Swimlane feedback Helena: cluster issues and overall usability feedback
We had a longer Zoom meeting with Helena and she was sharing a bit of her impressions working with the new and old swimlane und I think we should consider her feedback. First, because she is using the swimlane intensly for the labeling process with wizai. Second, she first went through a detailed annotation process with the previous version of the swimlane and now again with the vortanz version.
I already tried to translate some of the feedback into more concrete issues. But the rest of the feedback requires maybe a bit more discussion.
Although she didn't say it like that, it seems as if working with the previous swimlane version was a bit more convenient for her. But she also framed a lot as her personal preference and also mentioned that she just got used to few things.
She is mostly struggling with the annotation clusters. For her it seems to be very difficult to find the right zoom level. When she has zoomed in to see each annotation and then adds a new annotation which is a bit too "close" to an existing one, they immediatley build a new cluster and she first has to zoom in again to keep on working (e.g. to rearrange the new annotation etc.).
**Compared to the previous version the clusters makes it also more difficult for her to get an overview because the cluster is hermetic. **Since she has quite a few annotations in her videos which are pretty close to each other, there are often more or less 1-3 larger "hermetic" clusters with only a few single annotations.
We've been looking more closly at the density lane together with her and she thinks it's helpful to get the overview, close to the overview provided by the previous swimlane. But on the other hand, there is no preview for the annotations and you can't select them in the density lane(s), so she recognised that it does not exactly do what she is looking for (or missing compared to the previous version).
I was referring to performance issues with the previous swimlane version, but Helena has quite the opposite experience: from the overall user experience the previous version was more fluent (might also be related to video playback and buffering, see also #1830). However, Christian and I were wondering how big the difference really is between rendering a density lane and making the annotations "available" (preview, select, move etc.)?
In terms of overview she sort of preferred that the annotations in the previous version were all rendered in one lane as grey dots and bars (partly overlapping and creating sort of a density vizualisation as well). The advantage she sees is the slim and dense layout of each lane, which also helps to get an overview when you have several users. As mentioned above, the new density lanes partly offers a similar overview but not exactly. Form her point of view, it was better that annotations with and without duration were rendered in the same lane when it was collapsed. In the vortanz version you can't compare the lanes of 2 or more users if they used ranged annotations (except in the multi user density lane). On the other hand, the expanded waterfall version is also not a perfect solution from my (david) point of view.
Last but not least she mentioned that she personally preferred the small grey dots and slim bars, also in terms of overview, while the triangles appear a bit clumpsy to her (the density lanes seemd more appealing to her compared to the normal annotation lane in the vortanz version). Here I have to mention, that there is a difference in regard to mobile use and there was also some negative feedback regarding the dots in the previous version in terms of precision. I also mentioned this in the exchange with Helena and she can understand both aspects and again emphasised that she got quite used to the previous version and that it might be her personal preference. I (david) can also imagine that some of the "clumpsy" feeling comes from her issues with the clusters. At the same time I have to agree that the annotations and lanes could look a bit slimmer and more compact.
@maximilian.mittermei: just sharing it in this form for now. I think the clusters are somehow the most critical usability issue that should be addressed (maybe with a new issue). Other aspects could be discussed.