Moving forward with User Research #69

Ghost commented 2023年10月06日 22:20:39 +02:00

Preamble: if you're not sure what User Research is about and how it can benefit a project like Forgejo, the Beg­inner’s Guide to Finding User Needs is worth a read.

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Problem statement:

• there are hundreds of issues and feature requests lingering in Forgejo & Codeberg
• there is no roadmap or prioritization
• there has been no active effort to study and understand the needs of Forgejo users (instance admins or Codeberg users)

Possible solution

• find someone with skills, patience and time to engage in User Research for Forgejo
• allocate funds to pay for that person's time

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The idea is not new and was discussed a year ago. But there has been no progress so far because noone has the time or the skills to bootstrap that effort. In my opinion User Research is what Forgejo needs most to reach its potential. Forgejo features, UI and UX and not currently driven by user needs. They are the result of the imagination of a handful of developers (I am one of them) and this has to change. Forgejo needs to gradually change from being driven by developers imaginations to being driven by what the user needs.

The first thing that comes to mind when I discuss that topic is something along the lines of "Oh, I'm a Forgejo user and it would be great if there was this and that, really that would be something useful.". But User Research is a very different proposition: it is about observing what users do, not asking what they desire. And by observing users in a methodical way, the data collected tells the true story of their pain points. The goal is not to switch from a development model where everything is the result of the imagination of a developer to a similarly problematic model where everything is the result of the imagination of a user.

In many Free Software features and bug fixes and driven by management, VC funding requirements, grants or paying customers desires. In such a context there is no benefit to User Research because the users do not matter and decisions are not taken depending on their needs. But Forgejo does not have that problem.

Forgejo could become one of the very few Free Software to adopt a sensible method to define its UI and UX based on User Research instead of, well... a total absence of method really 😄

_Preamble: if you're not sure what User Research is about and how it can benefit a project like Forgejo, the [Beg­inner’s Guide to Finding User Needs](https://jdittrich.github.io/userNeedResearchBook/) is worth a read._ --- Problem statement: * there are hundreds of issues and feature requests lingering in Forgejo & Codeberg * there is no roadmap or prioritization * there has been no active effort to study and understand the needs of Forgejo users (instance admins or Codeberg users) Possible solution * find someone with skills, patience and time to engage in User Research for Forgejo * allocate funds to pay for that person's time --- The idea is not new and was discussed a year ago. But there has been no progress so far because noone has the time or the skills to bootstrap that effort. In my opinion User Research is what Forgejo needs most to reach its potential. Forgejo features, UI and UX and **not currently driven by user needs**. They are the result of the imagination of a handful of developers (I am one of them) and this has to change. Forgejo needs to gradually **change from being driven by developers imaginations to being driven by what the user needs**. The first thing that comes to mind when I discuss that topic is something along the lines of "Oh, I'm a Forgejo user and it would be great if there was this and that, really that would be something useful.". But User Research is a very different proposition: it is about observing what users do, not asking what they desire. And by observing users in a methodical way, the data collected tells the true story of their pain points. The goal is not to switch from a development model where everything is the result of the imagination of a developer to a similarly problematic model where everything is the result of the imagination of a user. In many Free Software features and bug fixes and driven by management, VC funding requirements, grants or paying customers desires. In such a context there is no benefit to User Research because the users do not matter and decisions are not taken depending on their needs. But Forgejo does not have that problem. Forgejo could become one of the very few Free Software to adopt a sensible method to define its UI and UX based on User Research instead of, well... a total absence of method really 😄

Ghost commented 2023年10月06日 22:40:15 +02:00

I'm starting this topic as a followup of a talk I had today with @ei8fdb who is most active in OSD

We are a community of designers and developers pushing more open design processes and improving the user experience and interface design of open source software.

I'm grateful for the time he dedicated to listen to me trying my best to explain where Forgejo is at the moment and why, in my opinion, it needs User Research. In conclusion he suggested that posting a job offer on OSD would be a good way get in touch with the right people.

Through the questions @ei8fdb asked during our conversation, it became clear that it is necessary to have a discussion with everyone in the Forgejo community. For User Research to be applied effectively in practice, a consensus should emergence among all interested contributors on why, how and when it should be done. I hope @ei8fdb is willing to participate in this discussion and keep it focused. Because the truth is... the only real understanding some of us have of User Research is that it is a something Forgejo needs.

