Week 2: Use Cases and More Research

This week, I started looking around the product interface and getting myself familiar with out how this version differs from the older versions I've used.  I'm in somewhat of a unique position to be working on this product because I am also a "customer"—that is I have been using this particular content management system for several years but never a production instance with the 8.0 UI.

I did two types of research this week. First, within the product, I tried to find the places where the picker framework was clearly in use and then write up some use cases for myself which I will discuss with Robin on in our weekly meeting Monday to make sure I'm on the right track.  I divided up these use cases into two categories, single item pickers and multi-item pickers, and found six areas within the console where these are in use.

Single:

• User wants to create a new content item and has to choose a destination folder for that content item
• User wants to move the location of a content item and is asked to choose a destination folder
• User wants to create a new content category and must select a parent category to place it into
• User wants to create a new "Quick Action" and must select a content type

Multi:

• User wants to assign one or more existing content items to one or more channels
• User wants to share one or more existing content items to one or more sites

As I found each of these, I took screen captures of the existing pickers and started playing around with modifying them.  What I realized is that I am not convinced there needs to be a singular picker metaphor for all pickers, but I think the way the pickers function should be consistent between all single and all multi-select pickers.  It looks like in many instances, the pickers are trying to emulate the tree and grid patterns used in other parts of the interface meant for browsing and that is likely causing visual clutter and confusion.

Content type picker with some issues identified

My initial redesign of the content type picker

Second, I extended my research this week by looking closely at many of the applications I use on a daily basis and noting how each treats the action of picking items.  I looked at MS Outlook 2010, Google Documents, the old version of WEM (VCM 7.3.1), Content Server 10 (another CMS used/sold by OpenText) and Changepoint.  Of all of these, I really liked the simplicity, speed and minimal design of Google Documents.  Of course, it is not a CMS nor meant to categorize and publish large amounts of content, but I did find some useful features and repeatable patterns.  For example, I think WEM should look into supporting drag and drop to move content items and folders around as well as shift-click to select multiples.  I am also a fan of having check boxes within a tree view for when the user needs to be able to both browse and select multiple folders (the old version of WEM used this pattern for channel selection).

Google Docs "Organize" tree

Week 1: Background Research

This week has been all about getting up to speed and homing in on exactly what I'll be doing for this project.  My field supervisor, Robin Silberling, provided me a tailored overview late last week of what the UE team would like to me explore over the next 15 weeks.  I'll be working on a redesign of a very sticky and inconsistent piece of the Web Experience Management (WEM) interface called the "picker." Pickers are one of the defined frameworks used in the WEM product to allow users to move items around and make selections.

Example of a multi-select picker in version 8.1

I reviewed the results of summative testing done on the WEM product and problems with the picker interface were identified as two of the top 10 items needing to be addressed in the next version.  Only 40% of customers and 44% of non-customers were able to add a channel to a content item on the first try.  The team aims for an 80% success rate without help to give a task a passing score.  Some of the issues include

• The single picker and multi-picker interfaces are different
• Confusion about the red "x" icon used for the remove action, concern this meant there was an error
• Users expected to be able to select channels from the tree
• Users often didn't notice that an item had been added to the "Your Selections" area
• Confusion about the need to click the "Add Selection" button to confirm choices

I'm excited to have the chance to come up with some design improvements for these pain points.  I don't know yet if my proposal will actually be tested with users but that would be really great to see how they scored.  I have several suggestions from users and the UE team to get me started and I have started a list of my own.  I think the biggest challenge will be coming up with a unified design to satisfy the many instances in the interface where pickers are used.  My first task next week will be to sit down with a development version of WEM and use it myself to get a feel for using this product.