CUNY Academic Commons

Based on our meeting last Friday, I have a few questions.

1. I'd love for us to get some clarity and consensus on in regards to the usage and key features of Groups and Sites individually and the Group-Site combination.
=> I've created a Google doc so we can collaborate to answer these questions. Please go here to add / adjust: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oMC8PmbwOCpuTXSEwqFrKlrOlcdn7CN-HBhHfP9Wi_0/edit?usp=sharing

2. Additionally, I'd love to get any further thoughts you might have had since the meeting on what we want to call the Group+Site combination on the portal page and what copy we might want to use to introduce this.

3. Regarding the Campus selector discussion. What do we want the two additional options to be? The following came up during the meeting, but I'd like to get a little more clarity if those will work: "n/a" and "CUNY-wide".

4. Tooltips to explain what the Campus and Purpose selectors are for. I added a section in the Google doc (linked above) to add some verbiage for those tooltips.

I'm currently working on implementing the other changes we discussed.
Thanks for your input and feedback on this!

Hi Sonia-- thanks so much for this!!! Looking forward to digging in, and apologies for the lack of response. We've all been starting the semester here over the past two weeks, which is always a crazy time. Laurie and I have budgeted time to review, and will get you feedback by end of next week.

Luke Waltzer wrote:

Hi Sonia-- thanks so much for this!!! Looking forward to digging in, and apologies for the lack of response. We've all been starting the semester here over the past two weeks, which is always a crazy time. Laurie and I have budgeted time to review, and will get you feedback by end of next week.

Thanks Luke and no worries. I totally understand! Thanks for the context.

Hi Sonja,
thanks as well for putting this together. Some of my comments on the word doc you made with questions don't appear to have saved so I added some of them back in. Right now it looks like I'm the only one who wrote on that so I would hope that there are some other people who can add their input and voices to that.

In terms of the Academic Term I think almost all campuses do use Fall/Winter/Spring/Summer terminology. LaGuardia is different because they only use Fall and Spring but have two sessions of each that roughly overlap with the four sessions (Fall Session 1 = Fall, Fall Session 2 = Winter, Spring Session 1 = Spring, Spring Session 2 = Summer). I don't know if their faculty or students would be confused without the session options. On the other hand it might be confusing to have Fall, Fall Session 1, Fall Session 2 etc options. Changing the display options based on campus selection may be best from a user perspective.

I'm not sure if students are able to register for multiple semesters at the same time (maybe in the grad programs?). Would it be simplest to just advise teachers to change the term of the course site as the term changes?

For Enable Group Site, I would agree that this would not be needed if they chose the Group/Site option.

The other question is whether we should still have it if they just chose Create a Group at the start? If it is included should it have a link to the interstitial Group+Site explanation page or some other kind of explanation?

-Chris

Hi All,

Luke & Laurie here reporting back with some thoughts on the site group creation portal.

The first page looks good, though we might want to discuss developing some consistent language for how we talk about the group-site, perhaps calling it a "linked group-site" throughout the process.

The intermitten page might be done away with and replaced by succinct language on the first page about the reasons for the linked group-site option. This language could appear in the green box and highlight the power of a linked group-site to:

- Automate notifications of new site content to all group-site users
    - Facilitate emailing group-site members
    - Provide spaces with differing privacy controls that are also automatically linked and accessible to one another

During the Linked Group-Site creation process:

- We may want to move "Group photo" to the 3rd step in the process, followed by "Group Site" since the photo is only related to the group and would make more sense to follow the group settings step (#2)

- On the "group-site" page, it would be less confusing to have create a new site as default on top and "add to existing site" as the other option below.

- Right now there are confirm pages for a group and a site but not for a linked group-site. It might be best if there was also a 3rd type of confirmation for the creation of a group-site that provide both links to the site (new or existing) and the group.

- The differing privacy controls and language for the group versus the site is confusing and needs clarification. This might be a good opportunity to highlight difference in "public" vs private spaces. We may also want to think about the language here as member roles are for the group and users roles are for the site, but this isn't entirely clear. And in the group-site creation page, it appears that group language is used (member options instead of user roles).

General question: when would be an appropriate time to talk about labeling and language throughout these processes? For example, after the site creation, it allows users to go to the site but also suggests that they can sign in as themselves to create content. This is confusing because to get to this page at all, they would be signed in anyway. Example below and at the end of page 5:

"Your site details

https://uxtesting1.commons.gc.cuny.edu is your new site. Log in as “sonjaleix” using your existing password to start publishing content."

Looking forward to discussing more next week.

Thanks!

