*Unity Usability Feedback

A document to track and build on together specific usability issues you might
have with *Unity.
All the input from your use will give the OAE Design Team a clear understanding of the
problems and a way to move towards solving them.
What were you trying to achieve?:
1.
2.
3.

What happened which you didnt expect?:

Your expectation (for example from another app):
Interested in trying out a prototype solution with Sam? (If so please put your name
down):

From Shweta:

Following are my suggestions keeping in mind previous comments. Sorry for my long
comment, but it is to reduce notifications in your inbox.

1. My Profile:
a) Ideally we should not provide the option to edit the primary email ID as it is
the institutional ID facilitating single sign on. However, if we do allow to edit
it, we should ensure it is not already in use by another account.
b) We could introduce a new page (/me/profile) to record fields like education,
work experience, position, institution/organization, location, email, phone
number, research interests, publications etc. as it adds up to the academic
portfolio of the individual. This information should be displayed when you
visit somebody's profile before you proceed to follow a person. Also, it might
help us in our future C&S efforts. So when you navigate to a user, you should
be navigated to User Profile page (new feature) instead of user's library page.

2. Notifications:
a) OAE Notifications - The red favicon should be replaced with number of
notifications in gray background (that will be less annoying). Additionally, all
notifications should be on by default. But every discussion, document, group
activity etc. should have the option to Turn off/on notifications of which you
are a member. The notifications should automatically update based on user
action.
b) Email notifications - There could be preference of "None" included or some
other way to unsubscribe from all emails. Email notifications are set to default
settings in profile, but there should be a way to subscribe/unsubscribe to a
particular discussion, document, group activity etc. of which you are a
member.

3. Discussions:

a) Long titles in discussions are cropped and it is best we provide a mouseover

tooltip as a quick way to view the full title rather than clicking on the about
icon.
b) The discussion icon on the top of the discussion can be replaced with the
person's picture who started the discussion.
c) Option to delete and edit a comment should be there and user should be
able to delete/edit their comment and not have this privilege on other user's
comments.
d) Every discussion should have toggle feature to turn on/off OAE notification
to override the original setting.
e) Every discussion should have toggle feature to turn on/off email updates to
override the original setting.

4. Documents:
a) User should be able to delete their comment only and not have this privilege
on other user's comments.
b) Edit option for comments should be introduced.
c) Chat facility, really helps to collaborate on documents and avoids
unnecessary comments being recorded.
d) Authorship colors do not indicate color mapping to authors. In Fact, users
can confuse this with the colors of the users on that pad.
e) Every document should have toggle feature to turn on/off OAE notification
to override the original setting.
f) Every document should have toggle feature to turn on/off email updates to
override the original setting.

5. Privacy:
a) Individual Privacy settings are not present. Although we are promoting
collaboration, should we still provide the option to block people/groups in the
*Unity space? Once blocked, that person/group should no longer be able to
start any kind of collaboration with you.
b) We are promoting *Unity as a platform for collaboration between
organizations and institutions in the *Unity space. It enables you to get your
work done. PP and T&C are missing and they should emphasize this point so
that Unity does not lose its essence.

6. Search:
a) Search can be refined by: People, Groups, Content, Folders and
Discussions. A further option can be added to sort results by: Relevance, Own
Institution, Date added, Country.
b) Advanced search can be added which includes further options to filter by:
Tenancy name, Owner name, Date added, Country etc.
c) Auto suggester can be added based on relevance.

7. Group:
a) If group is public, additional option can be: join group (to become a
member) | Leave group
b) If group is private, additional option can be: Request to join group (to
become a member) | Leave group (if already a member of private group)
c) Every group should have toggle feature to turn on/off OAE notification to
override the original setting.
d) Every group should have toggle feature to turn on/off email updates to
override the original setting.

8. Library:
a) Content shared specifically with me are visible in My Library. But if
content is shared with a group of which I am a member, then that content is
not present in my library. It is only present in the library of the group. Should
all content to which I have access be listed in my library?
b) There should be an option to filter results based on groups, network,
tenancy, date added, favorite etc.
c) There should be a provision to mark content as favorite and to archive
content.

9. Comments:
Comments are plain text atm. We can extend the functionality to be able to
insert links and upload files along with a comment. Would have hugely helped
Jordan to post the problem in the comment itself.

10. SSO:
a) Sign Out button should have a mouseover tooltip (Sign out) to confirm that
it is the sign out link.
b) Username password should be displayed only when it is being used in a
tenancy and should be accompanied by forgot password link.

11. Help:
a) Presently there is no documentation on the use of OAE. There should be at
least a basic text documentation of getting started.
b) Introduction of Report a problem link will allow users not only to report
bugs but even translation errors saving us time. Report a problem can be
further broken down into: Report a bug | Feedback | Abusive content |
Translation errors | Report Downtime etc.
From William after talking to managers on the 22nd
Positivity around working collaboratively on documents in small groups and replacing email
for this from Tom. General idea that *Unity works powerfully for working with lots of small
groups. Big groups can generate too much traffic in the activity stream that's not relevant.

Technical team already have their collaborative tool (Jira) and the developers want to get
their heads down and not be distracted. Steve thinks *Unity will be more compelling when
we have inline annotations.
Lots of issues around notifications and the desire to separate the wheat from the chaff. As a
result, I have un-shared the main source of traffic (this document) with the all *R Staff group.
My suggestion of an additional notification option of three times a day (8am, 1pm, 6pm) was
popular.
There have been two instances where material has accidentally been shared outside our
tenancy due to user confusion. It could be embarrassing so taken seriously. Once choosing
the green logo as the share option. Once commenting on a discussion that was shared with
another tenancy (the User Group one) and therefore had a blue logo just like our private
documents do. Suggestions: a variant of the blue logo (eg with a red stripe) to be displayed
when the tenancy is not your home tenancy; a warning when you are about to share
something with people outside your tenancy, as with Google Apps (though there are multiple
interface occurrences of this, which could make implementation tricky).
Editorial experimenting with using Unity for copy flow. Positive at this point for several
reasons:
Keeps a record of versions
Easier to organise
Inline commenting not used much
Can organise better than email, eg with a group for Research Fortnight.
Lack of spell checker seen as problem, though there turns out to be one.
Fops and others interested in using for a Wiki. Main issue seems to be links (displaying
text not URLs) and inserting images.
We need to establish some guidelines (which I will start to draft).