Improving usability is a top priority for Drupal 7: http://buytaert.net/usability-usability-and-usability
So, it is also a big topic for Drupalcon in Szeged. Besides presentations and sessions we should work out a format for actually getting some stuff done, too. Let's call it a Usability Sprint. We should focus on fixing the actual issues found by the two usability tests.
The best way to propose new UI improvements for Drupal is writing proof-of-concept modules. It would be great to get some of those done during a focussed Usability Sprint.
So, how's this for an ideal usability sprint scenario:
BoF Usability Sprint Day 1
- zoom in on 1 or 2 issues we already decided upon before the conference
(redo admin categories, modules page, permissions page...) - bring your ideas and proposals
- discuss the options, decide on 1 or 2 things we can work on.
example:
- do a card sort on the admin categories
- discuss the different 'dashboard' approaches people already use
- choose 2 options we want to compare / test
another example:
- let's pick a nice chunk of core interface text: labels, descriptions, help
- rework them for clarity, consistency and brevity.
BoF Usability Sprint Day 2
build prototypes: on paper, in photoshop and/or code
or: further work on interface copy, start documenting the copywriting guidelines we find.
BoF Usability Sprint Day 3
Test conceptcode with the Usability Testing Suite
or: create patch for interface copy and start the guidelines handbook page on drupal.org
Related issues and discussions:
- http://drupal.org/node/191360
- http://drupal.org/node/228236
- http://drupal.org/node/270919
- http://drupal.org/node/222036
- http://drupal.org/node/239715
- http://drupal.org/node/108979
- http://groups.drupal.org/node/12618
- http://groups.drupal.org/node/12507
Comments
There's a new 'usability'
There's a new 'usability' component for Drupal - would be worth moving all active usability issues there: http://drupal.org/project/issues?projects=3060&components=usability&stat...
I marked the drupal.org
I marked the drupal.org issues above as 'component: usability' . Somehow I have mixed feelings about it: losing tech component term (such as forms) to a very vague 'usability' term seems to be a metadata loss -- perhaps usability should be some other dimension, not a component dimension.
tagging project issues
There's an existing feature request (and quite a bit of work already done) to have free-tagging for project issues - then things can be termed usability, performance, postgresql or whatever on a different axis to the components - it'd be nice to remove all the meta-components in favour of that when it's available.
Sprint at end
There's a sprint at the end which could be arranged to have a dedicated usability track. Alternately, we could add a day at the beginning, or we could arrange for daily usability BoFs, to focus on particular efforts and help get everyone on the same page. I'd be interested in working on this.
Cheers,
Kieran
Drupal community adventure guide, Acquia Inc.
Drupal events, Drupal.org redesign
early...
Oh- I'll also be in Hungary a day or two ahead of time, and my hotel is booked from the night before the conference, so I'd definitely be interested in a working for a day (or a half-a-day) before the conference on this...
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
There are also some proposed usability sessions...
pwolanin's "Usability enhancements for Drupal hierarchies (menu links and taxonomy)"
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/usability-enhancements-...
robertDoouglas' "The Alexandria Project: Accelerating the ease of learning and the adoption of open source"
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/the-alexandria-project-...
Not sure if everyone agrees that documentation is part of usability, but I do, so there's add1sun's "Doc sprint planning"
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/doc-sprint-planning
Along the lines of Addisun's BoF proposal, it would probably be good to have a "Usability sprint planning" session as well.
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
I wouldn't mind scheduling a
I wouldn't mind scheduling a session each day along the lines of pwolanin's 'hierarchy' one - pick a particular pain point, meet for an hour and thrash out mockups/ideas to code at the sprint.
your session is an important one
I've dreamt up an ideal scenario for three daily sessions in the main post. This is indeed what I would love to see happen. It would be great if we could do this arount the 'hierarchy' issue.
Daily BOF and hooking into
Daily BOF and hooking into the main code sprint both sound good and sensible
Alex UA: I very much agree that documentation is part of usability. We're looking to build a session around 'Help', something like: Copywriting for the Drupal UI: titles, labels and descriptions, how to handle help text in the interface, demo of the new help modules/gsoc project etc.
I haven't been to a Drupalcon before, so I don't know how much actual work we can reallistically expect to get done. But let's use the opportunity to figure out how the community can collaborate on these issues effectively. (It's hard to fit important tasks into the issue queue or g.d.o. thread).
an unconference is what you make it...
