Create a more obvious path from someone browsing a request to making their own request

[crowbot]

We'd like to experiment to see if this increases our ability to get people browsing the site to make their own requests (mysociety/alaveteli-experiments#33). Our placeholder idea for text for this is 'Make a request like this', but open to other suggestions. In general would be good to think about any revisions we might make to the request page to make it more helpful for someone arriving at the site for the first time. e.g. finding out what the site is, how to use it.

[MyfanwyNixon]

Perhaps stating the obvious, but to kick the discussion off:

Where we see:

[user name] made this Freedom of Information request to [authority name]

we could include a 'what is a Freedom of Information request?' callout or link to the beginner's guide at https://www.mysociety.org/2014/08/15/how-to-make-a-freedom-of-information-request-with-whatdotheyknow/ (without them having to leave the page).

You could also label each part of the correspondence a bit more explicitly: this is the request a member of the public made via this site; this is the automated reply from an authority; here's the actual information they received - not in those exact words, obviously, but a framing device that explains each communication.

People often link directly to the response itself, eg https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/331242/response/816738/attach/html/3/Response%20Letter%20001818.pdf.html, which currently includes the header "This is an HTML version of an attachment to the Freedom of Information request 'title'."

That could include a more explicit invitation to 'See this request in context' and also 'What is Freedom of Information?'.

As for your main question, 'make a request like this' seems good and succinct. I suppose another option is including both 'Ask for similar information from a different authority' and 'ask for different information from this authority'.

[crowbot]

A related addition would be a more obvious call for browsers to share a request on social media (we currently have a very discrete twitter link in the sidebar).

[wrightmartin]

I'm having a very initial look at this now, and my immediate thinking has lead me to look at the request page as a whole - there's a lot to it, and a lot we want people to do here. I've made a quick list and it's already long...

• Read the request
• Understand the FOI process
• Follow this request
• Make a new request
• Share this request
• Donate (soon)
• Be aware of AskTheEU
• Write to their MP
• Report it if it goes against our guidelines

There's a lot here and maybe we've got a bit of a noise problem. Maybe part of making the path to a new request more obvious is putting it in context of the request page as a whole. What's our priority here and how do we make it the priority for the user?

[wrightmartin]

^ fully aware it's like that because I designed it that way, don't be scared to call me out 😉

[wrightmartin]

Just following up on tickets - what are the next steps here?

[RichardTaylor]

I just want to throw in:

Make a request for a more up-to-date version of this information.
as a possible call suggesting people make their own requests.

Sometimes FOI responses might prompt a need for more requests so a call along the lines of: "Do you need to dig deeper?" might be appropriate somewhere too.

[wrightmartin]

Now part of #3336

[garethrees]

Request page wireframe

Action menus with various permissions

Request with attachments

[wrightmartin]

Here's the draft list of components. I've shown dependencies with indentations on the list

• Redesigned ‘requests like this’ section
• Redesigned request status badge
• Redesigned follow button
• Action menu - move actions to permission-based drop-down menu
  • Move ‘report this request’ to action menu
  • Move ‘follow this request’ to action menu
• Create your own request call to action
• Redesigned request element
  • Redesigned ‘link to this’ widget
  • Redesigned attachments display
  • ‘Download all’ attachments button
• Social share buttons

[garethrees]

Some questions/thoughts:

• The new share buttons don't really prompt the user on what to do.
  I think we should A/B test this. Facebook and Twitter are sort of obvious, but
  Medium and WTT are not as obvious from the icon alone.
  We could also try a JS popup thing like Collect ideas for raising the level of traffic and transactions on existing sites #2978 (comment)
• Like above, I wonder whether the removal of the explanatory text about reporting a request will be detrimental to users understanding when/why they should report something?
• We need to consider whether it still makes sense to include the inline admin links.
• What are we doing about old unclassified requests that can have their status updated by any user? (http://i.imgur.com/u9sEm0V.png)
• We need to include the "Are you the owner of any commercial copyright on this page?" statement https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/blob/develop/app/views/request/_sidebar.html.erb#L87-L89
• What happens when the "Actions/Follow" bar splits over two lines? "Information request" should be "Freedom of Information request", as its dynamically created based on the law. In other countries this will be "Access to Information" request (or EIR, etc).
• "Download all as .zip" will need coding work, so that should be last.

[wrightmartin]

The new share buttons don't really prompt the user on what to do. I think we should A/B test this. Facebook and Twitter are sort of obvious, but Medium and WTT are not as obvious from the icon alone. We could also try a JS popup thing like #2978 (comment)

Of course

Like above, I wonder whether the removal of the explanatory text about reporting a request will be detrimental to users understanding when/why they should report something?

We need to weigh this up with our previous work on priorities - as it is, with the description it takes up a large amount of space for a low-priority feature. Maybe a (?) style link that links to a help page or something?

We need to consider whether it still makes sense to include the inline admin links.

Sure - I'd assumed these would be staying, but we could look at a less clumsy method of displaying them

What are we doing about old unclassified requests that can have their status updated by any user? (http://i.imgur.com/u9sEm0V.png)

I hadn't planned to change this at all, at least as part of this body of work

We need to include the "Are you the owner of any commercial copyright on this page?" statement https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/blob/develop/app/views/request/_sidebar.html.erb#L87-L89

Sure

What happens when the "Actions/Follow" bar splits over two lines? "Information request" should be "Freedom of Information request", as its dynamically created based on the law. In other countries this will be "Access to Information" request (or EIR, etc).

Nothing special, I'll test it and make sure it handles multiple lines elegantly

"Download all as .zip" will need coding work, so that should be last.

Yeah I'd guessed as much, np

[garethrees]

Here's the order I'd go for:

• Redesigned test social share buttons (A/B test)
• Redesign correspondence header (From, Date, Delivery Status)
• Redesigned ‘link to this’ widget
• Redesigned ‘requests like this’ section (A/B test)
• Redesigned attachments display
• Create your own request call to action
• Action menu - move actions to permission-based drop-down menu
  • Move ‘report this request’ to action menu
  • Move ‘follow this request’ to action menu
• Redesigned follow button
• Redesigned request status badge
• ‘Download all’ attachments button (dev needed here) (Download all attachments as zip file #3427)
• Take a look a legacy browser support

[kingqueen3065]

I like the suggested action menu.

Could this be sorted as part of this? #3029

[crowbot]

Feedback from @RichardTaylor on the volunteers catchup call that he thinks the dates on correspondence are now too subtle - they're quite important.

[RichardTaylor]

On the prominence of the dates see the discussion at #315

The suggestion is it should be obvious at glance if the material is current or old.

[garethrees]

Current state:

• Need to test legacy browser support
• Decide on whether to try a new "share" section (see Request page: redesign and test social media buttons #3394)
• Have a think about the correspondence dates

[garethrees]

Decide on whether to try a new "share" section (see #3394)

Revert to original

[garethrees]

Need to test legacy browser support

~1 day's work; need #3460 and #3451 merged first

[wrightmartin]

• 'link to this' on annotations is broken

[garethrees]

In what way? Works on WDTK (deployed version is b63a378 though).

[wrightmartin]

In what way?

Ah, maybe it isn't at thats just how it works? I assumed it used to use the old pop-up functionality

[garethrees]

Works without, but see #3441.

[garethrees]

This is effectively closed by #3451, so closing this ticket as we've only got a bit of tidy-up on #3451 left (rather than any major decisions). We also need to check legacy browser support, so I've created a new ticket (#3607) for that.

Thanks for all the hard work on this @wrightmartin 🍰 🎨