These suggestions speak more to formatting than function. The composition pages in Drupal can get quite busy. A couple of things might help clean up the interface for the user:
1/ Publishing options. It seems this area could be condensed. It's a repetitive task area, so great amounts of white space is not needed.
2/ Taxonomy layout. If each vocabulary had a single drop-down menu, instead of the display box, that in itself would be a huge boon to clarity and space efficiency. If the menus (for each vocabulary) were arrayed horizontally, side-by-side, more vertical space can be saved.
3/ Input area. It would be nice if this region were configurable, as it is in some php forum systems. The window strikes me, personally, as a little small, but some people make like that. Making this user-configurable would be a small addition to user-friendliness.
4/ Input format. What if this were a drop-down menu? The explanatory text could be called up dynamically (dhtml), depending upon what is chosen.
5/ Trackback URLs. This box is unnecessarily wide and overlaps or breaks the right sidebar on most displays. Couldn't this be the same width as the input text area?
I realize these cross a few modules. I'm finding, however, it's becoming a chore to keep all the input straight any more. Some cleaning up in this layout would do wonders for ease of use for regular users.
Thanks!
mediagirl
Comments
Input formats
If you don't need more than one input format, disable the others and/or delete them. You will only get the formatting options, not the selector.
Note that admins will always see all input formats, even if they aren't enabled for their role.
I have to agree with media
I have to agree with media girl -- it would be fantastic to not have to see that giant clutter of input formats *every single time you post*. Ideally, a user could pick a default once, and never see that option again. If they wanted to change it on a per-post basis, they could (some sort of subtle "switch format" link underneath the explanatory text). For that matter, the explanatory text should be optionally toggled off, too.
The advances in input formats for 4.5 have been fantastic. I think doing a bit of UI re-factoring would be a good goal this time around.
disclosure triangles
I'd love to see some brief 'switch formats' text and a disclosure triangle beside it. when you click the text or triangle, the full input selector is shown, along with its help. these disclosure elements require minimal minimal javascript. all they do is toggle a hidden div. if user has no javascript, then all html is shown just like today.
a little javascript would help usability a lot IMO.
I realize this
However, I also prefer to offer choices for users. A drop-down menu seems a cleaner option to me. A dhtml switch could hide or reveal formatting tips, for that matter.
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mediagirl.org
I have multiple input
I have multiple input formats allowed on several sites. Currently the input formats are on one page so it is one click for me to start typing. If there are drop down boxes, then it becomes two clicks
.
-Steven Peck
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Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
hide input formats when using a rich text editor
I personally edited the filter module to hide the filter options when FCKEditor is enabled.
It's pointless to show the options when you can just make the avaiable options available trought the WYSIWYG editor.
The same applies for HTMLArea, TinyMCE and even quicktags
Agreed
If there is one page I'd like to see optimized towards usability, it is the page to add and edit nodes/posts. It is used by both visitors and site administrators and it probably the number one Drupal form in terms of usage.
I think I just had a good idea
What if we have an actual donation goal? 37signals has 37express, which costs $2500 for doing usability analsysis and design on one page.
What if we asked them to do the composition page?
Much like Firefox, we could make a real campaign out of it -- use the affiliate module, drive people towards a donation page here on Drupal.org
Seems like a steep price
considering that the 'Support Drupal' tip jar generously raised 350 Euros, it might take us a while to get to 2500. And are these 37signals really that good that they're worth that much? Otherwise it's a good idea.
- Robert Douglass
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visit me at www.robshouse.net
Yes, no, maybe
$2500 is not within our budget, but yes, we could run real campaigns once we figured out how to accept tax-deductable donations. Maybe we can offer $50 or $100 for the best amateur usability review of a particular page.
Umm....that is the whole
Umm....that is the whole point of doing fundraising. Who says it's not within our budget? What kind of publicity would shooting for this goal bring? I'd love to get several groups on board to give "matching funds" -- so every dollar contributed by the public would be doubled or tripled.
But I'm jumping ahead of myself. Just a crazy marketing idea that results in some usability improvements, too.
Let's try
Let's try?
