Data Freshness in the UI
This section deals with how we want to present freshness information in the HDX user interface. We need to do this in a way that makes the information helpful to users without confusing them.
Terminology
With that in mind we need to determine what terminology we will use for users. This does not necessarily have to match the terminology we use internally - the primary objective should be to make it as clear and concise for users as possible. Internally "fresh" means that the data is the latest available even if it is covering a date or period in the past (ie. the dataset date is in the past). Latest available means that there has been an update within the expected update frequency period. The question is if this definition would be what a user would understand by "fresh". How can we find out? Perhaps this requires user research. What is the level of detail we think users will need and understand - should it be a binary fresh/not fresh indication or should we have statuses like overdue and delinquent? The KISS principle would suggest the former and it makes sense to do that for the first iteration.
Action - ask DP to talk to users.
User Interface
Data freshness needs to be represented somehow in the HDX user interface. There are several places where it can be displayed - on the dataset page and perhaps most usefully on the dataset search page. Higher level metrics like freshness across a whole organisation's datasets we will not consider here.
Another question is if data freshness should be considered standalone or combined with other metrics for example around the quality of data. For now, we shall concentrate on dataset freshness alone.
Given the level of detail for the first iteration is binary, we cannot sort amongst datasets and say fresh dataset X is fresher than fresh dataset Y, but we can and should after applying other sort and filtering criteria that the user has chosen bring all the fresh datasets to the top by default. Using this approach avoids the need for separate sorting or filtering options.
Do we want to display freshness of resources within datasets? No because some resources might not be data, they could be notes about the data or suchlike. However as per this old Jira, it might be helpful to make revision_last_updated visible in the UI HDX-4894 - OLD: show when a resource was last updated in the UI TO DO .
Action - ask UI experts to design.
Contributor Interface
The dataset contributors need functionality to quickly make a dataset as being up to date regardless of whether the data within it has changed. This could take the form of an "Data Up to Date" button on the dataset page with the logic behind it available through API to enable a similar action to be performed by contributors clicking a link in the overdue email that they receive.
Action - Follow up with devs on dataset touch functionality which blocks this.