[Zope-CMF] CMF Usability

Tim Maroney tim@maroney.org
Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:28:53 -0700


>> I am curious if CMF has gone through any usability testing. If so, is
>> the data available?

It would be surprising if it had been. Open source software usually isn't.
Even commercial software from major software makers with deep development
pockets often isn't.

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.

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
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.

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. 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.

>> Have any of you out there compiled any usability documentation on CMF
>> that I can use?

> I wouldn't exactly desribe the CMFDefault stuff as 'usable' in this sense
> ;-)
> 
> Look at Plone, it seems to be making a lot of headway in this area...

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. 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 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!

--
Tim Maroney    tim@maroney.org