I'm starting this topic as a followup of a talk I had today with @ei8fdb who is [most active](https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/u/ei8fdb/summary) in [OSD](https://opensourcedesign.net/) > We are a community of designers and developers pushing more open design processes and improving the user experience and interface design of open source software. I'm grateful for the time he dedicated to listen to me trying my best to explain where Forgejo is at the moment and why, in my opinion, it needs User Research. In conclusion he suggested that posting a job offer on [OSD](https://opensourcedesign.net/) would be a good way get in touch with the right people. Through the questions @ei8fdb asked during our conversation, it became clear that it is necessary to have a discussion with everyone in the Forgejo community. For User Research to be applied effectively in practice, a consensus should emergence among all interested contributors on why, how and when it should be done. I hope @ei8fdb is willing to participate in this discussion and keep it focused. Because the truth is... the only real understanding some of us have of User Research is that it is a something Forgejo needs.

earl-warren commented 2023年10月06日 23:38:50 +02:00

I agree that spending the funds Forgejo has in this way would be very useful. It is a new territory but it needs to be explored to try to solve the problems listed above.

I agree that spending the funds Forgejo has in this way would be very useful. It is a new territory but it needs to be explored to try to solve the problems listed above.

Ghost commented 2023年10月07日 14:32:16 +02:00

It occurred to me today that User Research would be mostly useless if some Forgejo contributors did not agree on principle that their work is influenced by its findings. Not all contributors, but enough to make a difference.

My contributions to Forgejo, until December 2024, will be on three domains:

• Data portability (F3)
• Release management
• Security

During that period I pledge to take into account, to the best of my abilities, the outcome of User Research that relates to these domains.

For instance, if one outcome of User Research is a roadmap with three items that are most important in the domain of data portability, I will work on them first. Instead of what I do currently which is essentially to work on whatever makes most sense to me.

It occurred to me today that User Research would be mostly useless if some Forgejo contributors did not agree on principle that their work is influenced by its findings. Not all contributors, but enough to make a difference. My contributions to Forgejo, until December 2024, will be on three domains: * Data portability (F3) * Release management * Security During that period I pledge to take into account, to the best of my abilities, the outcome of User Research that relates to these domains. For instance, if one outcome of User Research is a roadmap with three items that are most important in the domain of data portability, I will work on them first. Instead of what I do currently which is essentially to work on whatever makes most sense to me.

earl-warren commented 2023年10月07日 16:32:40 +02:00

My contributions to Forgejo for the following six months, will be on these domains:

• Continuous Integration / Forgejo Actions
• Release management
• Documentation

During that period I pledge to take into account, to the best of my abilities, the outcome of User Research that relates to these domains.

My contributions to Forgejo for the following six months, will be on these domains: * Continuous Integration / Forgejo Actions * Release management * Documentation During that period I pledge to take into account, to the best of my abilities, the outcome of User Research that relates to these domains.

earl-warren commented 2023年10月08日 19:56:07 +02:00

For the record, a related discussion happened in the development chatroom. I quote the parts from @fnetX that I found insightful.

In the past, I fixed several features that were completely broken but had only slight mistakes, mostly regressions from refactoring. It shows me that some features are implemented because someone wanted it, someone deemed it useful and implemented it, but apparently no one actually uses it (because otherwise someone would have noticed that the button is not working simply because a variable got renamed and is missing in the HTML)

Also, I think that a software that only listens to feature requests by users who see the software as-is will make short and inefficient steps. When the software has a defined layout inherited over decades, users might think "A button here might act as a shortcut to feature X". However, if you analyze the user behaviour, you might notice that the whole way could be simplified. Instead of adding more buttons as shortcuts to advanced features, you might notice that the existing menus are not used a lot and that other features are desired, that the layout of the settings is confusing etc. If you updated it, the user that wanted a shortcut could also be happy, because now all settings are easily available in a clean interface instead of being cluttered too much.

