I've been out of the loop on the D8 usability discussions - I know we're looking at improving the admin usability of Drupal but I wonder if anyone is taking a look at the front end usability of Drupal as well?
Does that make sense? Here's what I mean - having worked on quite a few Drupal sites now (and talking to other designers who do so) when you're making a site in Drupal there is a lot of awful default UI that comes out that can be apparently quite difficult to get rid of (at the least you need to redesign it, but technically getting rid of it is tough) - things like the user/registration form layout for example... actually, most things to do with forms.
I bet if we did a survey we could get a list of a dozen things that if we stopped Drupal outputting it, would save designers/developers who care about UX days of work on every project getting rid of them, thereby making Drupal a more viable choice for people who care about UX.
Is anyone onto this/interested in this?
L
Comments
Yeah I'm really interested in
Yeah I'm really interested in this kind of stuff. Some better default form layout styling would be nice.
The login form is an interesting example, given how it can be used for both site admins and front facing users. Do you think it's worth having an admin/login screen that uses the Seven theme as well as the front facing one? It makes the login screen hard to control.
Very much so, a lot of why
Very much so, a lot of why d.o sucks is because Drupal sucks in those areas too.
For Drupal 7, there has been
For Drupal 7, there has been some testing of the front-end usability here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/163894
Jacine leading the HTML 5
Jacine leading the HTML 5 initiative could fill you in on this I think: http://groups.drupal.org/html5
Yes, I will be happy to help
Yes, I will be happy to help as well.
Dharmesh Mistry
UX Researcher | Acquia,Inc.
@Leisa We had some testing
@Leisa We had some testing done on Bartik, but the issues found there are probably not the ones you are looking after. I am not doing much on Drupal front-end issues, however if you can make a list of things that bug you - that'd be great. Through survey would be even more valuable.
Panels forms?
Hi Leisa- I definitely agree that the default admin layouts for Drupal are pretty bad (though imo they've gotten better thanks to vertical tabs). I'm just curious: have you tried out panels for rearranging and just generally beautifying these forms? I think Panels has had this capability for a while, but it now is pretty awesome and allows you to do some pretty powerful things without coding (for example, moving different form elements to different parts of a screen, hiding and showing things based off of a number of variables, adding views like 'latest content', wrapping the form elements in different sorts of enclosures, etc.). Anyway, if there's going to be some surveying or testing done, I think it would be great to take a look at some of the approaches being taken by contrib modules to see if they solve even small parts of the problem (or, if they can at least illustrate what is needed).
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Leisa & al - If you know of
Leisa & al -
If you know of any issues which have been created based on your presentation at drupalcon london?
http://london2011.drupal.org/conference/sessions/prairie-initiative-rede...
The user registration form is
The user registration form is tricky to modify because user_save() and related code is such a mess. That is in people's sights for cleaning up in Drupal 8 but changes to the form should probably be co-ordinated with the lower-level cleanup efforts.
two things I never really
two things I never really found when digging through code:
http://api.drupal.org/api/dru
http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/includes--common.inc/function/drupal_ad... gets you somewhere with tabledrag.
http://api.drupal.org/api/drupal/modules--filter--filter.api.php/functio... for filter tips.
Usability test and results
We carried out a front end usability test and found out a few scenarios where people would have the same issues. Details can be found at http://groups.drupal.org/node/163894.
After that we created issues from the most frequent gotchas and, while working on them, realized how tightly coupled the code is (specially everything related to user registration and account management). We managed to decoupled the change password form out of the user account edit form, but this change is so deep that it had to be moved to the D8 branch. I am up for helping in splitting the user forms (registration, password request, password or email change, login, edit, first login) to different forms.
The list of issues can be found at http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/drupal?issue_tags=ideup%20user%2....
Cheers
Senior Developer at Lullabot
https://www.lullabot.com/who-we-are/juampy-nr
Reducing the time to make things look good
thanks for the feedback - just so it's clear, what I'm particularly talking about here are the things that make websites look 'Drupally' and that are really time consuming to 'de-Drupalise' (which, unfortunately, means 'make it look good'). The hidden-ness or tightly-coupleness of the code (now I"m just making up words, sorry!) is almost invariably the reason for this. I'm not sure how huge the impact on usability is but any project I"m working on repeatedly loses a LOT of time just trying to get little things polished up so that they look acceptable. That time (that we're all no doubt losing) could be put to a lot better use and no doubt it's things like that that earns Drupal a less than glowing reputation among designers.
Other examples I can think of:
- that horrible grey thing that is stuck onto various forms so that you can 'stretch' the form (who else does this?! it's awful)
- forcing people to choose their password AFTER they sign up. Yes, I can hear the spam/security people howling already but - again - it's an awful user experience. I take it out of any site that I do using Drupal and replace it with a conventional sign up where you choose your username and your password when you sign up. Lots of other people do this too... shouldn't we just make this the default?
I'm sure there are a pile of these. It would be great to knock over a few of these as a part of the D8 design initiative (or some other kind of initiative, I don't really mind...). I might make a survey and start collecting some feedback - sound good?
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
@leisa
Textarea resizing, that's
Textarea resizing, that's been in core since before browsers let you do it and it was cool in 2005 or whenever it was added ;) there are two issues to bring this up to date/deprecate it: http://drupal.org/node/1153300 - and http://drupal.org/node/1138258
"forcing people to choose their password AFTER they sign up."
That's a configuration setting, if you want it to be the default it'd be an easy patch for anyone to write.
