Typo Usability Discussion

With all the new features, new admin interface, ajax and script.aculo.us goodness that we've poured into the trunk over the past week I think we should take a look at the outcome and see if there is anything we could improve on and are there any areas that need attention.

We need feedback from the people using trunk code to see what areas they might have problems with in terms of usability.

Redundant 'Create/Add/New X' pages

One of the reasons for calling Quick Post (in the articles section) , Quick Post was because it was for when you wanted to post a quick blog with no extended or extra options. The primary create page has all of the advanced options that allow users to use them when they need them.

Blacklist and Categories both have redundant places to create new items. This causes us to have two links to perform the same overall action (adding something). I think we should probably knock these down the the quick create. We cold possibly have a fallback for users who don't have JS enabled, but I don't see that as being an issue considering it's pretty much required to have JS enabled to use the Typo admin features so it renders the new screens useless.

Sidebar Config

Is this the best way to implement this? Are there things we could do to improve it and make it easier or more natural for users?

-- It seems to me that the configuration information for each sidebar entry should popup on selecting that particular sidebar entry but should not be inline in the ajax ordering component. As a simple rational for this imagine a user defined quote component, if you wanted to display all the existing quotes inside the ordering component that would be rediculous. Just display name/description for the drag and drop interface and do the configuration for the currently selected component along one side.

User Management

I think we could make use of some ajax here (doesn't reallly have to use ajax, we could just reload the page) and get rid of the edit screen by expanding the box for user X with a form for filling out this information.

All Areas

Are the show areas required for all areas, or would it be better to just link to the edit screen? For instance there really isn't any need to see a Blacklist pattern rendered in html. Why not just link to the edit screen that way users could edit and view the blacklist pattern at the same time.

Are the delete screens required? We already have a requirement of JS enabled, why do we need to go to a new screen to delete an item, JS confirmation?

Should we provide notes or small descriptive paragraphs in areas of the admin to explain what different areas do?

We need to write more test to match the new features and functionality we've added.

Comments

Great discussion. I was thinking of splitting the admin tabs into two "Focus groups" The main navigation would only have Articles and Pages which are the essence of typo. You would have to click on Settings to reach a new menu with all the other current tabs. This settings link can be quite out of the way, much like log off and your blog links are right now. Backpack uses this type of UI. -- Tobi

Great idea Tobi. We could get rid of the General tab and Cache tab in one swoop and start getting the nav back to what Typo is built for--Blogging. I see how we could also get rid of the categories tab. We could put a "or Create New Category" under the select list when creating a new article. This presents another problem of how do we expose the remaining parts of the category section to the user. -- Justin

I'm new to Typo, and the overall impression is great -- easiest install EVAR! My wishlist is short: I'd like to be able to turn off the realtime preview in page/post creation mode. Not necessarily as a global preference, but even just on the page itself. Sometimes the latency / media files getting constantly reloaded can be a little distracting when I'm trying to write. Hopefully someday soon I'll be well versed enough in Typo to make a patch myself. Until then, thanks! -- Chris

On 'Redundant Create/Add/New X Pages': If you are interested in having a "quickpost" type feature (which I have seen implemented in several forums I frequent and think it is generally a meritous feature), why not have the controller component determine which type to render based on a preference, with a button on the "quick" version to reveal the "advanced" version? -- Kolonay

Kolonay--that's not bad, but I think we can do better. Personally, I'm starting to hate all of the create/edit pages. I'd like to replace them with a "create" page, and make it the default page when someone goes to /admin. Basically, it would have a row of tabs across the top ("New blog post", "New static page", "New audio/video file", with more to come), and then underneath that would be the editing form for whatever we're creating. The point is that the number one reason to visit the admin pages is to create new content, so why not make that the default? We could then retire the old create/edit pages and have them point back to the create page.