IRC Meeting on #drupal-themes Nov 19 at 18.00 UTC

Designers and usability people welcome

Anyone interested is also welcome ;)

1. Continuing the topic: How can we organize this group better
2. Extended Brainstorming on Areas in Drupal where usability should be improved

(Once somebody replied to the event, I cannot edit it anymore: another question to moshe or drumm)

Life is a process

Here is the summary of our meeting.
We talked about Gaele's toggle help text solution http://demo.guruburu.com

Then we started Brainstorming for a list of Usability Issues in Drupal.
Out came a long and detailed list, which is still not complete, but can be used
as a basis to work on. Most important topics were covered.

The google doc is still open and can be worked on to make the list more complete.
People who want to work on it send me an email and they will be invited so they
can edit the google doc.

And here is

THE BIG LIST

Administration backend in general, Help Texts

• Quick administration - it is currently slow to use for power users
• admin_menu.module is an example idea for boosting admin speed
• /admin:
• regroup the long list (rule of thumb: no more than 8 items in 1 list)
• make it easier to reach module actions (currently it takes 3 clicks to get to administer > categories > add vocabulary, which is too much. also it takes two clicks to find out what's available, which is too much as well) -> admin_menu helps a lot!
• create an admin theme in core
• improve alignment of input fields, labels, etc
• should deal with large tables
• add node status info at the top of the edit page
• nice dropdown horizontal menu: building on admin_menu
  
• sensible but not inflational use of iconizing
• Help system
  
• create help page templates for module developers
• Integrate help into the admin pages so that it is available when needed
• two levels: field descriptions (hideable) and page help (pop-up)
• admin/build/modules: the top half of the page is wasted with
  explanation for first time user. Use hide descriptions like on admin
  for all of the admin interface, and make a help link available
• why is the help link only available under administer?
• an explanation of teaser should be available on admin/help
  
• Only menu leaves should be nodes (branches should not).
• As an option?
• reduce click count (see http://www.uie.com/articles/three_click_rule/ for another view on this topic)

Distinct admin sections

• menu admin page

Smaller entities: fields, labels, language, tabs

• collapsible fieldsets collapsed should show their status
• options
  
• options should be short, clear, easily distinguishable
• labels above option should explain more
• language: clean up language in general. split up sentences, avoid overly difficult phrases, make it short and clear.
• consistent language:
  
• make labels of "machine name" and human readable name" consistent on all pages
• guidelines for consistent language, including already chosen terms
• show options or fields only when needed (e.g. hide Logs field until revision is checked)
• consistency with "navigation" and "action" links
• consistency in tabs use: views vs actions
• tabs are the wrong paradigm for actions

Node add/edit forms

• improve node form
• "settings" as a tab?
• create content is too un-intuitive for new users!!
• plone style tabs (Forms API element, see this comment on the "split node form into tabs" issue)
  

Design in general: icons, layout

• icons
• create Drupal-icons (only gpl allowed into core or contrib modules)
• preference: show icons, text, both
• make designers battle (eigentor fights like a dairy farmer, yoroy is dutch which is even worse, the king of denmark rules!)
• Make design recommendations 
• make overall usability guidelines for drupal
• For module developers
• for themers/designers -css accessibility (see markup guide on g.d.o)
• most admin pages waste lots of space
• make better use of horizontal space
• make fonts smaller
• Group options if horizontal space is used (borders/backgrounds?)
• visual difference for content types, e.g. using icons (once created how do you know it is a "page", "story", "wiki"?)
  

Workflow

• wizard to the creation of the first node? (something like the admin user)
• provide sample node, comment on install?
• hide a lot of hardly used stuff, e.g. in tabs, smoothen the default workflow
• Don't hide it so much that you can't find it without looking.
• admin/build/modules leaves users lost "what now?"
• modules should provide a post-install message: what to do now
• identify different types of users and make a global change of the interface
• ej. advanced, editor, newbie
• use webchicks "personas"

Life is a process