Jeff Calcaterra, Ph.D.

Jeff has ten years of experience at IBM as a User Interface Designer and Usability Practitioner on a wide range of platforms including ThinkPad mobile computers, marketing and support websites and Eclipse plug-ins.

For the last five years, Jeff have driven user experience improvements into Systems Management software, including patch installation, problem determination and automation. I have a history of innovation including 8 patents pending and several publications.

Rob Cresswell

Rob Cresswell is a software engineer at Cisco Systems. He previously worked on an internal project as a full stack engineer, managing all aspects of system design and UI. He is now a core reviewer for Horizon.

Richard Jones

Richard is a software developer with over a decade's broad experience working with multiple languages and tools in data archive, metadata systems, computer graphics, business systems, e-commerce and communications. Before joining Rackspace he developed telecommunications and web services for ekit, OpenGL interfaces for Blue Box Devices, and web-based interfaces and support systems for Common Ground and Bizar Software.

Richard is active in several Open Source projects and communities.

Ju Lim

Ju Lim is a Consulting Engineer at Red Hat. She has over 12 years experience focusing on User Experience on a wide range of platforms including storage, compute, networking, cloud, and SANs.

In recent years, Ju has been driving user experience improvements in several Open Source projects. She has 4 patents awarded to-date.

David Lyle

David Lyle is a Senior Software Engineer at Intel. He has over 15 years experience focusing on User Experience and implementing User Interfaces for enterprise, personal systems and mobile. He is a currently the PTL for Horizon.

Melissa Meingast

Melissa is a Master Technologist & UX/HF Research Program Manager at Hewlett Packard.

She is currently the manager of the human factors and usability research program for the Industry Standard Server (ISS) division, as part of the HP Enterprise Design Group. Her primary responsibility is to interface with a variety of engineering and product teams to understand and evaluate their strategic and tactical user research needs, to design and lead research programs to meet these needs based on current scientific research as well as domain expertise, and to serve as a usability advocate throughout ISS. Awarded the title of HP Master Technologist in 2012 for her achievements in this role.

Additional responsibilities include the management of usability consultants to execute user research programs, budget management and forecasting, and the design and implementation of usability testing for servers, storage systems, enterprise applications and software, and portions of the hp.com web site, as well as the production of both strategic and tactical design recommendations and development guidance based on research results. Research methodologies employed include laboratory based user testing, heuristic evaluations, cognitive walkthroughs, customer interviews, needs analysis, and ethnography.

Timur Sufiev

Timur is a software engineer with Mirantis and contributes to the Merlin, Mistral and Murano projects.

Alex Sulgrove

Alex is a User Experience Architect with the HP Helion Cloud business unit. Alex brings 5 years of operational and consulting experience in UX research and strategy, Usability testing and analysis, Interaction Design, and Information Architecture. Alex has also authored several journal and technical papers on HCI and Interaction Design.

Thai Tran

Thai Tran is a software engineer at IBM. He has worked on internal prototypes that made it into several IBM products, everything from designing to implementing. Now he is actively involved in the OpenStack Horizon community as a core reviewer.

Travis Tripp

Travis is a Horizon core reviewer and an architect for HP Helion where he is currently focusing on improving the OpenStack user experience. He's led multiple cloud software products intermingling between lead product architect and lead developer roles. He's presented cloud concepts to Gartner, Forrester, and IDC and has contributed to several OASIS specifications.

Relevant Links

UX wiki

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX#Horizon_Proposals

User Research wiki

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HorizonUsability_Testing

OpenStack UX patterns

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/PatternsLibrary

OpenStack Invision Community

https://openstack.invisionapp.com



Abstract

The full project proposal can be found at https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/ProgramProposal.

The mission of the UX Program is to help the teams improve the overall user experience of their projects. We provide user research to help teams identify any issues preventing adoption of their services as well as help them validate any efforts to address those issues. In addition, we help the teams ideate and implement solutions to address any existing issues or opportunities. Note that the UX team is not prescriptive; our goal is to collaborate with the other projects to create better experiences. The name of the project will be OpenStack UX.

Contribution

Member contribution to the UX Project would be measured on three metrics:

  • No. of mock submissions to Invision:

Members are able to create projects within Invision and add images of their proposed designs.

  • No. of reviews/comments in Invision:

This is a measure of the number of reviews/comments that occur in Invision for a specific project.

  • No. of UX studies conducted on behalf of the community

This is a measure of the number of studies that are conducted on behalf of the different projects and include both quantitative and qualitative studies.

Project Communication

UX Meeting

UX meetings were scheduled to occur every other week on IRC but eventually slowed-down because most of the design efforts were specifically focused on improving Horizon. That will eventually change as the UX team engages additional projects. In addition, IRC is a bit difficult to use within a discipline that is largely aesthetic.

IRC channel

An additional way to get quick feedback or have a discussion with the UX group is to join the IRC channel on freenode (#openstack-ux).

Design Review

There is a design review that occurs every other week were community members are invited to share their design work with the community. These meetings occur via virtual room rather than IRC because the reviews require the participants to “see” the designs in order to provide feedback.

User Panel

The user panel was formed about two months ago in order to provide feedback to the community from actual users. In some ways, the user panel is intended to provide an alternative “voice” to the development community.

The panel is struggling somewhat because we haven’t agreed on a format for the meetings. For example, one suggestion was to have a panel members talk about their specific challenges during a session.

Panel members include users from NSA, Cisco, Pacific Northwest National Labs, Orange, Yahoo and Time Warner Cable.

Interim PTL

Until we have elections, Pieter Kruithof will be the PTL for OpenStack UX.

Piet is currently a Sr UX Architect with HP Helion Cloud and specifically focuses on improving the user experience of OpenStack. This includes tactical activities such as proposing new designs in addition to more strategic efforts such as providing platforms that help enable collaboration within the community.

Piet was also a former Director with the Board of Certification in Professional Ergonomics (BCPE). The board was established in 1990 as an independent nonprofit organization and is the certifying body for individuals whose education and experience indicate broad expertise in the practice of human factors, ergonomics and user experience research.

Team members include engineers from IBM, Cisco, RackSpace, HP and Mirantis.

Links

UX wiki

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX#Horizon_Proposals

User Research wiki

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HorizonUsability_Testing

OpenStack UX patterns

https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/UX/PatternsLibrary

OpenStack Invision Community

https://openstack.invisionapp.com



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