[Discuss][Docs] What to do with the supported aggregation page?

[timroes]

We have in the documentation for visualization a page about supported aggregations (it's actually the top most link in that section).

I would like to check what we can do to that page, or what the future plans are (potentially during the docs rewrite? cc @elastic/kibana-docs )

This list is highly outdated, and actually the supported aggregations might highly depend on which visualization you're using. You can see #58628 for an up-to-date more comprehensive list. I am not sure if it's useful maintaining such a list, where we would actually need to distinguish between all the different visualization types/tools inside the documentation. If we would want to keep it (and find any format for it, that we're happy with), I am not sure if the split into buckets/metrics is useful. While classical visualizations use that distinction, neither Lens, nor Timelion, nor TSVB use that distinction.

Happy for some input from @gchaps @rayafratkina

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/kibana-app (Team:KibanaApp)

[KOTungseth]

@timroes since the supported aggregations page contains reference information, it would be ideal to create a flyout (similar to the index patterns and Canvas UIs) that defines each of the supported aggregations for each app.

Index patterns:

Canvas:

I am open to other ideas, but I agree, this page is stale and doesn't get the attention it needs to be helpful to users.

[wylieconlon]

I support making changes to the page, but I don't see the urgency. I don't see differences between the list we have and the list in that issue. We might have some missing caveats such as "can't be used in this visualization" or "can't be used in this case", but the list is overall correct.

Like @KOTungseth suggested, I think the only way to replace the maintenance of this page is using in-product reference documentation.

For background, this is the PR where I created the page: #49810

[KOTungseth]

I spoke with Gail, and she brought up some good questions:

• Since the page is out of date, what can we do to fix the page now? Take out the categories and alphabetize? Remove it? Something else?
• If we keep this page in the docs, we should move it lower in the docs hierarchy. Where does it belong? Can it have a friendlier name? In the docs reorg, we have put Supported visualizations at the top.

Also, according the analytics, this page currently gets an average of 250 views every week, so people are definitely looking at it.

[timroes]

I support making changes to the page, but I don't see the urgency. I don't see differences between the list we have and the list in that issue. We might have some missing caveats such as "can't be used in this visualization" or "can't be used in this case", but the list is overall correct.

Yeah I am agree on that, and outdated was also the wrong term I've used here. I also don't think we need to do immediate changes, just wondered due to the ongoing docs rewrite, how we want this to be in the long term.

And I am also all for in product documentation. We currently have links to the aggregation documentation in the visualize editor beside each visualization. We can def think if we want to collect that somehow grouped into the flyout.

Since the page is out of date, what can we do to fix the page now? Take out the categories and alphabetize? Remove it? Something else?

If we consider the page to be mainly around visualize editor, I think we can keep the categories right now. I am not sure if it helps or confused people more, when they come int hat page and we put those technical terms on them, and then in Kibana trying to get them into Lens, which doesn't make the distinction (using those terms). But I don't think it's something we need to act immediately to.

The only thing is, that we state "Filter" visualization (and link to its docs), while we use the "Filters" (plural) visualization, and from within the UI link to those docs, so maybe it's worth adjusting this in the docs too, but doesn't seem immediate need to me.

Do we have statistics how long people are actually staying on that page in average? I would be very curious to see how much of the page they are actually reading.

[KOTungseth]

Users are spending an average of two minutes and eight seconds on the page.