Someone has to get in touch with one or more usability companies to ask if they would be willing to 'play along'. We need to be able to plublish all material, including offertes and invoices on drupal.org so they should be confortable with this kind of openess. Maybe they can make us a special deal in exchange for the free marketing, or just because we are mostly volunteers trying to make this world a better place. :)
Also, the company must be well aware that it is not a static page they are looking at. Page elements come and go as you enable/disable modules, or based on one's permissions. This must be taken into account because it restricts/complicates the possibilities. I guess for them to understand, we'll have to show them different 'versions' of the 'same' page (eg. with an without the admin toggles, with and without taxonomy term selectors, with and without the path aliasing, etc.).
Once we have a good deal, we can organize the funds.
how about
I read the thread and Michael Angeles ( http://urlgreyhot.com/ ) springs to mind. He uses Drupal, and I remember he has suggested a few usability improvements in the past. (And also did some Drupal T-shirt design)
Why don't we ask if he's interested.
Yeah, Michael has helped us
Yeah, Michael has helped us a lot in the past. We could at least ask him if he thinks the approach outlined by Dries makes sense.
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Anyone
Anyone can offer us a deal, including Michael Angelas (obviously).
Lead and they shall follow
Boris, you know that if someone steps up and spearheads this effort they will get lots of support, from me included. I didn't want to throw cold water on the idea - I would just like to make sure that any fundraising money gets spent in the very best way possible. Are there other evaluation services which we could also buy, and if so, would we get more bang for our buck with them?
I agree with you that a fundraising campaign could do wonders to publicize our work and draw attention to our software. In principle it is a very good idea.
- Robert Douglass
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visit me at www.robshouse.net
Thanks, Robert. I'll add it
Thanks, Robert. I'll add it to my every growing to-do list :P
Seriously, I just picked 37Signals because I remembered about their "express" offer which focuses on single pages. Fundraising for usability I think is a good goal. As you put it, if someone were to step forward and organize, I would get behind it.
A contest might be a little harder...I don't think there are a lot of designers that get excited about the usability of an edit screen. Mock ups are always good, but we have to keep the ball rolling -- design and code.
With Christmas not too far off, I know *I* won't have time to tackle this until some time in the new year.
In any case, I opened a task for this. Attach mockups and patches there.
Hey kids, let's put on a contest!
Rather than pay lotsa money to 37signals (not that they might not be worth it) sponsor a contest to redesign the content-creation forms (or whatever). There might be a lot of good designers who would take a stab for no reward--the css zen garden website is proof of this.
After the designs were in, you could have a jury pick the best one, or perhaps pick one and request the best elements from some other themes be added in. Some of the tip-jar money could be offered as a prize.
Adam Rice
its not the lack of ideas
Chris came up with some fabulous review with new ideas. We all had great ideas as the usaility sprint.
The problem is not that we cannot find what is wrong. Nor that we cannot come up with better ideas.
The problem lies in the fact that no-one seems to have time or budget to do usability improvmemens.
I for myself, have decided that 10% of my cleints time goes into one -or more- usability improvements. The most recent one being the forms UI overhaul.
I think we need more developers :). WE all know that. No, we need more developers interested in usability improvements. They are very hard to implement and even harder to communicate. Speed for example can be measured. Useability cannot.
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if you dont like the choices being made for you, you should start making your own.
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[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]
Taxonomy selects
I assume you mean select lists with "display box". Note that taxonomy will use a drop-down, but only if multiple-select is not enabled. Dropdowns can only select a single item.
Oops
That's a good point about the dropdowns.
Quickpost module?
Isn't some of this available in quickpost.module? I think it is great because you can choose which options each roles sees. Anything you don't want the user to deal with can be put in the Advanced tab, or hidden from the user. I'd say work off that.
The only problem for me is that it lists all taxonomy options twice when I have it turned on, which is annoying.
Quickpost
Yeah, I was going to bring up the quickpost module also. I am having problems with it right out of CVS and haven't time to look into debugging it, but the aim of creating a basic and an advanced form (tabs) seems to be a big step to entry simplification.
People could just start
People could just start generating mock up designs and requesting feedback on it.
Two goals.
1. Do people in general agree that it is an improvement
2. Do the developers agree that the proposed design is do-able within the current submission rules.
-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide
Dynamic nature makes this a challenge
The dynamic nature of the compostion page makes it really hard to design well for all cases.
