Re: [Engine-devel] [UX] how to design a bar/line chart?

> ... but we may have to see how this looks when multiple sparklines > reside in columns next to each other. > ... > ... > Is this going to fit in a row of a table? Or are we talking of a > more detailed view? > ... a concern on which I happened to briefly discuss with Eldan / Malini and actually somewhat raised here earlier in the thread (see above): Since we are adding another information "dimension" (time), we are actually going to display a lot more information to the user within the CPU/MEM/NET columns, and there is a chance that the view will become too overloaded/confusing, and we will end up with a view that is less clear than the current one.

Just so we will have a general idea of how it will look like eventually, so we will be able to do a slightly more educated decision, I am attaching a mock-up of how it looks now compared to how it may look once this feature is implemented. * In my mock-up, I followed Malini's guideline from earlier in the thread: """ One color with a dot to indicate the most recent or most relevant data and display its value next to the sparkline """

* keep in mind that the view is dynamic and keeps updating once it receives new statistics from the backend. Thoughts? ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Malini Rao" <mrao(a)redhat.com&gt; > To: "Tomas Jelinek" <tjelinek(a)redhat.com&gt; > Cc: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen(a)redhat.com&gt;, "engine-devel" <engine-devel(a)ovirt.org&gt;, "Eldan Hildesheim" > <ehildesh(a)redhat.com&gt;, "info" <info(a)eldanet.com&gt;, "Martin Polednik" <mpoledni(a)redhat.com&gt; > Sent: Wednesday, November 6, 2013 10:24:56 AM > Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] [UX] how to design a bar/line chart? > > Hey all, > > Comments inline- > > > > ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Tomas Jelinek" <tjelinek(a)redhat.com&gt; >> To: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen(a)redhat.com&gt; >> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel(a)ovirt.org&gt;, "Eldan Hildesheim" >> <ehildesh(a)redhat.com&gt;, "info" <info(a)eldanet.com&gt;, >> "Malini Rao" <mrao(a)redhat.com&gt;, "Martin Polednik" <mpoledni(a)redhat.com&gt; >> Sent: Wednesday, November 6, 2013 9:58:03 AM >> Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] [UX] how to design a bar/line chart? >> >> Hi Einav, >> >> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen(a)redhat.com&gt; >>> To: "Tomas Jelinek" <tjelinek(a)redhat.com&gt; >>> Cc: "engine-devel" <engine-devel(a)ovirt.org&gt;, "Eldan Hildesheim" >>> <ehildesh(a)redhat.com&gt;, "info" <info(a)eldanet.com&gt;, >>> "Malini Rao" <mrao(a)redhat.com&gt; >>> Sent: Wednesday, November 6, 2013 3:26:15 PM >>> Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] [UX] how to design a bar/line chart? >>> >>> Hi Tomas, >>> >>> Like Itamar, I think that a line chart is a better idea, and that a >>> chart per monitored fact (rather than a combined chart) is better. >> >> OK > > Based on the original request in the bug, it seems like Itamar is looking for > a trend rather than just one data point. I think we are thinking along the > correct lines here with a line graph but I think more specifically, we > should consider sparklines - > http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001OR. Agree > that we should have one sparkline per fact but we may have to see how this > looks when multiple sparklines reside in columns next to each other. See > example of a grid where there are 2 sparklines next to each other - > http://www.panopticon.com/Tables-Grids > >> >>> >>>>> the statistics readable enough. Maybe if you hover the chart it could >>>>> pop >>>>> up a bigger version of the chart? Or not needed? >>> >>> this is a nice-to-have, I think, definitely not needed. >> >> OK > > Agree. As shown in the glucose example in the Tufte link I posted above, > maybe all we need is to indicate the acceptable range with a band and if the > last point is in the range or outside, it will be clear to the user if they > should pay attention to it. > > >> >>> >>>>> - Would it be enough to have it in one color? Or