GHOP #48: Act on findings in usability test reports

Type: Documentation UserInterface Usability
Author: b.rudge

Introduction:
This task doesn't require any coding skills. Usability sense is important. Patience and the ability to communicate and collaborate will be needed. There is an opportunity to learn to read and edit code, and create and apply patches for a willing student.

Context:
There is a lot of work happening in improving usability in drupal. Some of this work includes usability tests and reports. Each of these reports find many usability bugs. To keep these bugs from being lost and forgotten, as the reports move down lists of 'recent topics', it's important to store them in drupal's issue-tracking system. Drupal's issue tracking system is where drupal developers track progress and collectively remember outstanding issues that need to be resolved.

The Task:
This task will help usability in drupal by turning usability test findings in to actionable tasks.

How:
* Locate 1 extensive (or more if they are smaller) usability test report/s. (See issues 7 and 8. Also http://groups.drupal.org/node/7043 is an extensive report).
* Search thoroughly for existing issue nodes or patches addressing the issue. http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal http://www.google.com/search?q=foo&sitesearch=drupal.org/node
* If none is found, create a new issue node on drupal.org and suggest a solution to the issue. http://drupal.org/node/add/project-issue/drupal
* So that your effort is not duplicated by others, annotate, comment or otherwise mark the report with a link to the drupal.org issue you found or created.
* If the solution has already been discussed and consensus about the solution has been reached, test and review the most recently submitted patch. http://drupal.org/patch http://drupal.org/patch/review
* If no patch has been submitted but solution is trivial, (like changing help text, or minor tweaks to forms), fix the issue and submit a patch. (Opportunity to start learning to read code here!) http://drupal.org/patch/submit

There is not a lot to do for each issue, but there are many issues in every usability-test report. For example, Factory Joe's review has ~50 un-actioned actionable @TODOs, and about 20-30 more actioned issues. http://groups.drupal.org/node/7043 http://groups.drupal.org/node/7314

Deliverable:
The task is complete when all issues raised in the report/s have issue nodes on drupal.org, and at least one suggested solution, patch, or patch review.

Skills:
This task will teach you
* how to interact with an open source development community
* how source code and code-related tasks are managed
* usability sense, guidelines and tips
* some code editing skills

All of these are very valuable skills and assets to have, especially the online records of it (for job-searching and university applications).

Estimated time:
4 to 5 days.

Primary Contact:
Bevan Rudge http://drupal.geek.nz http://drupal.org/user/49989