Given any single composition page - like one for drupal.org forums - that is not so tough. http://drupal.org/node/add/forum - piece of cake, 3 fields, one simple taxonomy.
But designing a template that works well for all combinations of fields and taxonomies - that is a different type of challenge. We could pay $ for a great form design and in 10 minutes I could come up with a set of fields and taxonomies that would break it. (^:
One approach to tackle this is to add "intelligence" - have the system figure out when it can list 2 taxonomies side-by-side instead of above/below each other. Have an algorithm calculate the best widths and widgets.
Another approach is to add some (lots!) parameters for admins. For example, let them pick the # of columns they want the taxonomies displayed in. Sizes/widths for each field. Let me pick scrolling fields OR checkboxes for each multi-select taxonomy. Etc. Turns each admin into a UI designer of sorts. Turns Drupal into a UI builder application.
A third approach is to make templates that admins could choose from. If we can identify 3 or 4 key CLASSES of composition pages, then that is probably the best of the 3 approaches.
I think one of the biggest gains that could be made would be to simply enable an option to get rid of the left and/or right column blocks for these pages. Having all of these "what's new" and other blocks distracts from the task at hand - editing and entering content. Instead we could use the columns to make a better composition page design itself. Either use the space for a wider form, or put key elements of the form in those columns (e.g. pick your most complex taxonomy for the left column).
Just ideas to think about the problem differently.
remove the blocks
I think one of the biggest gains that could be made would be to simply enable an option to get rid of the left and/or right column blocks for these pages. Having all of these "what's new" and other blocks distracts from the task at hand - editing and entering content. Instead we could use the columns to make a better composition page design itself. Either use the space for a wider form, or put key elements of the form in those columns (e.g. pick your most complex taxonomy for the left column).
I agree entirely. I've used authoring interfaces like this before and it works well. You don't need or want clutter while composing.
Front-end/Admin Split
This is a gripe I've learned to (well try at least) to keep quiet about, the merging of end-user and admin portions of the site, UI-wise. I think it was not a good move, but it's done so that's that.
If there is/was a good way to kill blocks or change the layout on admin pages I agree it would help immensely in improving layout and clarity in the authoring interface. Perhaps something like:
I need to look at some source to see if this is at all feasible technically...
PS: also, is it just my browser (Safari), or does using the [code] tags not maintain line indents?
removing blocks is not a good idea
You *should* (I purposedly did not write you *can*) remove blocks by administrating them correctly.
Just removing all blocks, regardless is silly. A lot of blocks are very valuable in admin areas. like "who's online", or custom blocks that show throttle levels etc. And off course the navigation block!
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if you dont like the choices being made for you, you should start making your own.
---
[Bèr Kessels | Drupal services www.webschuur.com]
Handle this in the theme
I think that we should utilize the same elegant solution that profile module implements in calling the theme to style the profile pages. The function is overrideable in the theme, allows for most configurations for the interface and style depending on how fancy you want to get with the css/dhtml/javascript, but also allows for just basic output and doesnt require theme futzing.
If, instead of creating html formatted form chunks from node modules, the modules returned an array of form objects that could be themed out later this would help greatly. This way, the node module could pass that array to theme('node_create_form') or whatever, and allow the theme to take over from there.
This is a core change for sure, and would affect all node modules, but I think that it's a good idea and brings us that one step closer to logic/display seperation.
I would be willing to both spec and code this if there was community interest.
are we limiting?
can you not already achieve most desired layouts via CSS. The HTML outputted by the modules is pure semantic markup, and I'd be suprised if we are constraining UI developers. I think we can far with this with some clever CSS in the themes.
If we need to change the HTML markup to achieve certain design goals, lets post them here or elsewhere. Until then, i think this is a case of noone has bothered to improve the CSS for this page (and contribute it back to the community).
Good idea
Some of the cleanup can happen just by configuring display. I'll get cracking as soon as I finish my current project and post some CSS code here. But I hope others will do the same -- this is an easy implementation for quick fixes (within limits).
(I also like the idea of using the blocks. It's nice how smileys.module does this.)
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mediagirl.org
partial help
Great topic.
I definitely don't have a complete solution, but I created a series of patches called "posthere" Unfortunately it is 4.4 but perhaps it could be updated.