The D8 design initiative is about making a new theme for core. Most of the issues highlighted here already have issues open, in some cases patches written, so it is more about getting reviews, in some cases mockups for how things could look etc.
here's your survey :) Those
here's your survey :)
Those little annoying UI things: http://groups.drupal.org/node/14755
79 comments with suggestions, summarized and grouped. From 2008 but many of them will still apply.
those look to be all admin UI...
unless I'm reading it wrong - I'm more interested in the front end UI
tho, by the sounds of @catch's comments, the D8 Design Initiative has this in hand already.
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
@leisa
not in hand!
Sorry I actually meant the opposite but didn't word that paragraph well!
The Drupal 8 design intitiative is only about adding a new theme to core - it is not about adding new usability patterns, refactoring existing forms or anything like that.
However, there are some open issues in the issue queue for some of the things you mentioned, that doesn't mean they're in hand, I just wanted to make sure you knew the issues existed already for those specific bits. From the look of the textarea grippie issue they could use some encouragement to get going again and/or active help.
those look to be all admin UI...
unless I'm reading it wrong - I'm more interested in the front end UI
tho, by the sounds of @catch's comments, the D8 Design Initiative has this in hand already.
leisa reichelt - disambiguity.com
@leisa
@leisareichelt The D8 design
@leisareichelt The D8 design initiative its goal is to create a new theme for core, not necessarily change the standard patterns that we use in the front-end. Although its likely some improvements will flow-down form the initiative, its not a goal.
I think its really valuable to have a survey, especially in terms of prioritizing what we should work on. catch is right there are probally already open issues for this everywhere, but that's not the point. The point is doing research to create a complete and prioritized list we can tackle.
How to achieve traction?
My own experience designing and implementing Drupal sites mirror Leisa's I believe.
My main pain points are ui* and workflows around user registration, login and updates. And user profiles in general. I believe Drupal could benefit from a redesign and/or reconfiguration of how these parts work.
I have no idea how to go about redesigning, reconfiguring and getting the changes accepted to core though. Everything seems to suffer death-by-bike-shedding unless governed by an initiative lead.
// Jesper Wøldiche
Updates is a hard problem,
Updates is a hard problem, don't start there ;-) Though Bojhan and dww would be happy to paint the map of challenges methinks.
Liking your shortlist though. You won't need too much time validating with the community that user account handling would be helped with saner defaults. User registration, login and 'user profiles in general' puts this very much in scope of what Snowman should be about.
I hope you won't confuse thouroughness with bikeshedding. It'll take 2 years to build Drupal 8. Hard stuff is hard. Yes we'll tend to over-discuss, but much can be mitigated by scoping issues well and kicking it off with a solid proposal. Here, I imagine a list of quick wins and another one with the deeper workflow issues to get the overview.
You provide the answer to avoiding the bikeshed yourself: Take the lead. Would love to help mentor the process if you will.
Updates to user profiles that is
Oh indeed, the update-workflow is a complex issue. What I meant though, was 'update user profile and information'.
System and module updates is a tough nut but doesn't actually come up that often in my experience.
I didn't mean to disrespect the thoroughness. But as you implied yourself, doing something like that succesfully in an open community the size of Drupals requires scoping, proposing and organizing the work in specific ways.
// Jesper Wøldiche
Full support in improvement to login and registration flow
Better flow around user registration and login has been a top wish of mine for a while. (I also need to write up and share a series of screenshots about how utterly horrible the experience is using our flagship site, Whitehouse.gov, to sign a petition.)
I've got thoughts on this and coding ability but have not given the effort the coordination and leadership it needs.
Jesper Wøldiche, if you take this on you have my full backing.
benjamin, agaric
You guys! http
You guys! http ://groups.drupal.org/node/204213 kicks of a specific 'better account ux' project :)
Ah, I misunderstoond
Ah, I misunderstoond 'updates' then. Yes, the process can be tricky and muddy. Webchick did a great write-up on how to do it for changes to d.o. but most of it applies to core work as well: http://drupal.org/node/1293124
Progress about usablilty projects
Hello everyone,
Drupal have been one hell of a challenge for me in general. I don't have the knowledge to build a module or theme.
I have been working with Drupal for a few months now. The reason I'd started Drupal was because I am a graduate at a company in Hollland. My task is to visualize the usability of a frontend. Which all its customers are using. But since those people aren't using the frontend enough. The company wants to know if its cause has to do with the usability or interaction design of a frontend.
Therefore I am interviewing and visualizing the actual use by filming some important footage. I have noticed that the frontend can be more usable for its target. Not to disrespect the developers or designers, offcourse. The vocabulary in a frontend is not really understandable to the users. Futhermore some abilities or functions in a frontend has no meaning. For the user in general some can be annoying, some let the user make errors and others can be a disadvantage for others functions. Like the ability to "opvolgen". It is a Dutch word and when I would trust Google translate enough then the words means like "observe", "succeed", "stick to". Maybe one of you knows what I am talking about. :)
To me a frontend as a core for usability testing and design is egual to the core of themes and modules. Although modules and themes will be more interesting than a frontend. But this doesn't mean that it must be less interesting. Because one thing is for sure. Not only the designer, developers, etc. are using Drupalwebsites. Also, visitors of a website and users of a frontend are users of Drupal.
Therefore I am thinking that the Drupal community has to deal with all kinds of users. If developers sometimes struggling with Drupal, why should other kinds of users use Drupal with ease? This is only a wishful thinking.
The project I am working on is "just" an evaluation. So I will not be making any frontends. Maybe in the near future this could be a possibility.
I hope some are excited to hear about my project. I would like to exchange information about the usabilities of frontends. Or discuss the results of the researches I have been doing.
I hope you'll will enjoy making Drupal better and more usable.