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Dashboard / Home Page discussion recap

Dashboard / Home Page discussion recap by Sebastian Benthall
- Re: [geonode] Dashboard / Home Page discussion recap by David Winslow

Dashboard / Home Page discussion recap

From:: Sebastian Benthall
Date:: 2010-07-19 @ 15:56

Just had a great discussion in #geonode about the role of the User
Dashboard.  Wanted to raise it in email so that some of what we discussed
can get on the plan for post-1.0.

As the User Dashboard's been envisioned so far, it's been seen as an
alternative view of the user profile, as seen by users when they are logged
in.  The dashboard is a place where users can find news, keep track of their
cartography projects, and access controls related to their user accounts.

(Compare:
http://geonode.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GeoNode_20100209e.png
http://geonode.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GeoNode_20100209f.png
)

However, it seems like a lot of sites use the user dashboard as an
alternative Home Page for logged in users.  (GitHub and LinkedIn are like
this).

There's been a lot of back and forth about the home page (I've had long
conversations with both Galen and Rollie about it...) and what the
functionality for it should be.  For 1.0, we've got a sort of intermediate
UI planned out, largely because so much of the potential for these areas is
so new:
  * The home page cleanly exposes access to a lot of GeoNode's most
important functionality, but in a general way.
  * The profile shows user contact information and an avatar, but doesn't
show much else about that users' activity
  * The dashboard provides a minimal set of controls over and above the
profile (edit profile, links to create a map).


I think a roadmap area we should try to anticipate better is the refinement
of these views and the additional features that would be valuable for them.
 To be more specific, these are things I can think of off the top of my
head:
  * Notifications.  What events are notified?  Are they done via email, or
internal to the application?  What sort of 'news' do users need to know
about?
  * We've thought about the relationship between users and data/maps a bit.
 It appears that both the metadata standard and the demands of the security
system suggest a complex relationship between users and these resources, one
that is mediated by roles.  Beyond access control, do should these roles
have any significance for software functionality?  To the relevance of
events related to particular resources and their presence on a users'
dashboard?  On a groups' dashboard?
  * So far, we are not tracking the history of changes between maps, styles,
and data.  We know that versioned data editing is a long-term item on the
roadmap.  What about versioned map editing?  Should we be
tracking/displaying this history in a way that is targeted to individual
users (i.e., a list of the user's actions, where actions are data and/or map
edits)?

Ok, I'm going to stop now because this line of inquiry will get out of
control fast.  And I think the right answer to these questions is "Just
scope out small, concrete changes, build them iteratively, and lets not get
ahead of ourselves."

But I wanted to bring these questions up not because I think that they all
need to be answered now, but because I think the roadmap may have blindspots
around many of these usability issues and yet the tips of some icebergs are
poking out of the water.

Does anybody else anticipate other complex problems coming up that we should
have in mind as we plan out post-1.0 features?


-- 
Sebastian Benthall
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org

Re: [geonode] Dashboard / Home Page discussion recap

From:: David Winslow
Date:: 2010-07-19 @ 16:54

I think we should focus on integrating with Pinax before worrying about 
these details.  Pinax will provide a bit of a framework for things like 
dashboards and news feeds, so we should let it guide their design.

--
David Winslow
OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org/

On 07/19/2010 11:56 AM, Sebastian Benthall wrote:
> Just had a great discussion in #geonode about the role of the User 
> Dashboard.  Wanted to raise it in email so that some of what we 
> discussed can get on the plan for post-1.0.
>
> As the User Dashboard's been envisioned so far, it's been seen as an 
> alternative view of the user profile, as seen by users when they are 
> logged in.  The dashboard is a place where users can find news, keep 
> track of their cartography projects, and access controls related to 
> their user accounts.
>
> (Compare:
> http://geonode.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GeoNode_20100209e.png
> http://geonode.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/GeoNode_20100209f.png
> )
>
> However, it seems like a lot of sites use the user dashboard as an 
> alternative Home Page for logged in users.  (GitHub and LinkedIn are 
> like this).
>
> There's been a lot of back and forth about the home page (I've had 
> long conversations with both Galen and Rollie about it...) and what 
> the functionality for it should be.  For 1.0, we've got a sort of 
> intermediate UI planned out, largely because so much of the potential 
> for these areas is so new:
>   * The home page cleanly exposes access to a lot of GeoNode's most 
> important functionality, but in a general way.
>   * The profile shows user contact information and an avatar, but 
> doesn't show much else about that users' activity
>   * The dashboard provides a minimal set of controls over and above 
> the profile (edit profile, links to create a map).
>
>
> I think a roadmap area we should try to anticipate better is the 
> refinement of these views and the additional features that would be 
> valuable for them.  To be more specific, these are things I can think 
> of off the top of my head:
>   * Notifications.  What events are notified?  Are they done via 
> email, or internal to the application?  What sort of 'news' do users 
> need to know about?
>   * We've thought about the relationship between users and data/maps a 
> bit.  It appears that both the metadata standard and the demands of 
> the security system suggest a complex relationship between users and 
> these resources, one that is mediated by roles.  Beyond access 
> control, do should these roles have any significance for software 
> functionality?  To the relevance of events related to particular 
> resources and their presence on a users' dashboard?  On a groups' 
> dashboard?
>   * So far, we are not tracking the history of changes between maps, 
> styles, and data.  We know that versioned data editing is a long-term 
> item on the roadmap.  What about versioned map editing?  Should we be 
> tracking/displaying this history in a way that is targeted to 
> individual users (i.e., a list of the user's actions, where actions 
> are data and/or map edits)?
>
> Ok, I'm going to stop now because this line of inquiry will get out of 
> control fast.  And I think the right answer to these questions is 
> "Just scope out small, concrete changes, build them iteratively, and 
> lets not get ahead of ourselves."
>
> But I wanted to bring these questions up not because I think that they 
> all need to be answered now, but because I think the roadmap may have 
> blindspots around many of these usability issues and yet the tips of 
> some icebergs are poking out of the water.
>
> Does anybody else anticipate other complex problems coming up that we 
> should have in mind as we plan out post-1.0 features?
>
>
> -- 
> Sebastian Benthall
> OpenGeo - http://opengeo.org
>