[Zope-CMF] CMF Usability

[alan runyan]

>>> 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.
cheers,
~runyaga