New page for support & compatibility info

[jwzimmer-zz]

Currently we display support/ compatibility/ requirements mostly as a paragraph on our FAQ page: https://scratch.mit.edu/info/faq. We should make a new page (/requirements?) that has this info in visual form, and includes other relevant info.

Ideally we would get this done before back-to-school, if possible.

• Convey the info in this chart in visual form: https://github.com/LLK/scratch-ops/wiki/Compatibility-&-Support
  • Note: make sure the chart is up to date, which might require https://github.com/LLK/scratch-ops/issues/280
• Clarify hardware requirements (re Chromebooks)
• Clarify extension support for WeDo 1, 2, and PicoBoard
  • Online
  • Offline
• Clarify role of flash player plugin and how to acquire it
• Clarify offline editor compatibility matrix?
  • https://github.com/LLK/scratch-ops/issues/129
• Mobile devices...?
  • https://github.com/LLK/scratch-ops/issues/214

[jwzimmer-zz]

Since we're reorganizing the mobile devices imminently, it would be good to cross reference the updated device spreadsheet with our support/ compatibility matrices & our usage stats to see what devices we need (and maybe even if we can get rid of any...?)

[jwzimmer-zz]

Make sure we update other pages that reference support requirements: FAQ, offline editor.

[towerofnix]

Out of curiosity's sake, what's the "scratch-ops" repository? I'd have to guess it has something to do with this topic (you know, system support and compatibility, and such) but that's not entirely clear.

[jwzimmer-zz]

@liam4 scratch-ops is the repo where we track things that have to do with keeping the site up & running as smoothly as we can. I put some things about compatibility/ support there since I didn't think they really made sense in the other repos (it's sort of a "meta" question whereas e.g. scratch-flash has to do with the editor & scratch-www has to do with the website pages, and support/ compatibility needed to bridge both). 👍

[jwzimmer-zz]

Drafts for page options (WIP)

Charts from this spreadsheet.

Current version

I think the best version so far is to have 3 charts (online, offline, and extensions), which exclude the OS's we don't support in Offline & Extensions charts, but do support for the website. Examples of this version: page, which has the OS across the top, and page, which has the OS along the left.

Things we might want to switch around:

• Organizing by extension versus browser
  • By browser: page
  • By extension: page, which also has the OS across the top re the next bullet point, or as in page, which has the OS along the left
• The OS being on the left or top for the extensions chart
  • All charts could have OS on top
  • All charts could have OS on left
• We could exclude the extensions chart altogether since it is relevant to relatively few users (but maybe relevant to a higher number of users who look for the requirements page, e.g. probably a lot of educators?)
• We could split the extensions into 3 separate charts (WeDo 2.0, WeDo 1.0, PicoBoard), e.g. this version of the page
• We could show the same set of OSs for every chart (e.g. Page)

Other versions/ ideas

Other versions of the page (the charts, text are not necessarily up to date, but the gist of the layout/ organization is there):

• Simple version of page, just includes chart for what OS & versions Scratch 2.0 Online supports.
• Version of the page with more charts, OS across the top & browser on the left axis for extensions.
• Simple version of page with 1 chart for online & 1 chart for offline editor

[jwzimmer-zz]

Team feedback (part 1)

I asked the team for feedback (especially re the extension charts on page A, page B, and page C).

Preferences:

• @cwillisf prefers page B
  • @rschamp seconded @cwillisf's feedback & preferences
• @chrisgarrity prefers page B
• @paulkaplan & @ericrosenbaum prefer we not exclude any OS's we support elsewhere as in this version
• @ericrosenbaum suggested ordering columns left-to-right by usage
• Group discussion suggested browser under OS

[jwzimmer-zz]

Organizing browser under OS in extensions chart

• Version of the page (A) including as many OS's as possible with the browser-under-OS chart (if I include all the OS's and all the browsers, the chart gets very large)
  • Including all the OS's in the offline & online charts
• Versions of the page (B) that includes the minimum number of OS's per chart
  • Personally, I think this is more consistent than the above page (A), since in every chart we're only including OS's/ browsers with some support in every row/ column shown
• Columns are ordered approximately by usage (other than extensions columns; I don't know what the usage is, my guess is prominence/ emphasis we would want to be WeDo 2.0, 1.0, PicoBoard)
• OS on top of extensions chart for consistency across charts

Ordering by usage, browser on left in extensions chart

• Version of page (C)
  • OS & browser only shown if every row/ column has at least 1 support cell
  • Ordered approximately by usage (as in (A) & (B) I didn't want to re-order the Windows versions 7, 10, 8.1 is the actual order by usage)
  • OS on top for extensions chart
  • Browsers on left in all charts

(Imagine "required" at the end of all the sentences in the charts rather than sometimes at the beginning as "requires...")

[jwzimmer-zz]

Team feedback, part 2

• @christanbalch prefers page (B) from previous comment
  • Excluding unsupported OS's and browsers felt more readable
• @mewtaylor prefers page (B)
• @SpeakkVisually prefers a version of page (A) that includes ChromeOS & Linux in the Extensions chart
  • Version of page @SpeakkVisually described

[jwzimmer-zz]

Updated to include extensions + offline editor info

Version including more OS's

Version including minimal OS's

[jwzimmer-zz]

Updates

• Document describing where the information currently is on Scratch & what information we want to include in this page
• Document listing examples of how other companies display their support & compatibility info
• Extensions & 2.0 requirements are now broken out into two separate pages (per discussion with @carljbowman)
• Extensions page draft with minimal OS's
• 2.0 Requirements page draft with minimal OS's
• Alternately, if we prefer to include more OS's in more of the charts, we could use these charts
  • Note: my preference is to only show an OS/ browser if we have some support for it (no totally red columns or rows), at least on the Extensions page, because I think this keeps the Extensions online chart as readable and clear as possible. However, enough people felt differently (people were split) that I included the alternate charts here in case we do want to go that direction. I think including the unsupported OS's could make sense on the Scratch 2.0 Requirements page, if people think those charts are easier to understand.
• Discussed the above with @carljbowman, next steps should be bring up in Product Meeting

[jwzimmer-zz]

Outcome from Product Meeting discussion:

• 2 separate pages
  • 2.0 Editor Requirements
  • 2.0 Extension Requirements
• Use minimal OS charts on extensions page
• Include the same OS's for each chart on 2.0 page
• Next steps are to triage for design & development (removed myself from assignment)