Life Cycle - Delivery Efforts

2 posts / 0 new
Last post
Life Cycle - Delivery Efforts

Like the Community Needs page, this one need a brief explanation of what it is, who it's for, and what one can/should do here. Once those questions are answered, I have a feeling it'll become clear that this page has too much on it and should actually be split into two or more separate pages. In particular, it currently seems to combine "learning about delivery efforts" with "do things related to delivery." Since the former is something anyone might want to do, while the latter is something only a small number of people need to do, they should probably be on separate pages. At the very least, they should be grouped into different sections of the page instead of all together in one list.

  1. The first item on this page ("Review driving use case priorities and gaps") seems like it ought to be on the Community Needs page instead of this one? Since there's already a "review priorities" link in Community Needs, the "Review gaps" part seems to be what's new about this. The page it links to is meant to find/show gaps and has nothing about priorities on it. (Note also it talks about "use cases," and we haven't provided any explanation of use cases at this point.) IMO, reviewing gaps makes more sense on a Community Needs page rather than one focused on delivery efforts.
  2. The first and second list items both link to the same page.
  3. Clicking "Use case and delivery status" takes me to a page titled "Capability Delivery Plans & Status." That's confusing, even though to us they mean roughly the same thing. First, the page actually shows a list of use cases and the implementation status (in XSEDE) for each, which doesn't seem to match the page title, though it does seem like what the link I clicked promised. (It isn't clear that if I click a use case title, it will take me to a CDP.) Second, the "organization" column makes no sense without explanation AND some entries that have a different value than XSEDE. Third, if we start having entries with non-XSEDE organizations, who will find that useful? It isn't clear what the audience for that information is, or how providing it will affect people who only care about XSEDE status. It might be better to allow people to browse CDPs by organization (pick an organization first, then see a list) rather than presenting a big list. Without any ability to filter or sort on organization, it's not very useful.
  4. "View API documentation" seems out-of-place here. How is API documentation related to delivery efforts?
  5. The three "Register..." links also seem out-of-place here. I realize (with my insider hat on) how this relates to delivery of capabilities. But I doubt the connection will be obvious to others. Also, these three functions are VERY specific to the service provider role, and that isn't made clear either, so they'll likely confuse other kinds of people and make them feel that this isn't the right page for them.
  6. The distinction between "packaged software" and "software-based services" isn't one most people are going to understand immediately. Even I have trouble with it. the fact that the pages they link to look like duplicates at first glance doesn't help.  Shouldn't these actually be a single interface for registering software, with a checkbox or a tabbed interface to differentiate between downloadable vs. SaaS delivery?
  7. The API registration option seems like a third delivery option: PaaS.  So again, shouldn't there be a single "register software" function with three possible delivery methods (download/install, Webapp (SaaS), API (PaaS)) available in the registration? Selecting a delivery method would enable different delivery detail fields?
  8. The "Announce delivered software or service" link takes me to a list of News items. I have a link to add a news item because I'm an administrator, but most users won't. This isn't at all what I expected, either as an administrator or as a user! I expected I'd either get a page telling me I'm not allowed to do it, or a page with a form for entering an announcement. First, the link should probably say something like, "Recent software news," so it matches what it links to. Second, the list of news items isn't filtered, so it shows ALL news items, not just the ones related to software delivery or availability. Shouldn't it be filtered?
Delivery Effort Stage: 

Lee,

Thanks again for your detailed review and feedback. We're going to try to address all your feedback without responding to each item in this thread. However, a couple of points should be mentioned:

  • Re 1. It is by design that one can get to "use case priorities" from multiple places. Conceptually we want the Delivery Efforts page to contain pointers to all related and relevant material or content. We do want those pointers however to display content based on where the user came from, so in this case we want to display the use cases, priorities, and gaps relevant to delivery efforts.  For example, in the Community Needs area a link to Use Cases would most likely display a much more comprehensive set of use cases with or without delivery efforts underway, however the link from the Deliver Efforts page should only show Use cases that have active delivery efforts.... That's the concept, allththough our implementation may not be the best yet.
  • I like your idea for providing a single link and interface for registering stuff regardless of delivery method. We'll prototype something along those lines for you to look over.

Again, your other comments mostly make sense and we'll see what we can do to move in the direction you suggest.

Thanks,

JP

Log in to post comments