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Bugzilla UI – help needed

Take a look here or here.

Try to find out what would you change to make this form cleaner. Imagine that you can’t take any field out, you can only reorganize the layout. The form must be in HTML. You can apply some JS but not too much (it must be accessible for people who doesn’t use JS)

I’m working on redesign of this page and I can use some help for sure. I’d love to get feedback from people working around Usability on a daily basis. If you know such person or you’re such person, please help me!

12 replies on “Bugzilla UI – help needed”

Enjoy working with information architecture and
hardly use javascript. XHTML and CSS.

Don’t mind helping out with this.

Just looking at it might be a bit overwhelming to figure out
how to use the form properly for the target audience.

Comparing the bugzilla interface(?) with this layout (http://diary.e-gandalf.net/) makes me want to shout: Reduce the outlines! (or borders if you want).

I have a whole load of ideas, but with the look on this site I belive you are more then capable to handel this.

Not having any exposure to Bugzilla prior to contributing to the Flock community (and therefore not having any preconceived notions), both seem well laid out to me. I’d be happy to volunteer to be a guinea pig, if you’d like 🙂

Find the most common usages of bugzilla search and optimize for them. The goal IMHO is to reduce scrolling and clicking.

I use bugzilla search only for “find a duplicate”, “what bugs were fixed between date A and date B”, “show me the bugs changed in the last 24h”. So I don’t care for all the fields except very fiew ones.

Scary page! 😉

1. deconstruct into the smallest peices
2. define a new task flow
3. re-construct

I’d called it “Detailed search” and not Advanced search. This may have the wrong connotations for many, setting them off on the wrong foot.
Visually, there needs to be titles for each section.
Varing font sizes will give visual cues to importance.
Maybe number the steps down the page.
Indent information which is subordinate to that above it.
Keep a single simple flow vertically.
Remove drop downs and change them to elements that can be seen without touching…radios
Build in some logic defaults..e.g. if you choose win95 first then default to PC (or better – Windows computer)…depends what this question is really for…is it Intel/not, Apple/not?
Remove any such extraneous (marketing) info if at all possible.
Band and color code the page horizontally whilst the workflow remains vertical.
Those tabs at the top could either be combined into one page or decreased in width so that actually can be visually cued as tabs…
Use whitespace to separate content not “HR lines”.
Move all buttons to the bottom righthand corner of the information the are referrring to.
Place help link 200x200px windows beside each field (?) rather than one big help page.

S’all for now off the top of my head – drop me a line for more if you need it – and keep up the great work 😉

One thing that puzzles me on a regular basis is “which of the two search buttons should I click?”.

Note that the advanced boolean charts don’t have a search button anymore, too.

Is it search, find, query? And where is it which?

Searching for flags is painful, right?

Once you’re heading to the AJAX side of things, hide reasonable defaults. The UI should just blend over from specific to advanced, IMHO.

Thnx for your tips!
First, I want to say that, yes, I’m going to hide most widgets by default and add ability to expand them (persisting). But first I want to clear the “maximum” view. And this is where I need your help!

How to group fields, what form object should be used for which field? (where select, where input etc.), maybe you have an idea on how to merge some HTML objects without loosing feature set?

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