[Zope-CMF] CMF Usability

[Tres Seaver]

On Thu, 2002-07-11 at 18:09, alan runyan wrote:
> >>> I am curious if CMF has gone through any usability testing. If so, is
> >>> the data available?
> 
> Yes.  Usability is something often overlooked and undervalued.
> 
> > If I were surprised, though, it would be in a good way, and I might be
> > able to help. I'm a usability professional (background at Apple and
> > frogdesign, roles including User Experience Lead and Creative Director)
> > as well as a programmer. I'm doing my own informal
> > ask-the-girlfriend-to-try-it user testing on my budding, inherited
> > Plone site, beastbay.com. Warning: not for those who hate or fear
> > spiritual alternatives.
> 
> very cool.  I have not looked at it but I would like to stop and say one
> thing.  If you want to participate and influence the 'usability'
> experience of Plone -- join the plone-developers mailing list (find it
> from sourceforge) and interact with the Plone team. NOTE: I am having some
> personal things I'm sorting out right now and will not be 'online' for a
> few more days.
> > It's a lot of work as well as a lot of fun. I would like to see a more
> > usable basic platform on which to craft, as well as better containment
> > of the usability work to the ZPT layer rather than python code. For
> > instance, CMF1.3-beta1 uses an "unauthorized" routine apparently from
> > CookieCrumbler which redirects to a login dialog even for logged-in
> > users, when users should be seeing a permission error dialog. My users
> > are confused by this, and not just my gf -- I get letters about it.
> > (The redirect also makes my own debugging of permission problems tricky
> > because of lack of traceback, which is less of a usability issue.)
> > Changing this from an external product is tricky and requires more
> > intricate python than I want to deal with when my designer hat is on.
> > Similarly, simply getting some sensible
> 
> The redirects of CookieCrumbler are horrible.  I'm sure if it were
> explained *how* things *should* act -- we could probably get it to work
> in a sensible way.
> 
> > workflow-state-related buttons to appear in editing forms, without
> > expecting ordinary end users to grok the Publishing tab, is proving to
> > be a pretty sticky python job. The ID field should be subordinate to
> > Title, and named and explained better. Forms should have optional
> > front-line JavaScript validation. Structured text shouldn't override
> > ordinary punctuation. Etc.
> 
> This is all very specific to your user needs.  I would suggest tracking
> Plone CVS.  There is alot of stuff in there that will make your life
> hopefully much easier.  Talking on the plone-developers list may
> alleviate some pain but ultimately your python hat will need to be put on.
> 
> > I'm not trying to put down anyone's work. I just have high design
> > standards. I'm finding dozens of usability issues like the above, and
> > that's not counting writing and language issues, which are also
> > endemic. I shouldn't have to track down and replace every message.
> 
> if you do not coordinate with the CMF/Plone developers in a constructive
> way then we will never be able to fix these issues.  Its amazingly simple.Get in contact with the developers of the software, give suggestions in
> some semblenace of importance and discuss rationaly with them your reasons
> for needing to fix them.
> > For
> > something so very cool Zope+CMF+Plone is frustratingly far from
> > professional design quality. It can be crafted, but it's taken me at
> > least a couple of hundred hours so far. I intend to submit my own site
> > as a skin/product, so maybe that will be useful to someone, but I would
> > like to whack through more of the current issues first, and integrate
> > some more features. If we're at an especially good window for code
> > contribution now, please let me know.
> 
> I dont know what a 'good window for code contribution' means.  but if you
> want to note these issues as you go.  we can most likely fix large amounts
> of these.  they escape us.  we need people to give us feedback.  we have
> surprisingly very little feedback.  Rational feedback is greatly
> appreciated.
> > Plone is a great step forward, no question. That's why I chose it. To
> > my eye there's still quite a bit of work to do to bring it up to a
> > professional standard of quality.
> 
> like what?  please move this discussion (plone specific) to the
> plone-developers mailinglist.
> > My design and language standards seem
> > annoyingly picky to some people, although honestly my intention is not
> > at all to be annoying or derogatory, and I apologize to anyone who is
> > offended by my observations.
> 
> I am not offended.  I have heard this exact same conversation hundreds of
> times.  its not very constructive because there is nothing in particularyou are addressing.  What *is* constructive is you joining the plone
> developers mailing list and helping us work through these issues.  There
> are some issues that we may not see eye-to-eye with and those will have to
> be fulfilled on your end.  But I would imagine there are lots of issues
> that we can work together and incorporate into plone.
> > I hope I can help move usability forward
> > for Zope, CMF and Plone, and I would like to hear about the best way to
> > contribute, whether skins, products, bug reports, feature requests, CVS
> > contributions, how-tos, or whatever. Thanks!
> 
> the best way to contribute is to join a mailing list, submit feature
> requests.  irc is a very easy way to get immediate feedback.  but we need
> rationalizations of user experience.  not just 'this sucks.'  I believe
> you have this feedback.  please join the plone mailing list.

I will second Alan here;  I value *tangible* feedback enormously, where
my ranking scale goes something like this:

  - Working patch against current CVS, +10

  - Submitted to the collector, +5

  - clear recipe to reproduce the problem, +5

  - access to a site which demonstrates the problem, +3

Note that some things may be "de gustibus non est disputandum", which
means that they *belong* in skin customizations:  "chaqu'un a son
gout".  To some extent, this is the genesis of Plone as a separate
project:  Alan, Sidney, Alex, et al. had a vision for a type of site,
based on CMF, and implemented it as an add on, rather than lobbying me
to agree with and check in the hundreds of stylistic / design-level
choices they made;  I *applaud* this strategy.

I will probably finalize the 1.3 release of the CMF next week;  until
that point, I consider the software in "feature freeze", and only want
to be checking in "showstopper" fixes to the 1.3 branch.  After release,
I would be delighted to entertain the kinds of fixes you describe. 
Perhaps the best strategy would be to get you CVS contributor access,
and have you work on a "tmaroney-annoyingly_picky-branch" :), where we
could all try out your changes, and then merge them if we can reach
consensus.  Interested?  

Tres.
-- 
===============================================================
Tres Seaver                                tseaver@zope.com
Zope Corporation      "Zope Dealers"       http://www.zope.com