[Commotion-dev] Updating the OLSR-Visualizer

[Seamus Tuohy]

To start, here are some of the thoughts from the small meeting a few of
us here in house had. (Inline)

On 02/20/2014 11:10 AM, Seamus Tuohy wrote:
> Hello All,
> 
> We will be doing some work on the OLSR-Visualizer over the next two
> months. We want to get your thoughts to make sure that we don't remove
> any useful functionality, and that we improve the major pain points that
> currently exist. As such, we would appreciate feedback to the following
> questions.
> 
> 
> 1) How do you currently use the olsr-viz? (e.g. What types of tasks is
> the visualizer better for than other status menu's? What other
> information do you compare the visualizer against in order to fully
> complete the main tasks you use the viz for?)
> 

Currently we usually look at the viz for a quick snapshot of the network
health.

When we are looking to see if a link works, or if a node is online we
turn it on and scan for that link or node. When we have a problem we
turn on the viz and look for the color of the link to see if it is a
routing problem.

We often compare viz data with ping tests to the services/internet that
we are trying to reach through those nodes.

> 2) What is most important to you from the current viz. (e.g. What parts
> of the current visualizer are vital to the tasks that you do? What would
> you miss if we removed it?)
> 

The colored lines, node names, and different icons for gateways vs.
non-gateway nodes are really useful for getting an at-a-glance view of
the network. Though, we would like solid lines and the nodes to be solid
colors so it is easier to identify things at a glance.

> 3) What parts of the current viz do you not like? (e.g. What are the
> pain points that make using the viz difficult, confusing, or annoying?)
> 

We HATE the auto-sort jitter/movement of the current viz. It means that
we have to spend time clicking and dragging nodes back on screen to see
what the network looks like.  The ETX value is also confusing to new
node administrators Since it is on a scale of [1-5/infinity]. It should
probably be replaced by another value on a scale of 0-100% or some other
scale that makes sense to people who don't have OLSR's link quality
algorithm memorized.

> 
> We appreciate your feedback.
> 
> s2e
> _______________________________________________
> Commotion-dev mailing list
> Commotion-dev at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/commotion-dev
> 
>