The HCI team is responsible for two things:
* The usability of 4.5
* Future usability, preferably embedded into the development culture.
We are preparing a "team contract" that definitively describes what the responsibility of this team is and what authority we have.
Focus
I find it necessary to define what the focus of our group is since some suggestions easily fall into other categories. The highlighted bullet is our focus:
* Architecture => go to "5.0 Core" team
* Improve ease-of-use, newbee appeal, human-factor => 4.5 (thats us! Our criteria!)
* General features and nice-to-haves => Any version as an extension or core implementation through bug-tracker)
From the Roapmap of 4.5 (May 2005) you find this nice graph:
From the R&D results in May 2005 you also find these perspectives on what "ease-of-use" means:
- consistency
- transparency
- unique, descriptive names
- user/task centered options
- proconfiguring template users as editors, administrators, developers and as beginners, advanced, expert
- Consolidate displaced functions in new central modules. (User Manager)
- Substantially improve usability with the help of scientific testing and university experts.
- Create pre-configured users narrowing options down to beginner, advanced and expert level for editors, administrators and developers, making all modules configurable.
(At this point I feel we should only look to this list as inspiration since the most accurate definition of "ease-of-use" is the one we will jointly discover on this team! -kasper)
Lifetime of our 4.5 work
An objection to working on 4.5 and 5.0 simultaneously has been that we waste time on 4.5. That is not the case if we do this right. Mainly because the value of our work lies in knowledge about working usable solutions for TYPO3, not the implementation itself (generally speaking). This leads to the following system:
* Ideas, concepts, experience, visual elements: All goes directly to 5.0 development
* Technical implementation
o Some will be 4.x branch implementation only.
o Some will feed into 5.x (thats what we will want to do for the major development works),
for example:
+ Forms/Wizard framework?
+ New backend interface (requires some MVC?)
# XUL possible
# Other client interaction?
In the process of working with usability for version 4.5, we have the following work areas:
* Usability No-brainers: There are obvious improvements we can already name from own experience (these are abundantly exposed on the HCI list already, on mailing lists, we could make a survey for the community). This is where you can contribute your ideas off hand. Also, contributed by creating a Usability Survey for the community.
* Usability Discoveries: There are improvements we have not realized yet (these should be discovered through usability tests on the current system). This is where we work systematically with analysis of the current system.
* Usability Innovation: There are possibly innovative ideas to be discovered (seeking inspiration outside our software?). This is where we innovate new approaches
Eventually all improvements needs to be tested (we change only to improve, not for the sake of change)
Paradigms?
"TYPO3 has got it's own style and IMHO we should try to keep it that way, since this has been a part of the success story during the last few years. Improving things should never lead to a loss of identity." JoH
I think the sentence above from JoH is very important to keep in mind!
Below is a compilation of statements we can refer to in the discussion of what usability actually is and means for TYPO3:
* Well taught, TYPO3 never is a problem (for any target group?)
* Short term, long term thinking - do we sacrifice long term efficiency with improvements that appeal to novices?
* Is a usable design one that keeps a user in a "Dependent" state - or makes them independent?
* "Give a man a fish and feed him for a day, teach him to fish and feed him for a lifetime": Is it better to teach users the concept instead of the specific action?
Does these paradigms hold true depending on user profile?
* once-a-month user? Should be guided
* everyday editor? Should be trained in the concept so they help themselves.
* Long-term developer? Should be trained
* First-time-installed? Should be guided into the experience.
Usability is the function of. (-Alex/Erik)
* A good working UI
* Splendid teaching
* Teachers who understand the users need