For the record, [a related discussion happened in the development chatroom](https://matrix.to/#/!zpNKWqkiEOyljSMQDK:matrix.org/$EZ-aZybtz4v6hcsM7tG-jnp-09nOudgGiQP7vzvIarw?via=exozy.me&via=matrix.org&via=aria-net.org). I quote the parts from @fnetX that I found insightful. > In the past, I fixed several features that were completely broken but had only slight mistakes, mostly regressions from refactoring. It shows me that some features are implemented because someone wanted it, someone deemed it useful and implemented it, but apparently no one actually uses it (because otherwise someone would have noticed that the button is not working simply because a variable got renamed and is missing in the HTML) > > Also, I think that a software that only listens to feature requests by users who see the software as-is will make short and inefficient steps. When the software has a defined layout inherited over decades, users might think "A button here might act as a shortcut to feature X". However, if you analyze the user behaviour, you might notice that the whole way could be simplified. Instead of adding more buttons as shortcuts to advanced features, you might notice that the existing menus are not used a lot and that other features are desired, that the layout of the settings is confusing etc. If you updated it, the user that wanted a shortcut could also be happy, because now all settings are easily available in a clean interface instead of being cluttered too much.

earl-warren commented 2023年10月20日 16:43:52 +02:00

I really like the idea of getting to know Forgejo users and collecting facts about them. What can be done to avoid stalling this, specially since there are funds to pay for the time of a skilled user research person.

Maybe it is worth posting a job at https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/posting-jobs-read-this-first/3416? If there is no objection to the idea, I'm willing to do it.

It is yet unclear to me if people are generally ok with the idea of spending a significant amount of the Forgejo funds (maybe 10K€?) to advance this.

I really like the idea of getting to know Forgejo users and collecting facts about them. What can be done to avoid stalling this, specially since there are funds to pay for the time of a skilled user research person. Maybe it is worth posting a job at https://discourse.opensourcedesign.net/t/posting-jobs-read-this-first/3416? If there is no objection to the idea, I'm willing to do it. It is yet unclear to me if people are generally ok with the idea of spending a significant amount of the Forgejo funds (maybe 10K€?) to advance this.

ei8fdb commented 2023年10月21日 12:41:36 +02:00

Hello all, and thanks to @dachary for including me on the discussion.

I'm glad you've considered user research and user centred design as useful.

I'd suggest, before posting a request for user research contributions that a discussion happens about what possible priorities are.

Pre-research, or scoping, if you like.

It is possible for time and finite resources being used up on, possibly interesting, but unhelpful areas.

The involvement and input of core/regular contributors is really important so I appreciate your commitments and clarity on your personal interests. This already gives useful direction.

There are some decisions to be made, and it's better they are taken collectively - contributors, users.

I'd like to suggest at the next Forgejo call that this could be discussed. When will this happen?

Or if a call is not scheduled soon, maybe it could be a organised for a time on Matrix?

What are people's thoughts on this?

Give me a 👍 for yes, or 👎 for no.

I must also apologise for the delay in replying, I've been dealing with some family things for the past few weeks.

Hello all, and thanks to @dachary for including me on the discussion. I'm glad you've considered user research and user centred design as useful. I'd suggest, before posting a request for user research contributions that a discussion happens about what possible priorities are. Pre-research, or scoping, if you like. It is possible for time and finite resources being used up on, possibly interesting, but unhelpful areas. The involvement and input of core/regular contributors is really important so I appreciate your commitments and clarity on your personal interests. This already gives useful direction. There are some decisions to be made, and it's better they are taken collectively - contributors, users. I'd like to suggest at the next Forgejo call that this could be discussed. When will this happen? Or if a call is not scheduled soon, maybe it could be a organised for a time on Matrix? What are people's thoughts on this? Give me a 👍 for yes, or 👎 for no. I must also apologise for the delay in replying, I've been dealing with some family things for the past few weeks.

earl-warren commented 2023年10月21日 12:55:52 +02:00

@ei8fdb there are no calls in Forgejo. It happened last year but was abandoned about six month ago. Organizing a call for that specific topic seems a good idea.

@ei8fdb there are no calls in Forgejo. It happened last year but was abandoned about six month ago. Organizing a call for that specific topic seems a good idea.

ei8fdb commented 2023年10月21日 14:06:06 +02:00

@earl-warren

@ei8fdb there are no calls in Forgejo. It happened last year but was abandoned about six month ago. Organizing a call for that specific topic seems a good idea.

Ok good to know thanks.

How about I make a poll to see what days people are available and I'll post it here?