Matt,
While the task force is working on the copy and options for the site/group portal and creation pages, can you please also discuss the new 'Discipline' selector. Which options should be in there and could you confirm if this should be a single or multi-selector?

As well as discuss Group Member Options based on our discussion during the meeting – copy and potentially defining a different default when a user selects 'Course' as the primary purpose.

Thanks!

Hi Sonja -- yes , we are working on:

Disciplinary Clusters
Primary Purpose Options
Default Member/Users Roles
Group/site Creation Portal copy

Thanks, Sonja.

On p3, I thought we were eliminating Member Options and what's below it. Instead, we'll silently set defaults, and the admin can change the settings later. Does that match others' recollections?

During the Group + Site creation flow, do we still want to pre-select the same Campus and Primary Purpose options for the Site as the user has selected for the group in an earlier step?

At the very least, we should pre-select. IMO, we should eliminate altogether, and assume that they're the same. In what case would a linked group and site have different purpose, campus, etc?

Boone Gorges wrote:

Thanks, Sonja.

On p3, I thought we were eliminating Member Options and what's below it. Instead, we'll silently set defaults, and the admin can change the settings later. Does that match others' recollections?

During the Group + Site creation flow, do we still want to pre-select the same Campus and Primary Purpose options for the Site as the user has selected for the group in an earlier step?

At the very least, we should pre-select. IMO, we should eliminate altogether, and assume that they're the same. In what case would a linked group and site have different purpose, campus, etc?

@Matt, can you please respond to the above question / proposal from Boone. I don't recall a clear consensus on this from the meeting, but Boone's proposal would make most sense from my side too. This would eliminate redundant options in the UI if the assumptions above are correct.

Sharing a link to the discussion of the latest wireframes (rev 2) that Krystyna has started in the Commons Team group for reference here: https://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/cac-community-team-project-planning/forum/topic/notes-on-new-wireframes/

Looks good to me. thanks, Sonja!

Fantastic! I don't see any needed revisions.

Boone,
the designs are approved and I just added it to Zeplin for you.
Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, Sonja.

Ray, https://app.zeplin.io/project/5c92695a14906306965f02d1/screen/5c983af4a2de905baa261d74 defines the styles for the portal page.

I've implemented the main site/group creation portal from the wireframes Sonja created on the development site: https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/67c18036178a7048db793d9d053d025e00daa5fd

Those of you that want to test out the page can do so over there. The page is located at /create/. If you need instructions on how to access the development site, ping either myself or Boone.

Boone, do we have to switch out the Groups > Create a Group link in the admin bar with the new portal link? Or do we want to remove that link altogether and add a new link somewhere else?

Looks great, Ray!

I'm done with most parts as well. The main remaining chunk is the Courses integration - when you select Teaching as a primary purpose, the Course object must be spun up. I'm tracking this task in #11257.

Boone, do we have to switch out the Groups > Create a Group link in the admin bar with the new portal link? Or do we want to remove that link altogether and add a new link somewhere else?

I believe that we were going to swap the URL of the existing Create a Group and Create a Site links - in the toolbar and at the top of group/site directories - so that they go to the new Create page. Sonja, can you confirm?

Let's hold off on broad team testing for now. Later this weekend or first thing next week, I may ask Colin and Sonja to have a first pass through to look for major missing items. I want to make sure we've caught most things before we ask others to spend too much time with it.

Thanks all! Getting close.

Hi Sonja,

1. The CTA button style isn't quite right. They shouldn't have a border or box-shadow and the default bg-color should be bright blue (#0D9ED3), on hover they can change to orange (#E27640)

You caught me! :) I was trying to reuse styles from Social Paper's "Create Paper" button since that already uses a similar button and color scheme. I can use the styles from your wireframes if you want. Let me know.

Maybe you can try export the vector file to SVG and I hope you have better luck.

I was able to generate the SVG without any weird remnants, but the filesize is also 2x as big! I used Inkscape to convert the AI file. You can take a look at the new SVG on the dev site. You might need to purge your browser cache though.

Hi all - I believe I've finished most of my work. Sonja, if you've got time before you're out of office, it would be great to get you to run through the primary scenarios to catch problems. The 'Create' links at the top of /groups/ and /sites/ point to the new /create/ page, as do the 'Create a Site' and 'Create a Group' submenu items in the upper-right toolbar. Once at Create, try creating each of the three types of items. Then have a look at the Manage section of the group, and Dashboard > Settings > General of the site (be sure to add the site's subdomain to your /etc/hosts file) to check for editing.

If you won't have time to look before going out of office - it's short notice, I know! - then Ray will have to address anything we've missed once you're back, and I'm away (April 5-16).

