[UX] Adding devices from discovery listing is opaque

[Mark Shuttleworth]

The device discovery in MAAS is great, but adding devices to MAAS from the discovery page is opaque and difficult. The dropdown arrow at the far right of the listing is NOT an effective way to open the form, it is hard to spot and does not fit any conventional pattern.

Perhaps the device names should be links which open that form. Certainly, the discovered items should appear to be clickable.

[Maria Vrachni (m-vrachnis)]

We have already identified this issue and a bug has been filed: https://bugs.launchpad.net/maas/+bug/1652301

The proposed interaction is to open the row/form on (single) click.

[Blake Rouse (blake-rouse)]

Maria,

Single click on the whole row does not work. It causes to many accidental clicks and causes issues on touch screens when scrolling. I think a link on the name of the discovered device would work much better as the link will show that it is clickable. A single click on a row that has no indicator that its clickable does not really work.

- Blake

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Agree, let's make the name a link. I think it's OK for a link to open up
a form in-place.

Mark

[Maria Vrachni (m-vrachnis)]

While the click on the name definitely works, I am still in favour of the single click on the entire row for a couple of reasons:

1. Consistency: Currently in MAAS a click on a name (e.g. a machine name, subnet, fabric etc) takes the user to the page of the entity. The user will have the same expectation in any place in the application, and we would introduce an inconsistency in behaviour.

2. Accessibility: According to the accessibility requirements, a link should take a user to a destination.

We've prototyped both options to verify wether the touch issue is a problem and it doesn't appear to be from our prototype:

- On mobile there is a dedicated 'Add device' button so it's not a problem.

- On tablet we could scroll and click without accidentally opening the card.

So from an interaction perspective our preference would be to click on the row (option 2).

Prototypes are here:

1. Click on the name to open the form (lp:~ricgard/maas/bug-1661579-mk2)

2. Single click on row to open form (lp:~ricgard/maas/bug-1661579)

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

On 08/02/17 09:44, Maria Vrachni wrote:
> So from an interaction perspective our preference would be to click on
> the row (option 2).

I gave you specific feedback that clicking on the row was not
sufficiently discoverable, please act on that feedback.

Mark