@earl-warren >@ei8fdb there are no calls in Forgejo. It happened last year but was abandoned about six month ago. Organizing a call for that specific topic seems a good idea. Ok good to know thanks. How about I make a poll to see what days people are available and I'll post it here?

earl-warren commented 2023年10月21日 14:29:57 +02:00

Good idea 👍

Good idea 👍

Ghost commented 2023年10月21日 14:33:13 +02:00

From the discussions I had in the past I did not get any negative feedback. Not an overwhelmingly positive feedback either. That confirms my impression that this first round of user research should be an opportunity for people involved in creating or maintaining Forgejo to learn about what it means and how it can be useful.

From the discussions I had in the past I did not get any negative feedback. Not an overwhelmingly positive feedback either. That confirms my impression that this first round of user research should be an opportunity for people involved in creating or maintaining Forgejo to learn about what it means and how it can be useful.

ei8fdb commented 2023年10月21日 15:37:01 +02:00

OK, here is the poll link:

https://saneux.ei8fdb.org/apps/polls/s/NvOhIvas

As I'm not sure of user locations, timezones, etc, to make it as flexible I've made the options afternoon, and evening - e.g. Monday 14:00-18:00, Monday 19:00-21:00, etc. The poll timezone is UTC+1.

Once we get an idea of the best option we can then fix a time.

You're welcome to share this poll with whomever you'd like to attend.

OK, here is the poll link: https://saneux.ei8fdb.org/apps/polls/s/NvOhIvas As I'm not sure of user locations, timezones, etc, to make it as flexible I've made the options afternoon, and evening - e.g. Monday 14:00-18:00, Monday 19:00-21:00, etc. The poll timezone is UTC+1. Once we get an idea of the best option we can then fix a time. You're welcome to share this poll with whomever you'd like to attend.

ei8fdb commented 2023年10月23日 20:35:19 +02:00

The most chosen option for this user research call was: tomorrow Tuesday 24th, between 19:00 and 21:00 UTC +1.

If there are no objections, I will suggest 19:00. If you do object, please propose an alternative time tomorrow.

Is there a preferred web conf tool?

The most chosen option for this user research call was: tomorrow Tuesday 24th, between 19:00 and 21:00 UTC +1. If there are no objections, I will suggest 19:00. If you do object, please propose an alternative time tomorrow. Is there a preferred web conf tool?

Ghost commented 2023年10月23日 21:39:11 +02:00

No preference, if you have a suggestion it would be great.

No preference, if you have a suggestion it would be great.

ei8fdb commented 2023年10月23日 22:48:36 +02:00

No preference, if you have a suggestion it would be great.

I can suggest my web conf instance. I've created a link.

Date

Tuesday 24 October

Time

19:00 UTC +1

Location

https://saneux.ei8fdb.org/call/a57mzvh9

(One thing to note: it can usually host 6-7 participants comfortably, but it would be good to have a back-up for future.)

> No preference, if you have a suggestion it would be great. I can suggest my web conf instance. I've created a link. ## Date Tuesday 24 October ## Time 19:00 UTC +1 ## Location https://saneux.ei8fdb.org/call/a57mzvh9 (One thing to note: it can usually host 6-7 participants comfortably, but it would be good to have a back-up for future.)

earl-warren commented 2023年10月25日 13:09:10 +02:00

https://codeberg.org/org/forgejo/teams/userresearch was created and people added. If you want to be included, please speak up.

forgejo/governance#39 is the corresponding documentation of the team in the governance repository.

https://codeberg.org/org/forgejo/teams/userresearch was created and people added. If you want to be included, please speak up. https://codeberg.org/forgejo/governance/pulls/39 is the corresponding documentation of the team in the governance repository.

earl-warren commented 2024年04月29日 18:25:39 +02:00

@ei8fdb you may be interested in this grant application draft: it has a strong focus on User Research. @fnetX moved forward in the past weeks and that could help keep it going for the years to come.

• Discussion #144 (comment)
• Grant application draft https://pad.gusted.xyz/aOKqNgHJSFmAbMEvo8fXKg

@ei8fdb you may be interested in this grant application draft: it has a strong focus on User Research. @fnetX moved forward in the past weeks and that could help keep it going for the years to come. * Discussion https://codeberg.org/forgejo/discussions/issues/144#issuecomment-1791323 * Grant application draft https://pad.gusted.xyz/aOKqNgHJSFmAbMEvo8fXKg

fnetX commented 2024年07月07日 21:45:51 +02:00

Since user research happened and there are more recent discussions about how to move forward (from the current state), I'll archive this discussion.

Since user research happened and there are more recent discussions about how to move forward (from the current state), I'll archive this discussion.