Subject: User Research Findings into PgAdmin

From: Raffi Holzer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Jan 2017 16:42:04 -0500

Hi,
 As part of a project to enable pgAdmin4 to work with Greenplum databases,
we conducted user research into pgAdmin. We wanted to share those insights
and potentially develop against them but first wanted to get feedback from
the pgAdmin group. To that end we created the video below that summarizes
our findings. Let us know what you think.

https://youtu.be/BylcblYw8sU

-- 
Raffi Holzer
Product Manager
Pivotal Labs

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 09:25:15 +0000

Hi

> https://youtu.be/BylcblYw8sU

That's very helpful, thank you. Can you please summarise your findings
in an email to the list so we can work with it within our normal
process?

I will note that whilst I agree some of the points raised need further
work in pgAdmin 4, some of them make little sense - most notably
Syntax Highlighting which we've had for ~17 years, and works
automatically, thus not requiring any kind of user discovery beyond
typing some SQL into the query tool. Auto-complete is another example
of a feature we've had for years, that is documented. I agree though
that there is scope for better discovery mechanisms there.

Some of the other comments highlighted made little to no sense to me,
for example the comment on column names @ ~3:03 and the comment on the
bottom left @ ~3:22 (this is a great example of why email is better
than a video :-) ).

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

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---

From: Raffi Holzer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 09:38:29 -0500

Hi Dave,
 We can definitely send a summary via email. Just to clarify those points
you brought up. Syntax highlighting definitely does exist and is totally
discoverable but people still seemed to miss it. Our best guess as to why
so many users miss it is because of the relatively small contrast in colors
(Navy vs black). Regarding autocomplete, despite it being documented,
almost none of the long time customers we spoke with knew it existed which
suggests they're not reading the documentation very closely or at all.

Regarding the comments you mentioned, the one regarding column names was
talking about preserving the column name when moving data to Excel. And
I'll admit, the other comment is pretty unclear out of context. We probably
should not have included it as is.

A summary of the findings will be forthcoming.

-- 
Raffi Holzer
Product Manager
Pivotal Labs

---

From: Robert Eckhardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 09:47:56 -0500

One of the surprises for me when looking at the interview notes was the
number of features that people asked for that already existed. IMO one of
the wins for design would be making these more easily discovered. As I see
it a lot of the design is going to be fairly nuanced and having the
conversation to include the community in the process of discovery and
validation would be awesome if there is interest.

-- Rob

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:05:02 +0000

> validation would be awesome if there is interest.

There is definitely interest. Improving pgAdmin helps the community,
which in turn helps EDB, Pivotal and every other Postgres company that
has users using it.

My main concern is making the right decisions on what to change, and
focussing efforts in the areas where we gain most benefit. Of course,
the resources to do the work are also critical - the current team
already have a good years worth of work in various additional features
and improvements.

---

From: Robert Eckhardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 10:08:17 -0500

> already have a good years worth of work in various additional features

Absolutely our concern as well which is why we don't want to work in a
vacuum.

-- Rob

---

From: Raffi Holzer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:02:07 -0500

As a summary of our findings in writing:

Below is a table of user needs we discovered and solutions we or the
customers suggested. Some of the "missing" features people complained about
are not missing at all (such as auto-complete or syntax highlighting) but
the fact that people didn't know about them points to a discoverability
issue we believe we can address through design.

Needs

Suggested Solutions

Users need a reliable way to save their queries frequently

Autosave, Persisting & Complete History, Persisting Un-run queries after
disconnect

Users need a more efficient way to type

Auto-discoverable Autocomplete, Customize shortcuts, more visible syntax
highlighting

Users need a process to share query output with others

Copy and Paste into Excel with proper formatting, Export button to MS XML

Users need a way to quickly input content into pgAdmin

Edit within graphic table

Users need query output to be stored to reuse results

Results stored in history

Users need an easier way to find saved queries

Workspace, Search

-- 
Raffi Holzer
Product Manager
Pivotal Labs

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 11:14:47 +0000

Hi

> Autosave, Persisting & Complete History, Persisting Un-run queries after

Please add feature requests for:

- Auto-saving of queries (I believe this would implement persisting un-run
queries as well).

- Saving of previous queries (implemented in pgAdmin III as a combo box at
the top of the editor)

> Auto-discoverable Autocomplete, Customize shortcuts, more visible syntax

Please add feature requests for:

- Hint mechanism, to display balloon hints that can be triggered during
certain tasks to inform the user of functionality they might want to use

- Customisable shortcuts (a panel under Preferences -> [Tool Name] to allow
customisation of shortcuts in each tool)

- Customisable syntax highlight colours

> Copy and Paste into Excel with proper formatting, Export button to MS XML

Please add a feature request for:

- Allow customisation of the data copy formatting as found in pgAdmin III.
The defaults should be changed to not quote strings and use a tab as the
delimiter to allow pasting into Excel/Numbers. Note that tabs cannot be
represented in TSV data, so we need to deal with that and warn the user.
Pasting back into pgAdmin also needs to support format changes.

- Add a drop-down menu to the Export button that the user can use to select
data format (the default remaining CSV). This can include XML, JSON and the
user-defined copy format (per above).

> Edit within graphic table

I don't understand that - you can already add/edit/delete data in a grid.

> Results stored in history

Typically users would use multiple query tool windows for that. Saving the
results in the history doesn't seem feasible - they can easily run into 10s
of MB or more.

> Users need an easier way to find saved queries

This would need much more definition. In pgAdmin III we had Macros that
allowed you to insert standard queries you had saved in response to a
shortcut key, and Favourites that allowed you to store a library of
favourite queries and load or inject them into the editor. Plus of course,
you can save queries to the file system. What would help here?

Oh, and before you ask:
https://redmine.postgresql.org/projects/pgadmin4/issues/new :-)

Thanks.

---

From: Raffi Holzer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 12:01:55 -0500

Hi Dave,
 Thanks for the feedback. This is all great!

We are actually interested in doing a bit more user testing in order to
validate the right solutions and then picking up these features ourselves.
We can definitely still put them in the redmine backlog and pick them up
from there though. Looking forward to working on al this.

On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 6:14 AM, Dave Page <[email-masked]> wrote:

> - Customisable shortcuts (a panel under Preferences -> [Tool Name] to
> allow customisation of shortcuts in each tool)
>
> - Add a drop-down menu to the Export button that the user can use to
> select data format (the default remaining CSV). This can include XML, JSON
> and the user-defined copy format (per above).
>
>
> Oh, and before you ask: https://redmine.postgresql.org/projects/
> pgadmin4/issues/new :-)
>
> Thanks.
>
>
>>

-- 
Raffi Holzer
Product Manager
Pivotal Labs

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 17:06:39 +0000

Hi

> from there though. Looking forward to working on al this.

Cool - yes, you generate work, you get to do some of it :-p. Please do put
everything in Redmine though, as that's what we use for change tracking.

Thanks!

>> - Auto-saving of queries (I believe this would implement persisting
>> un-run queries as well).
>>
>> - Saving of previous queries (implemented in pgAdmin III as a combo box
>> at the top of the editor)
>>
>>
>>
>> - Allow customisation of the data copy formatting as found in pgAdmin
>> III. The defaults should be changed to not quote strings and use a tab as
>> the delimiter to allow pasting into Excel/Numbers. Note that tabs cannot be
>> Typically users would use multiple query tool windows for that. Saving
>> the results in the history doesn't seem feasible - they can easily run into
>> 10s of MB or more.
>>
>>
>> Oh, and before you ask: https://redmine.postgresql.org/projects/pgadmin4/
>> issues/new :-)
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>>>