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SEE ALSO: NotificationSystem

Tell me about it

A way to tell Launchpad users about new features and changes to features directly in the web UI and close to where those features crop-up.

On Launchpad: hyperlink to a blueprint, normally

As a Launchpad user
I want Launchpad to tell me when something that interests me has been changed or added to either edge or production
so that I can make the most of what Launchpad has to offer, without having to subscribe to some other resource, such as a mailing list or blog.

This is not a replacement for the Launchpad blog but rather a lightweight way to highlight changes near to or where they occur in the web UI. Neither is this a way to notify Launchpad users of activity within Launchpad, such as a comment on a bug, that is of interest to them.

Rationale

Why are we doing this now?

Three reasons:

• Our strategy of bridging the gap is leading us to change and features in response to the needs of Ubuntu and related upstream projects. This strategy will be less successful if our target users don't know about those features.
• We want to encourage people to test beta features on Edge. By highlighting such features in the UI where they occur, we make it easy for people to find and use them.
• We are moving to releasing features when they are ready, rather than making monthly code releases. This makes release announcements even less appropriate than they are now. Successful web applications, such as Gmail or Remember the Milk, combine a notice in the application's web UI with a link to some source of further detail, such as a blog post.

What value does this give our users? Which users?

Broadly, it makes obvious whichever improvements are announced.

Stakeholders

Who really cares about this feature? When did you last talk to them?

• Matthew Revell -- me
• Bjorn -- last week
• Martin Pool -- via a discussion on the -dev mailing list last year

Constraints

What MUST the new behaviour provide?

• A web UI to add and disable notifications.
• The ability to target notifications to a certain feature or types of user, perhaps by choosing a sub-domain, page or set of pages on which to display the notice.
• The ability for a user to dismiss the notification. * Optionally link through to a web page.

What MUST it not do?

• Make page loads noticeably slower.
• Get in the way of people's work.

Subfeatures

n/a

Workflows

What are the workflows for this feature? Provide mockups for each workflow.

You do not have to get the mockups and workflows right at this point. In fact, it is better to have several alternatives, delaying deciding on the final set of workflows until the last responsible moment.

Success

How will we know when we are done?

We will know we are done when a member of the Launchpad team can use a web UI to make and remove a short, time-boxed, announcement, to appear on a specific page or set of pages on either production, edge or both, that each Launchpad user can dismiss.

How will we measure how well we have done?

Uptake of the features announced.

Mockup

Thoughts?

This could be a general purposes announcement system for communicating with Launchpad users. For example, it could be a good way to announce impending down-time or other service-affecting issues. It seems likely that this particular use-case would not require any addditional work.