It only eliminates the taxonomy selection, but on many sites, that section takes up a lot of space... when you are viewing a taxonomy, you click a "post here" link and the current taxonomy will automatically be selected (and all taxonomy selectors are hidden)
It is a big usability help also, fewer mistakes on categories, fewer newbies who can't figure out what all the vocabs even mean.
More info here
If there was a lot of support for this idea, perhaps it would help gain momentum for making these (very small) changes to the core.
The biggest problem to making this easier to do is that there is no easy way for the page to know what taxonomy it is inside, most of the time. For example, if you are viewing a node, the page does not know what taxonomy the node is from (the node itself generates the category link)... so when trying to create a posthere link, the page does not know what taxonomy to select. You have to make a couple tweaks to the core do get it it work. That is why I have been unable to make this into a module.
why not create a/some new tabs?
Drupal 4.5 already has tabs for view, edit, track, outline, etc. why not move all of the excess, the current options, authoring information, taxonomy, user comments, etc., to a new tab or tabs? call it options, and reserve the edit tab for what it should be: editing the content of the post and title.
so when the user first chooses an option for "create content," they would be routed to the "add" tab screen, with additional options as tabs.
more thoughts
As soon as I posted this, I started thinking of the implementation:
When users create content, they would go to a screen with only what is mandatory to create the node:
* title
* taxonomy (required for forums, etc., but even not when required, most admins want users to consider selecting a taxonomy)
* body
At the top of that screen would be a "create" and "options" tab. The options page could look something like http://cyberdash.com/temp/options_tab.png.
Both the "create" and "options" page would contain a "preview" or "preview" and "submit" buttons (depending on whether previewing is required). If the user chooses "preview" on the options page, it returns them to the preview mode under the "create" tab. And if the user presses submit on the options page and the "create" page fields have not been properly entered, the user would be returned to preview mode on the create page.
I do believe this is worth considering because it makes use of tabs in a way that is consistent with the current interface.
Quickpost?
Isn't this very similar to the quickpost module already in the repository? As I understand it that module is very similar and just needs some tweaking or bug fixes.
you are right
I had not seen that module. In principle I agree. It's a great idea :)
I think it would be easier to simplify if down to a standard page and an options page, separating the two, rather than providing different displays via that toggle. But the idea of letting the admin control what would be present in the standard input interface vs the options page would be a great way to contexualize it for any different site, while still allowing the additional tab pages to fit within the current tab setup in the same row instead of having to form a new one.
I like this idea
+1
- Robert Douglass
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visit me at www.robshouse.net
I truly believe user input
I truly believe user input *should* be extremely simple for a certain type of users, particularly senior ones as well as computer illiterate ones. And a module like Quickpost is great in that respect. I second the idea of having such *simple* way to enter data into the system in the drupal core. Also I've seen complex masks for entering data into drupal (pages, stories, etc.) for upcoming versions of the system, but we don't have to run into overly complex systems, only apparently "more simple" ... Or better yet we should also keep the very simple input data form we could have with Quickpost.
any progress on this
i'd like to declutter my composition pages as discussed here (6 months ago) - just wondering if there's been any progress on this?
i might take a shot at the js hide div code, but i'm a novice... and there's no need to reinvent the wheel, eh?
has anyone remedied this UI ugliness? thanks (:
declutter submit page hack
this is my hack-fix for decluttering up the submit page:
allow only one input format for users, then modify line 735 of code from filter.module
from--> $output .= form_item(t('Formatting guidelines'), theme('filter_tips', $tips, false, $extra), $extra);
to--> $output .= form_item(t(''), theme(''), $extra);
this removes the formatting guideline on the submit page, but leaves the link to 'more info about formatting options'
declutter submit page hack
this is my hack-fix for decluttering up the submit page:
allow only one input format for users, then modify line 735 of code from filter.module
from--> $output .= form_item(t('Formatting guidelines'), theme('filter_tips', $tips, false, $extra), $extra);
to--> $output .= form_item(t(''), theme(''), $extra);
this removes the formatting guideline on the submit page, but leaves the link to 'more info about formatting options'
option?
This sounds great, I'll try this out in the morning.
SOunds like a good thing to have as an option for each filter and/or input format.
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This worked great
Just in case you were wondering, this worked great.
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