Register a project suggests searching first, even though I was led here by the search page!

[Andrew Bennetts]

From the front page I searched for a project. The search result page said "No projects matching “xyzzy” were found.", and also said "If the project you are looking for isn't here, go ahead and register it yourself!" and offered a link to do just that. So far so good.

That link then gives me a page that prominently tells me to search first before I register a project. Launchpad is giving me inconsistent advice: on the search page it tells me to register the project, but on the register project page it tells me to search! Launchpad should make up its mind :)

[Marius Gedminas (mgedmin)]

It's 1 AM, and I want to register a project. I go to the front page, type the project name in the helpful "Is your project already registered?" search box, hit search, see it's not, click the big friendly "Register a project" button.

I end up in a big confusing page full of text and links. There's a search button in the middle. It's not obvious how to continue with the registration, especially at 1 AM. I don't want to read all that text. I see only two action-implying buttons on that page: one says "request a Ubuntu CD" (what's *that* doing on the "register a project" page???), the other is a "go" button next to some text box. I type in the name of my project (again) in to that text box, click the button, and am redirected back to the same search page with no results but with the large friendly "register a project" button. Finally I see a "Move on to the registration form." link at the very bottom.

I hope this story will help you improve the usability of this part of launchpad.

[Andrew Bennetts (spiv)]

This bug is still there. In fact, the situation has gotten *worse* since I first reported this: it's harder to even discover how to register a project (the search box on the front page no longer leads there).

The current situation is now (as evidenced by what I just did a moment ago when attempting to register a project):

 * go to front page of Launchpad
 * enter my project name in the search box
 * get an empty search results page with no links suggesting what to try next. "Oh."
 * go back to the front page
 * look for a "register project" button on the front page. "Hmm, not there."
 * spot the "Start here" links buried at the bottom-left. What are these links for? If I'm a "People or Teams" should I start by visting that link? I take a guess that I should click "Projects"
 * I'm now at <https://launchpad.net/projects>
 * Still no "register your project" link/button. Ok, put my project name in the search box.
 * Now I'm at <https://launchpad.net/projects/+index?text=myproject>. Ah-hah, here's that big friendly green "Register a Project" button. Great! I'm in business. I click it.
 * Oh wait, I'm not there yet after all. Now I'm at <https://staging.launchpad.net/projects/+new-guided>. Let's break out of listing bullet points to take a moment to examine what's wrong with this page in this context:

First, there's a couple of prominent bullets on this page to divert users that want to test drive Launchpad to somewhere more appropriate. That makes sense, and that's fine.

Then, I'm asked "Is the project already registered?". *I just searched for it*. In fact, this is new project, it *definitely* does not exist in Launchpad. Trust me. This page offers me a search box that leads me *back* <https://launchpad.net/projects/+index?text=myproject>. That is extraordinarily useless and frustrating.

Then there's another bit of text to try divert misdirected shipit users. Fair enough.

Finally, a bullet that breaks style by having *no bold black text* is at the bottom such that I miss it the first couple of times I scan the page, even though it contains exactly the thing I'm looking for: a link (why not a button?) to the registration form.

Oh yeah, and the project name I've already entered a couple of times into Launchpad's UI? It's been forgotten, and I have to type it in *again*.

Proposed solution:

I suggest that a combined search-and-registration wizard, like the guided bug reporting wizard, would be much a better destination for that "Register a project" button. And it should start with the contents of the search I just did. I'm happy to sketch this out screen by screen if it's not obvious enough from my comments so far.

[Andrew Bennetts (spiv)]

Also, it's been over two months and this bug is still New/Undecided, and apparently unlooked at. I'll happily bump it up to Critical if that's what it takes to get it some attention.

[Andrew Bennetts (spiv)]

Sorry, my arithmetic was wrong. Make that “over *three* months”.

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

We need to discuss the UI and workflow with Martin. This may be a simple UI change, but I would like to evaluate this problem in the context of "it should be easy to setup a project in Launchpad". I suspect the story goes something like

As a user
I want to register a project from starting from the front page,
So that I can easily start using launchpad.

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

This bug is just about messages. The instructions must be clear regardless of how the user came to the new project pages. The project registration process will be changed in 2009, and the bigger issue of how new projects are created will be addressed.

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

Fixed in RF 7497.

[Curtis Hovey (sinzui)]

Fix released in Launchpad 2.2.1.