The amount of work that can be done is pretty much up to whomever wants to do it. Some people only do work at the code sprint, while many others get together and knock stuff off all week. I'd definitely be down (depending on when it happens) to work in a BoF sessions on usability issues, and I'd also be down to work on them during the code sprint.My guess is that if you created a BoF session you'd find that others would be willing to give a hand as well...
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Willing to join
I can help on mockups/wireframes, card sording and other UX toolset. Is there any chance getting Panels 6 out for Drupalcon? This with Views could helps us to push out more interactive prototypes and save coder(s) time.
If needed, I can book my flight to arrive a day ealier to Sz.
The panels upgrade for D6 is
The panels upgrade for D6 is already started, and should go into full speed once the D5 version hits release candidate (very soon). afaik, most of it will be a straight upgrade (rather than massive refactoring) so things are looking good for it to be usable for Szeged, but I wouldn't want to speak for merlinofchaos or sdboyer on that ;)
Oh yeah. It's looking
Oh yeah. It's looking gooooood :)
/me is literally polishing off the last of the RC patches right now.
submitted BoF sessions
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/usability-sprint-day-1
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/usability-sprint-day-2
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/usability-sprint-day-3
I hope some of you will comment over there as well and offer your help!
Like catch suggests above, focussing our efforts around this problemset:
http://szeged2008.drupalcon.org/program/sessions/usability-enhancements-...
seems a very good idea.
(I'm on vacation for 2 weeks now, I'm hoping others will jump in in the meantime :-)
I'll be there!
As I mentioned in a post on our company blog about a presentation we just gave to a big group of college web admins, it's amazing (or maybe not-so-amazing) how many of the issues raised by the usability tests were raised by session participants. Anyone who considers themselves a Drupal evangelist should come help out- it can only make the job of spreading Drupal easier!
Thanks for posting those yoroy- and see you in Szeged!
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Alex Urevick-Ackelsberg
ZivTech: Illuminating Technology
Hey ho
Grat Job. Three sessions should be O.K. Certainly I'll participate.
Until Drupalcon we should manage to specifiy the aims of each day further, to have the right balance between spontaneity and guidance. BoFs won't be written out in the printed program. Just on the Website.
Maybe it helps to wade through all the issues we found so far, group them into bigger chunks. And maybe vote for priority ;)
Here my proposal for superordinate grouping:
Issue groups
Workflow issues (user does not find next step)
UI Issues (scannability, grouping, hierarchy)
Help system and documentation
Solution groups
User Testing
UI Guidelines (UI Pattern Library)
Life is a process
Life is a journey, not a destination
updated planning
is here: http://groups.drupal.org/szeged-uxsprint.
Discuss "How to" working plans here!
2. Where did my content go? Where is my site?
Here are ideas for addressing this:
By default, when users initially create content, automatically add a link to it on the menu. After users get the hang of creating their first few pages, we can guide them to a settings page to turn off the default automatic linking.
Add a 'Manage Content' or 'My Content' link next to 'Create Content'. This could allow users without the 'administer nodes' permission to be able to view and find a list of the content they created. They could go back and re-edit their content and be guided to advanced tasks: adding it to a menu, assigning a clean URL, attaching a file.
Use color and labeling to separate the admin area from the site itself. In the default Garland theme, when a user goes to any administrative page, change the color from blue to purple and add 'Administer' or 'Administration Area' to the page title. In addition, the administrative menu tasks could be separated from the Navigation menu so that when a user starts adding menu links for their pages, those are separated from 'Create Content', 'My Account', 'Administer'. The administrative menu block could itself be changed from blue to purple on every page.
What do you think?
www.pixotech.com
There are issues with adding
There are issues with adding things to menus in themselves (hence the hierarchies BoF) if we could fix that fieldset, then it might work - but afaik only menu admins can add items to menus, so this might be a bit of work. Another option here is the book module.
For the second - let's get http://drupal.org/node/146282 committable and consider enabling tracker in the default install profile. Those would be two very simple patches to knock out at Szeged, and they wouldn't conflict with more radical solutions (like a dashboard etc.).
Re: There are issues with adding
Yes, tracker looks like a good solution for the second.
www.pixotech.com
Where would the menu item
Where would the menu item turn up?
I like the "My content" next to "Add content". It is easy to figure out what it means. OTOH what would "My recent posts" (from the tracker patch) mean to a new user?
EDIT: ah, see http://drupal.org/node/146282#comment-974613. The mismatching titles would still be a problem, though.
We could consider changing
We could consider changing the tab to 'My content' or 'My recent content' (and the new menu item when it exists). Post and content are used very inconsistently in core.
Missed
the IRC - sorry - but I am cool with the proposal. Let's get it going!