Stardog studio ui feedback

I've finally gotten around to weening myself off the old web console and using Stardog Studio and wanted to provide some feedback on the UI. I'm no UI person so this is just a couple of personal observations. I know it's stupid nit-picky stuff and you've probably got a million bigger things to work on but a million nit-picky things seems to be what UI development is all about.

stardog-studio-menu

The tool tips on the left vertical menu pop up quite quickly and when they do they obscure the icon above it and below it for the top icon. It might be nice if it would pop out to the right.

The advanced options for "create database" has separators between the text box title and the text box but not with the following option. There is a separator between "active graphs" and the text box but not between the text box and the following option "Literal Canonicalization". There's also a separator after the last option "strict parsing" which initially make me want to scroll because it seemed like there might be an additional option.

The tool-tip doesn't quite line up with the option it's associated with. I'm not familiar with the framework so maybe that's just the way that works and you're stuck with it.

When you mouse over the options you kind of get a barrage of tool tips flying out the the left. The information is appreciated but it's a little visually jarring. I'm not sure what you'd do to lessen that though.

Hope this helps and if it does, let me know and I'll let you know what else I come across.

EDIT:

Here's some additional things I've come across. (I should have mentioned that I'm running SS on Windows.)

When you mouse over the "SHOW PLAN" you get a tool tip you get a message "write query" that blocks the panel where you're about to write your query. It's also really hard to get the tool-tip to go away. I'm not sure what makes it go away but have to swat around it like a fly to make it go away.

stardog-studio-write-a-query

"Write a query" is a little confusing. I'm guessing what it's trying to convey is the "show plan" is disabled and you need to write a query to enable it" I"m not sure how you'd reword it but it's confusing.

If you do start typing it's replaced with

stardog-studio-show-plan

"Show the JSON query plan. Change the default in User Settings" Which is even longer and further obscures the query pane. I'm not sure what it's referring to with the "Change the default in User Settings." It's like it's telling you to do something but I think what it's saying is "if you want to change the default you can do it in "User Settings".

"Run to File" is a little confusing. I think it would be less confusing to just say "Save to file" or maybe "Save results to File"

Edit>Preferences>User Settings opens up a JSON file with the user settings. A json file is a bit surprising and it isn't immediately obvious how to save it. Closing the window will bring up a dialog box asking to save.

1 Like

Hi Zachary,

Thanks for the all the feedback! I've summarized my interpretation of your thoughts below, let me know if anything doesn't look right. There's also a question or two as follow-ups. Keep the feedback coming as you dive deeper into Studio!

Simon

Overall

  1. Move pop-ups on the different sections to be to the right and to take a bit more time to show up.
    -- Makes sense, we will see if this is a quick win.

Database Creation
2) Separator lines on the "Create new database" pop-up are not uniform and can be confusing.
-- Makes sense, we are thinking through some changes to the database properties UI (both on the page and in the pop-up) and will add this to our list of feedback.
3) Tool-tip does not line up with the check-box and looks strange.
-- Make sense, we'll take a look, though as you mention we may be hamstrung by our framework.
4) Lots of tooltips when you hover is distracting
-- We'll loop this into the workstream I mentioned in 2). We're considering putting more of this information on the page so that may make the tooltips unnecessary or at least trimmer.

Query window
5) "Write a query" hover is distracting
-- This hover is supposed to be associated with the "Run" button, so I think the difficulty in getting it to go away could be based on some cursor/state confusion. Can you reproduce this consistently? I'm on a mac, but I'll check if other Windows users see this.
6) "Write a query" is confusing as a helptext
-- I think this makes more sense when it's blocking "run", so hopefully if we fix 5) that will address this feedback.
7) "Show plan" hover is confusing/distracting
-- We are reworking some of the query plan interaction as we add additional formats and visuals, so we will loop this feedback into that.
8) "Run to file" is confusing
-- I agree and have heard this before, I'll add your +1 to that issue.

User settings
9) Updating user preferences could be more user-friendly in terms of format and workflow
-- Makes senes - are you expecting a UI more like the database creation (i.e. pop-up with some settings/options)? Or did you expect something else? Or no specific expectations just not this.

That looks about right.

#5) I restarted Stardog Studio and the problem went away. I'll let you know if it comes back.

#9) I was expecting a more UI more like the database creation. The initial impression is that something is wrong, like you accidentally wrote the json model that should have rendered a UI.

Gotcha. RE: 5), thanks for checking, let us know if you see it again and we can investigate. RE: 9), gotcha, thanks!

Thanks again for all the feedback!

Simon