Recently I was lucky enough to have a lengthy discussion with Jane Wells, the lead User Interaction designer for Wordpress. During the call she raised the interesting topic of cross app UI design. If you're not sure what that means let me briefly explain - in short it means that apps like Drupal, Wordpress and Joomla could use the same UI designs or patterns to give site users a consistent UX (user experience).
This sort of thing is probably not always going to be applicable let alone possible, however it could be an interesting exercise to see what we could achieve, and at the very least to discuss this concept. I'd like to open a discussion on this here - see if there is any interest and perhaps identify areas where this could be possible and where it might make sense.
Jane raised the issue of pagers - almost everyone has their own idea of how to implement a pager, right? A pager seem pretty strait forward, but if a systems pager uses a different set of conventions than you are used to it might cause an issue. A pager seems to me to be something that should require almost zero learning curve, but how many us question our pager design? Now, we don't want to be copying each other, that doesn't make sense either, however some agreement on basic conventions or patterns could make a lot of sense.
Comments
I like the idea that CMS
I like the idea that CMS platforms could share what works well for people. I agree that design conventions are great for user friendliness but I also think the CMS should be flexible enough to handle improvements on a convention.
In my own work, before adhering to any design convention I ask: Is this accepted because people are used to it? Or are they conventions because it really does make it easier to use? Is this really the best way to serve the end user, or do I want to do it because I personally like it?
For instance, I personally prefer to work in Drupal but sometimes a client is better served with Wordpress.
What I like about WordPress is that a lot of great functionality is baked right in. What I love about Drupal is that you can build just about anything you want.
I would love to see the best parts of WordPress- (that user friendly admin)- joined with the Drupal development platform.
I have wondered if this is even possible, or if we are better served with the two different approaches.
-- Julia v.
http://www.pfvdw.com