should it be >>>>> something >>>>> like "the bigger the utilization the more red"? >>> >>> question is what will happen when there are a lot of "jumps": let's say >>> that the graph changes from 0% to 100% to 0% to 100% and so on... what >>> will be painted red? the entire line, but only in the periods that it >>> jumps to 100%? only the parts of line that are in 100%? >>> maybe a single color is enough. >> >> OK >> > > One color with a dot to indicate the most recent or most relevant data and > display its value next to the sparkline > > >>> >>> I have another concern about this feature: currently, the GUI's most >>> frequent >>> refresh rate available is 5 seconds, which means that the line will >>> "change" >>> only every 5 seconds, which would be more noticeably slow when displayed >>> in >>> a form of a line chart (not even talking about lower frequencies). >>> Moreover, I am not sure at what rate the VM statistics are pulled from >>> VDSM, >>> but if it is 10 seconds or 15 seconds, it means that the line in the GUI >>> will >>> be "flat" for every 2 reads / 3 reads, which is not so good, I think. >>> >>> any thoughts around that? >> >> Good point! AFAIK the VDSM is polled each 3 seconds for basic info (e.g. >> the >> resource >> usage not included) and than every 5th poll (e.g. every 15 seconds) for >> full >> data >> (with resource usage not included). This would indeed make the graph pretty >> useless. >> >> Michal proposed to do some averages on the VDSM site from more frequent >> sampling and >> send this average back to engine when polled - so we would display an >> average >> after each poll (15s). >> >> I wonder if something like this is not already used on other places: >> @Martin, do you know about something like this? > > Why does the change in the line need to seem palpable every few seconds? I > think the base requirement of how accurate the data is when a user looks at > a grid has not changed.. just the data visualization. Right? So , if the > refresh rate is not a problem today, why is it a problem now? Am I missing > something? > > >> >> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>>> From: "Itamar Heim" <iheim(a)redhat.com&gt; >>>> To: "Tomas Jelinek" <tjelinek(a)redhat.com&gt;, "engine-devel" >>>> <engine-devel(a)ovirt.org&gt; >>>> Sent: Tuesday, November 5, 2013 10:10:34 AM >>>> Subject: Re: [Engine-devel] [UX] how to design a bar/line chart? >>>> >>>> On 11/05/2013 11:50 AM, Tomas Jelinek wrote: >>>>> Hi all, >>>>> >>>>> There is a feature request [1] which aims to replace the resource >>>>> utilization graphs (for example the cpu utilization from vm tab) by >>>>> some >>>>> which shows not only >>>>> the actual percentage which is not so useful by some monitor graph. >>>>> >>>>> I have the following concerns: >>>>> - I can think of a bar chart or a line chart and not sure what would >>>>> be >>>>> better. >>>>> - Not sure if replacing the current chart with a bar/line chart would >>>>> make >>>>> the statistics readable enough. Maybe if you hover the chart it could >>>>> pop >>>>> up a bigger version of the chart? Or not needed? >>>>> - Would it be enough to have it in one color? Or should it be >>>>> something >>>>> like "the bigger the utilization the more red"? >>>>> >>>>> Please advise from the UX perspective. As soon as the final design >>>>> will >>>>> be >>>>> a bit more clear I will provide a feature page. >>>>> >>>>> Thank you, >>>>> Tomas >>>>> >>>>> [1]: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=803251 >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Engine-devel mailing list >>>>> Engine-devel(a)ovirt.org >>>>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel >>>>> >>>> >>>> a moving trend graph (just like fedora's system monitor for >>>> cpu/ram/network) is what i have in mind. so a line chart. >>>> you could have a single chart with different lines for cpu/ram/network, >>>> or what seems to be more common, a chart per monitored fact >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Engine-devel mailing list >>>> Engine-devel(a)ovirt.org >>>> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/engine-devel >>>> >>>> >>>> >>> >> <trendline-mockup.png>