In the next Central release, we will group all form draft functionality on a single page accessible from a new "Edit Form" tab. Users with permissions to edit forms will see a pop-up describing this change the first time that they visit Central after an upgrade.
During user research, we noticed users forgetting how to navigate to drafts or getting confused about whether they have published their draft or not. We also know that users sometimes forget to upload form attachments or test their forms.
We want to improve the draft experience in the following ways:
Make form editing functionality more intuitive to access
Make form attachments referenced by the form more obvious
Increase visibility of the testing section to further nudge form designers to test their forms
Remove the drafts checklist which users were not reading
Here is the new page showing a draft for a form with attachments, Entities, and test submissions. Sections that are not applicable to a form will not be shown.
I'd agree with 'Delete draft' as that's presumably what you would actually do?
I wonder if not showing a Section is the best option - would showing all sections but providing a message be more useful (e.g. for Attachments: 'no attachments are required', which could be in the same place as the '1 of 2 file uploaded') - that would mean that the page would always be consistent in terms of overall layout (obviously no need to show an empty table!).
Also (this may already be the case, but not shown), would it be helpful for actions not completed to be highlighted in red, and actions that are advisable (e.g. testing) to be highlighted in Orange? Again a way to help visually focus the mind (you might want testing to be in red!). This could be background highlight or just the section title text?
I see what you mean! This is a form that has never been published before. If there is a published version, you're right that you'd see "Delete draft" there instead. This is the same button you'd see today if you start a new draft. Does that feel ok?
You can also see that in that first screenshot all of the other tabs are disabled because there isn't a published version yet.
Thank you, we'll try that out!
We do have some additional visual cues planned that are not shown in the mockups I've shared. Here's an example:
I figured you'd be way ahead of me Even when I try to keep you on your toes... That version is exactly the type of thing I had in my head. Brilliant (what you've done, not what I had in my head!)
The 'contextual' versions of Delete form/draft button also sound excellent.
This is great for gently guiding us through the process without cluttering unnecessarily. I do appear to spend quite a lot of time in this part of Central (perhaps an unhealthy amount), so streamlining things during development and testing purposes is really helpful - rather than me falling over because I've forgotten to update something.
'Overview' disappears and the primary tab is now 'Data' (was 'Submissions')?
I like how 'Edit draft' has its own tab and sections then all shown on a single page and not an inset box with a series of tabs
Where there are 100s-1000s of attachments, how will this render? The example shows 2x, but will it have its own inset scroll bar and a maximum height (eg ~20-30 attachments), or would you have to scroll past (jump link?) all of them to get to the testing section.
Yes, thank you for also calling that out. This change comes from observing in user research that users almost always click immediately out of the overview pages. A lot of the information on those overview pages are now available on the overall home page (e.g. lists of forms and entity lists), and on the project form listings. We're hoping that this change will be minimally disruptive and reduce the clicks needed for most actions.
Great question. We currently have the attachments section set up to use a maximum of 80% of the vertical space available and then show a vertical scroll bar within that area if there are more attachments than will fit in that space. So you will be able to scroll down past that section quickly even with 100s or 1000s of attachments.