Improve UX on the dashboard page when a workspace is stopped / idled

[ibuziuk]

Is your task related to a problem? Please describe

The original page has been implemented as part of #20599

Describe the solution you'd like

Page that follows UX patterns - Look and feel suggestions are most welcome
Copy/UI text wording - if you are away from you desk and step back, what should it say.
Your admin set a setting so your pods you use just stopped because stepped away

Describe alternatives you've considered

N/A

Additional context

No response

[beaumorley]

@ibuziuk would it be possible to get a screen capture of the whole screen when this message is displayed? Thanks!

[dkwon17]

Hi @beaumorley ,

This is how the whole screen looks like when the message is displayed:

[max-cx]

sync'd to Red Hat Jira https://issues.redhat.com/browse/CRW-3181

[dkwon17]

Here is an updated screenshot:

Please see eclipse-che/che-dashboard#593 (comment) for more details and screenshots

[beaumorley]

@dkwon17 Looks good! I would remove the red highlight. I think it competes with the warning icon.

We'd also like to make a recommendation for the error message and have a few questions first.

1. Does this warning only appear due to inactivity or can it appear from other ways?
2. What is the difference between "Restart your workspace" and "Return to dashboard"? What is the best solution for the user when they get this error?

Thanks!
cc @wolfeallison

[dkwon17]

Thank you for the feedback!

1. Does this warning only appear due to inactivity or can it appear from other ways?

After this #21516 is complete (I am currently working on this), this warning message will appear only due to inactivity. There will be other warning messages for other similar situations too.

Also, there is another issue that will be worked on: #21578, where the error message would also state the inactivity timeout. The plan is to have the error message to look something like:

Your workspace has stopped because there was no activity for 30 minutes.

How does that look/sound?

2. What is the difference between "Restart your workspace" and "Return to dashboard"? What is the best solution for the user when they get this error?

"Restart your workspace" will launch the workspace and open the editor in the current screen:

Video

Screen.Recording.2022-07-27.at.2.18.02.PM.mov

"Return to dashboard" will direct the user to the user's workspace on the Che dashboard:

Video

Screen.Recording.2022-07-27.at.2.20.27.PM.mov

I think the best solution for the user when they get this error would be to press "Restart your workspace"

[wolfeallison]

@dkwon17 @beaumorley Awesome, thanks for answering our questions! What do you think of this: "Your workspace has stopped due to inactivity. Restart your workspace to continue using your workspace." with "Restart your workspace" as hyperlinked still and then offering "Return to dashboard" as a secondary option below it

If we know how long it takes to time out, I like the message you have planned: Your workspace has stopped because there was no activity for 30 minutes.

[dkwon17]

Thank you @wolfeallison 👍 , looks good to me:

[dkwon17]

@wolfeallison @beaumorley any thoughts on adding the workspace name (ex. golang-example) into the error message?

[dkwon17]

Also, we now have a similar error page that appears when the workspace stops due to an error:

I was wondering if we could also get some feedback for this page as well? In this case we also have two options: Restart your workspace or Return to Dashboard. But unlike the idling error page, for this error page I'd say there's no recommended option, it just depends on why the workspace has failed.

[nickboldt]

Note UX questions in #21359 as well, which might impact some of the decisions here. If you have/had multiple workspaces open and one/more has idled/died, it might be worth providing a "switch to running workspace" or a list of running workspaces... but then the Dashboard link could achieve that too.

[beaumorley]

Until I saw @nickboldt comment, I did not realize that return to your dashboard was to get to other workspaces. What about instead of the last think being "Return to dashboard" it is "Return to your dashboard to switch to a running workspace." @wolfeallison do you have any thoughts on better wording?

[dkwon17]

@nickboldt 's comment refers to the specific scenario where the workspace idle page is reached when there is another running workspace. Return to your dashboard to switch to a running workspace does sound like a nice enhancement to me.

But it is also possible that by the time the user returns to their computer to see the workspace idle page, the other running workspace might also have been shut down due to idling Might not be a big deal now, since the idle error page appears when the user refreshes the editor page on their own

[wolfeallison]

@nickboldt @beaumorley I like it! What about "To switch to a running workspace, return to your dashboard" and just have the return to dashboard as a link? We typically put the benefit first, which is why I recommend changing the order of the sentence

[wolfeallison]

for the similar error page,

What do you think of making the header "Workspace failed" and then it goes directly into the error under it?

[dkwon17]

Thank you for the feedback @wolfeallison , I think those are great improvements.
Here are the updated error page screenshots with the idle timeouts (30 minutes etc.) and updated text, please let me know if there's any other feedback:

Workspace inactivity

Workspace inactivity when there is another running workspace

Workspace runtime limit reached (similar to inactivity timeout)

Workspace runtime limit reached when there is another running workspace

Workspace was not running (appears when workspace url accessed when workspace was never started)

Workspace stopped due to error

[ibuziuk]

the last PR has been merged
@dkwon17 can we close the issue?

[dkwon17]

All of the UX improvements are made, except for the Workspace inactivity when there is another running workspace and Workspace runtime limit reached when there is another running workspace pages, which aren't implemented yet.

We can close this issue and focus on those pages in #21623 cc @nickboldt