Bug 1866320 - [RHOCS Usability Study][Dashboard] Users were confused by Available Capacity and the Total Capacity
Summary: [RHOCS Usability Study][Dashboard] Users were confused by Available Capacity ...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: OpenShift Container Platform
Classification: Red Hat
Component: Console Storage Plugin
Version: 4.4
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Unspecified
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
: 4.7.0
Assignee: Bipul Adhikari
QA Contact: Elena Bondarenko
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2020-08-05 11:08 UTC by Harish NV Rao
Modified: 2021-04-20 14:04 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2021-02-24 15:14:01 UTC
Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
Two capacity cards on the dashboard (26.85 KB, image/png)
2020-12-18 15:44 UTC, Elena Bondarenko
no flags Details


Links
System ID Private Priority Status Summary Last Updated
Github openshift console pull 7404 0 None closed Bug 1866320: Changes to Capacity Metrics in OCS Persistent Storage Dashboard 2021-02-05 13:46:49 UTC
Red Hat Product Errata RHSA-2020:5633 0 None None None 2021-02-24 15:14:42 UTC

Description Harish NV Rao 2020-08-05 11:08:36 UTC
Description of problem:

The chart used different memory unit (MiB, GiB, Tib, etc.) and users were confused when the numbers didn’t add up, especially when they misinterpreted the unit.

Users easily misinterpreted the capacity breakdown chart when individual breakdowns were too small for the scale. Example (screenshot [1]) : the capacity breakdown chart could be misinterpreted as having only 4 individual breakdowns (by misreading the “grey” representing the last 424.8Mib).

It wasn’t immediately clear for users which number represented the available (remaining) capacity and which represented the total capacity. Example (screenshot [1]) at first glance, users could interpret the chart as 608.2 GiB used out of 0.906 TiB total capacity. One user commented the available (remaining) capacity should be included in the legend below and the total capacity should be on the top right corner of the chart.

[1] https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1w65Rl2ZsTew-TIqgKUaZ9Y-1DmG1Z4Y59sYQjYC_mMM/edit#slide=id.g807dbe1d1a_0_38

UX issue severity level: 3-Medium (refer below mentioned doc for severity levels)

This BZ is being filed based on the Usability study conducted on RHOCS during July 2020. A complete report on this Usability study can be found here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1w65Rl2ZsTew-TIqgKUaZ9Y-1DmG1Z4Y59sYQjYC_mMM/edit#slide=id.g547716335e_0_260

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:


Steps to Reproduce:
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Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 2 Anmol Sachan 2020-10-29 06:22:15 UTC
As of OCS 4.5 release, Total capacity is removed. Shifting this to UX team for further deliberation.

Comment 3 Yuval 2020-11-19 11:10:35 UTC
we are working on improving that for 4.7 and 4.8

Comment 7 Elena Bondarenko 2020-12-18 15:44:07 UTC
Created attachment 1740310 [details]
Two capacity cards on the dashboard

Comment 8 Elena Bondarenko 2020-12-18 15:50:18 UTC
I retested with 4.7.0-0.nightly-2020-12-18-031435. A new Raw capacity card has been added as described in Comment 4.
It is a huge improvement comparing to the initial card. However, my concern is whether the difference between Used in Raw capacity card (3.12 Gib on the scrennshot) and the total of Used Capacity Breakdown card (354 MiB) might also confuse the user and requires some additional explanation.
Harish, what do you think?

Comment 9 Harish NV Rao 2020-12-21 06:20:47 UTC
(In reply to Elena Bondarenko from comment #8)
> I retested with 4.7.0-0.nightly-2020-12-18-031435. A new Raw capacity card
> has been added as described in Comment 4.

@Elena, the comment 4 says:

"The new card "Raw Capacity Card" shows the following information. The card has textual(enlarged legends) and graphical information(donut chart):
Used Capacity (ceph_cluster_total_used_raw_bytes) 
Total Capacity (ceph_cluster_total_bytes)
Available Capacity ( Total - Used )"

I don't see Total Capacity in the screenshot of this card. The screenshot shows available capacity as 6 TiB whereas the total capacity is 6 TiB in your case. Right? Can you please check and confirm?

> It is a huge improvement comparing to the initial card. However, my concern
> is whether the difference between Used in Raw capacity card (3.12 Gib on the
> scrennshot) and the total of Used Capacity Breakdown card (354 MiB) might
> also confuse the user and requires some additional explanation.
> Harish, what do you think?
Did you notice the infotip text on "Used Capacity Breakdown card"? Please check if it's useful or not.

As per comment 4, the info tip should have mentioned "This card shows the used capacity for Usable storage, broken-down by different kubernetes resources. Usable storage is all the data that can be stored in the system after decreasing the replication policies.". 

I feel the last sentence could be reworded as "Usable storage is all the storage capacity that is available for actual data storage after applying replication policies". Somehow I feel " decreasing the replication policies" is not conveying right info. I am fine with considering other proposals also.

Comment 10 Elena Bondarenko 2021-02-04 14:58:58 UTC
As Bipul has explained during the meeting, the available capacity is shown as 6 TiB because of rounding; when some meaningful amount of data is stored in OCS, it will show a smaller value than the total. The total capacity is shown on the chart, so there's no need to repeat it in the legend.
The tootlip is to be re-worded.

Comment 11 Elena Bondarenko 2021-02-05 12:17:13 UTC
The new tooltip text hasn't been approved by the ux team yet. I'll open a separate BZ if there is any issue with it. The major work on re-organizing the data representation on capacity usage has been done.

Comment 13 errata-xmlrpc 2021-02-24 15:14:01 UTC
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory (Moderate: OpenShift Container Platform 4.7.0 security, bug fix, and enhancement update), and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

https://access.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2020:5633


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