GSOC-2020 Unified Creation Form - Mockup

Name: Chinmay Kothari
IRC Nick: Chinmay3199
MB username: chinmay3199
Email: chinm170107016@iitg.ac.in
Github: chinmay-kothari

I have finished up with the basic mock-up that I think would be useful in Creating a Unified form for entity creation. I am posting this to get reviews on how can I improve this form before starting to work on the backend part.

I am thinking about making a change in the form so that the user can fill the complete details about the, lets say, a book, in one go. A major change that I have done here is that in the Relationship column we can now add further entities that our basic entity is related with without actually changing the form to fill them.

Issues -

  1. While adding a new book, I faced that I can just add the information about the edition, author and publisher all in one go.

  2. Many a time I saw the need to fill the same information a lot of times (eg. name of Work = name of Edition = name of Edition Group).

  3. The relationship could only be added after creating all the entities, which I think could be changed.

  4. Sort-Name’s Guess button needs improvement. Currently, it just moves the last word to the first, rather there should be separate guess functions for separate entities, as mentioned in BB-181.

Proposed Solution-

  1. The creation form will be substituted with a unified form that will allow user to fill multiple entries together without changing the tabs or so. I guess this will make the form more user friendly.

  2. Since all the information is being taken in a single form, there will be a Copy button which will just copy the common information directly from the parent entity(one we started the form with).

  3. A Unified form will help that with added search function within creation form, adding relationships would become easier.

  4. Adding separate guess function of every entity type should solve this.

Attaching here is a link to the mockup. (I recommend going through this once to get a clear idea of the design).

Mockup is made only for the case when the user wants to add Work entity but it still addresses how it will be used when we would be having to start with other entities.

  • First Page will ask the user what they actually want to add. (In the mockup I have assumed it to be Work).

  • The form will then show all the other remaining entities that the user can add.

  • Relationship will be added soon as the user fills other entities form.

This form is aimed to make less and less repetition of the same information that the user usually provides along with designing a form where we can fill all the details of a book within one go.

Looking forward to the suggestions @mr_monkey on this form, what should I add or exclude to make it better.
Thanks! :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

Hi!.. actually the link that you attached is having all the same pages except the first. So, your idea is not clear.

1 Like

Also @mr_monkey, i want to clear my confusion that in this project the user should be able to add all the relevant information in a single form, so to separately create a publisher or author separately does not make sense. the form should create the links and relationship itself, i.e. it will create separate pages for the associated publisher and author, and the users should only be able to create book(s) or collection of works (anthology)

Hi @Prabhleen, except the first all the pages are different in the case that they either lead to a search a new related entity or ther lead us to create new entity related to our primary entity. But if isn’t getting clear then I need to work on design. Thanks though!

Hi @chinmay3199!

I don’t think you should try to modify the existing forms, the workflow isn’t well suited for it. For example, how would I enter a book with multiple short stories?

Instead you should try to come up with a new form altogether that implements a instinctive and clear workflow for adding all the data that doesn’t require the user know exactly what the different entity types are and how they are related.

For entities that share a name, a “copy” button would be confusing: what am i copying, or what am i copying from?
Ideally, the unified form should have a better way to deal with these two main cases:

  • the Work, Edition, and Edition Group all have the same name
  • The Edition and Work don’t have the same name (or there are multiple works for example)

I think you should use the website more (or test.bookbrainz.org if you want to fool around) to get a better feel of what you would want to see, as a user, if you wanted to add a book.
The goal is to improve the user experience rather than try to hack what we currently have.

1 Like

Thanks @mr_monkey,
I guess then I should start again with a whole new design to rather create a complete new form.

1 Like

I confirm you should be able to add all the information on one form.

That means information about the author, content and support (the physical/digital book), that translates into the BookBrainz entities and their relationships in the background, with ways to enter more complex cases (eg multiple works, multiple authors, multiple editions, other relationships like translator, etc. )

1 Like

I think @chinmay3199 have mistaken the concept of edition and work, actually adding a book means adding a edition not work, a book may contain lots of work by lots of authors. Right ?. @mr_monkey

1 Like

@endurance21 I understood that difference but I think my design is not making that point. Anyways a new design would be needed to make things clear in that aspect.

@endurance21
The issue that this unified form project aims to tackle is precisely that “a book” doesn’t have a simple definition and is composed of various entities, in a way that might not be obvious for new users.
It’s not the work(s) it contains, nor the Edition, nor the Edition Group. It’s a combination of all the entities, and your need each entity to correctly describe “a book” (or other types of publications, for that matter)

@mr_monkey

I get your point, it’s obvious that it will be the collection of entities, what i was saying that in @chinmay3199 's idea you will be only able to add one work at a time for adding a book. But book will be collection of works, and ofcourse authors, composed of a edition-groups and a publisher

@mr_monkey can you please explain the word “translator”

@chinmay3199

I think this is not the case, we can infact add relationship between “author” and “work” only, we don’t need to create “edition” or “edition-group” instead, right @mr_monkey?.

I don’t understand your question. Could you please rephrase it?

@mr_monkey
I think @chinmay3199 in his proposal is saying that,
We can only add relationship when all the entities are created means we cannot add relationships if one of
Work,author, edition, author, publisher is not created.

But it’s not the case we can create any two of them and add relationship between them.

@endurance21, In the proposal I just gave an example that we can simulatenously create 5 entity. Ofcourse I do know that we can create any two and add relationship between them.

1 Like

I’ve updated https://wiki.musicbrainz.org/Development/Summer_of_Code/2020/BookBrainz#Design_and_implement_a_unified_creation_form with some example scenarios if it helps think about user experience