Sorry, brief follow-up with a couple of things I meant to flag above:

- On the Add Site step of Group + Site creation, the Campus + Purpose etc fields are reproduced in the Site Details section, as per the mockups. IMO, this is redundant - we shouldn't have them here at all, since the values can be inferred from what was entered during the first step of group creation. But since they're in the comps, I added them. It wasn't indicated that the default values should match what was entered in step 1. If we're going to leave the fields here (which I'm against) we should, at the least, give them the proper defaults.

- Same step, near the bottom, there's a "Click here for more about WordPress member roles" link. Does this page exist yet? I'll need the URL once created.

Raymond Hoh wrote:

Hi Sonja,

1. The CTA button style isn't quite right. They shouldn't have a border or box-shadow and the default bg-color should be bright blue (#0D9ED3), on hover they can change to orange (#E27640)

You caught me! :) I was trying to reuse styles from Social Paper's "Create Paper" button since that already uses a similar button and color scheme. I can use the styles from your wireframes if you want. Let me know.

I'm ok to reuse that style since we'll get a chance to redesign and consolidate button styles during a bigger redesign project. But we'll definitely need a hover state for that button you've implemented! Please change the background color to #1e728c on hover

Maybe you can try export the vector file to SVG and I hope you have better luck.

I was able to generate the SVG without any weird remnants, but the filesize is also 2x as big! I used Inkscape to convert the AI file. You can take a look at the new SVG on the dev site. You might need to purge your browser cache though.

Thanks for exporting the SVG! That looks great!

Thanks, Sonja. I'll review.

Regarding this:

Couldn't review as I wasn't able to go to the site itself. Keeps redirecting to homepage.

You have to add the domain of the new site to your /etc/hosts file.

Some fixes/changes in response to Sonja's feedback:

Campus field: I really like the added rule of removing all campuses if someone then selects "not applicable". I wonder if we should do the same for "CUNY-wide" since it includes all. It wouldn't make sense to list "CUNY-wide, Brooklyn College, Hunter College".

Done in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/1f986b64eb906826c2ac0348d9c0a877820a0d3f

Required fields: I thought we agreed that Academic Term and Disciplinary Cluster should be required fields as well (these fields then need to be required in all places where they appear)

Done in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/1301633735d5244746b44cfbac77a4d58c4467b1

Settings screen: there are some inconsistencies when it comes to font color and such, it stems from the current implementation. If we can remove those additional styles and just make all text on these screens black, that would be ideal – this is a nice-to-have change

I made a bunch of text black in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/fb5f96364bf5830b8e5f0b0dbaf2488739a6dc87 - not sure if that covers it

Photo screen: This sentence needs to change to say "Finish button" so it makes sense "In this step you can... To skip the avatar upload process, click the Next Step button." (this can stay as is for the Group+Site flow since this screen will have a next step button, if we should make it uniform, we should change the wording so it works for both flows)

Done in https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/54b623507deda0fd3a3102afd0bc5fa3235ab750

Site Layout: the links to the demos are missing

The dev site was not fully configured with demo sites. I've put some dummy content in there.

I entered an invalid site name and the error message printed out weird, removed the header etc (see screenshot)

https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/00699abdf4102bc386466638ac9f33e859f35d35

I couldn't reproduce this:

I tried to save some changes to the group settings of a new group and I got an error page "This commons.gc.cuny.edu page can’t be found"

I'll hold out for feedback from team on the remaining items.

- On the Add Site step of Group + Site creation, the Campus + Purpose etc fields are reproduced in the Site Details section, as per the mockups. IMO, this is redundant - we shouldn't have them here at all, since the values can be inferred from what was entered during the first step of group creation. But since they're in the comps, I added them. It wasn't indicated that the default values should match what was entered in step 1. If we're going to leave the fields here (which I'm against) we should, at the least, give them the proper defaults.

Agreed! I don't think we made a final decision on this issue. Ideally we keep this simple for the user and we should infer the values from the Group. If that is not the goal, the next best option is to show the selection from the group as the pre-selected values in this step. Matt and Colin, we should make a decision about this soon.

I will connect with Matt about resolving this.

- Same step, near the bottom, there's a "Click here for more about WordPress member roles" link. Does this page exist yet? I'll need the URL once created.

This link was added after the last committee meeting when someone asked to have a way to review this information. I personally don't think it's specifically helpful here since we're not actually naming any of the user roles. But I think the wish voiced during the meeting was met with agreement if I remember correctly.

Here is the link: https://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/how-to-add-new-users-to-a-site/

Thanks, Colin! I've made the change to the URL. https://github.com/cuny-academic-commons/cac/commit/ffcac336c1ad95ce715d447553d028288fe882e6