[Users] Setup Host Network dialog - actions availability [ux][BZ#984737]

Fri Aug 23 18:23:31 UTC 2013

[top posting]

Many thanks, everyone, for your valuable input - it is highly appreciated!
I would like to do an interim summary of our conclusions / open issues so 
far, towards converging to a concrete solution. 

your feedback will be highly appreciated.

(1) [open issue] actions availability indication: 

  (a) always visible (e.g. as a gear icon, see attached HostSetupNetworks-DropDownMenu.png)
  (b) visible only upon hover (see attached HostSetupNetworks-HoverPopUp.png)
  (c) combination (see attached SetupHostNetworks-StaticAndHoverCombination.png)

[ignore the exact design details for now (e.g. hover solution contains / doesn't 
contain some network details, gear icon drop-down items panel opens upon hover / 
upon click, etc.]

I think we all agree that (c) is a bad redundancy;
(a) may somewhat clutter the existing view, however it best resolves the 
original pain point mentioned in the BZ/this thread, which is not fully 
resolved in solution (b).
according to the input provided in this thread, it seems that most of the 
people are in favor of adding the gear icon, which implies that they support 
(a) [I could be wrong, please correct me if I am].

(2) [open issue] displaying a details-pop-up upon hover on a logical network 
is needed / not needed.
we received here a couple of opinions that it isn't needed, I would like 
to verify that everyone are comfortable with that; also need to keep in 
mind that we currently have a details pop-up when hovering on a NIC, and I 
assume that we have one for hovering on a Bond - are everyone comfortable 
with getting rid of all of these?

(3) [open issue] actions availability upon click vs. upon hover.
[note: this is not about the indication mentioned in (1) (e.g. gear icon), 
but about actually showing the available actions (edit, remove, etc.).
revealing the available actions upon click would mean that two clicks will 
be needed in order to edit a logical network, for example, vs. one click 
that will be needed in the current state / hover solution.
moreover, if everyone are comfortable with removing the details-pop-up upon 
hover (see (2)), then there would be no hover conflicts in that sense.
[even if we decide to keep the details-pop-up - we can include the actions 
in it, just like demonstrated in HostSetupNetworks-HoverPopUp.png, so there 
will be only one consistent "behavior" upon hovering on the logical network 
area]

my suggestion:

add a static action indication (e.g. gear icon), and upon hovering on it 
(or hovering on the logical network rectangle in general), the actions-pop
-up (which may or may not contain also some network details - again, see (2)) 
will appear [see attached HostSetupNetworks-EinavSuggestion.png]

* NOTE: Although we are discussing mainly logical networks, the solution (or 
the relevant parts of it) should be applied also to Bonds and NICs within 
the same dialog.

"+1"s / "-1"s / comments / additional suggestions are welcome.

----
Thanks,
Einav

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karli Sjöberg" <Karli.Sjoberg at slu.se>
> To: "Lior Vernia" <lvernia at redhat.com>
> Cc: "Einav Cohen" <ecohen at redhat.com>, "info" <info at eldanet.com>, "Eldan Hildesheim" <ehildesh at redhat.com>,
> jas at cs.yorku.ca, "users" <users at ovirt.org>
> Sent: Friday, August 23, 2013 8:46:52 AM
> Subject: Re: [Users] Setup Host Network dialog - actions availability [ux][BZ#984737]
> 
> fre 2013-08-23 klockan 15:42 +0300 skrev Lior Vernia:
> 
> 
> 
> On 23/08/13 08:51, Karli Sjöberg wrote:
> > tor 2013-08-22 klockan 20:43 +0300 skrev Lior Vernia:
> >>
> >> On 22/08/13 20:04, Einav Cohen wrote:
> >> > Hi,
> >> >
> >> > This is about attempting to address the difficulty of finding the
> >> > edit-action in
> >> > the Setup Host Network dialog, as documented in "Bug 984737 - usability:
> >> > webadmin
> >> > difficulty in assigning client ip, no gateway possible" in bugzilla.
> >> > We have a suggestion from Eldan (see attached
> >> > "HostSetupNetworks-HoverPopUp.png")
> >> > which was described in the BZ (comment #3) and seemed acceptable by the
> >> > reporter
> >> > (comment #4), however IIUC - one of the main pain points described in
> >> > the BZ was
> >> > the fact that the user could not find the option to Edit the connection
> >> > properties
> >> > since he was looking in the wrong place, and needed to hover on the
> >> > correct place,
> >> > in order to find that option.
> >> > So although the idea is somewhat helpful, my concern is that this
> >> > solution is not
> >> > enough (comment #5).
> >> >
> >> > Another proposal from Malini (comment #6) is to add an "actions"
> >> > drop-down menu in
> >> > the form of a small "gear" icon-button - see attached
> >> > "HostSetupNetworks-DropDownMenu.png".
> >> > This proposal addresses my concern, however I have a question about
> >> > another concern
> >> > with this solution:
> >> > would the actions-drop-down menu-items panel be revealed appear upon
> >> > click or upon
> >> > hover?
> >> >
> >> > if it will be upon hover, it might seem weird/be conflicted/be somewhat
> >> > confusing
> >> > with the hover functionality that reveals the logical-network details
> >> > pop-up.
> >>
> >> If this proposal is accepted (see my comments below about both
> >> proposals), one solution might be to get rid of the network details
> >> tooltip. Most people probably don't use MTU,
> >
> > Just a FYI there Lior; we do:) And when 10GbE becomes available, Jumbo
> > Frames is going to be required to use all that bandwidth. Otherwise you
> > are capped at about half(500MB/s as opposed to 1,2GB/s).
> 
> And is it at all helpful to see it in the Host Setup Networks context?
> It is set in the DC context when adding or editing a network, to my
> understanding it doesn't have much to do with a specific host.
> 
> 
> No I agree, it´s not helpful at all, maybe even destructive. Why allow admins
> to mess around with different MTU's on different Hosts for the same network.
> Since MTU is set in the switches, the MTU must be the same for all Hosts on
> the same network, or one could wreak all kinds of havoc. What I was saying
> is not to forget that, for admins, MTU is a big deal, and makes a big
> difference in performance, is all.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm guessing the main reason it's there is to give people a shot at
> guessing why their network appears out-of-sync, when it's caused by the
> MTU being configured differently on the host, but I don't think that
> would be easy to figure out anyway.
> 
> >
> > /Karli
> >
> >> and the rest is just
> >> explaining the network role icons; so maybe not that useful.
> >>
> >> > if it will be upon click, it means that in order to edit a logical
> >> > network, two
> >> > clicks will be required in order to get to the edit dialog, as opposed
> >> > to one click
> >> > in the current state and in Eldan's suggestion.
> >> > maybe having two clicks in order to get to the edit dialog is
> >> > acceptable, however
> >> > there may be some solutions for that:
> >> >
> >> > one possible solution would be to combine both attached suggestions,
> >> > i.e. the actions
> >> > within the hover pop-up, as well as the actions drop-down menu, however
> >> > it means that
> >> > there will be some redundancy of the actions availability.
> >>
> >> That sounds bad to me regardless of the other alternatives.
> >>
> >> > another possible solution is to keep only the gear + down-arrow icon (or
> >> > maybe only
> >> > the down-arrow icon), without the actual drop-down menu there, just in
> >> > order to indicate
> >> > that there are some options available in that area, and have Eldan's
> >> > pop-up appear when
> >> > hovering on that icon (or even on the entire logical-network area, as
> >> > happens today with
> >> > the current details pop-up)
> >> >
> >> > thoughts?
> >>
> >> I like the gear icon because it's noticeable and easily recognizable.
> >> However, keep in mind that bonds should also have the same icon to keep
> >> a consistent design. Now imagine a configuration with several bonds on
> >> the left-hand-side and quite a few networks on the right-hand-side; I'm
> >> no designer, but it could get cluttered with all those gear icons.
> >>
> >> It MIGHT be preferable to use the other design (tooltip with action bar)
> >> and risk the odd person not easily finding it (no disrespect intended,
> >> Jason). I have no idea, however, if it's gonna be just the odd person or
> >> most people. I'd love to hear others' opinions.
> >>
> >> >
> >> > ----
> >> > Regards,
> >> > Einav
> >> >
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Users mailing list
> >> Users at ovirt.org<mailto:Users at ovirt.org> <mailto:Users at ovirt.org>
> >> http://lists.ovirt.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> >
> > --
> >
> > Med Vänliga Hälsningar
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Karli Sjöberg
> > Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
> > Box 7079 (Visiting Address Kronåsvägen 8)
> > S-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
> > Phone:  +46-(0)18-67 15 66
> > karli.sjoberg at slu.se<mailto:karli.sjoberg at slu.se>
> > <mailto:karli.sjoberg at adm.slu.se>
> >
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Med Vänliga Hälsningar
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Karli Sjöberg
> Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
> Box 7079 (Visiting Address Kronåsvägen 8)
> S-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
> Phone:  +46-(0)18-67 15 66
> karli.sjoberg at slu.se<mailto:karli.sjoberg at adm.slu.se>
>
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