Usability

[kauselot]

After a quick look at the forum it seems to me, that this workgrup is mostly oriented at standards complience and accessibility.

Is there an usability subgroup..or should I say informational arhitecture subgroup, that deals with questions like navigation structure, content organization and ways to present them to users? And if there is, is there any "to do list" or list of topics, that have already been  discussed?

I would like to suggest a few things, but wouldn't like to discover hot water again

[Jenny]

It would be great if you wanted to open up a discussion on these matters.  One of the issues I see with useability issue discussion is that each website is unique with unique usability needs, and usability for the most part has to be tailored to your target audience.  General usability though can be important (keep navigation constant throughout the entire website, etc).

Can you give some specific examples of what you are meaning, I would like to learn more.

[kauselot]

Basicaly, what I mean is, that Joomla's (at least in 1.0.x series) frontpage presentation layer was left to stand still somewhere on the development path. Built in menu system, table  and blog view etc. should be heavilly enhanced and base functionalities from Display news module, Frontpage thumbnails, Extended menu etc. combined and incorporated in the base distribution.

But before going into details I have to check out what has already been done  in 1.5. or is already planned for the future, that's why I'm asking those questions.

[Jenny]

I am not sure if you are talking about usability targetting the enduser of a site, or if you are talking about bulit in functionality targetted towards site administrators, designers.

Have fun looking at 1.5.  There are huge improvements in every area over the 1.0 series.

[kauselot]

I guess that what I'm talking about is more pointed towards site administrators/designers/builders.

I was hoping that someone could tell me what has been done in 1.5 in that area. I guess I will have to setup test instalation as joomla demo for 1.5 doesn't work.

[kauselot]

Ok. According to this description:

http://www.demo.joomla.org/demo15/index ... &Itemid=38

and whole Joomla 1.5 demo it is fair to say, that nothing has really changed from web builders point of view  

[Jenny]

Ok. According to this description:

http://www.demo.joomla.org/demo15/index ... &Itemid=38

and whole Joomla 1.5 demo it is fair to say, that nothing has really changed from web builders point of view  

That isn't true.  The ability to use template overrides totally changes how a web builder/designer can utilize/customize Joomla!

[kauselot]

Overrides by their definition override something.They are just another possibility to change or extend Joomla. Nothing wrong with that - but what I'm talking about are built in functionalities that deal with front side -  category blog, section table, menus etc. Good news for iJoomla and similars, but bad for Joomla. IMHO good CMS should be a little more flexible and offer more possibilities in that area.

[Jenny]

Have you actually tried 1.5? 

[kauselot]

Sorry, I did -  but apart from underlying tehnical improvements, template redesign and details, basic functionalities for CMS user haven't changed much. FTP layer and SEO improvements, but nothing noticable on the frontend side.

But please - I'm trying to start a debate about the future versions and the way to go in the future,  not about Joomla 1.0.x to 1.5 changes.

And first question that came to my mind is Framework vs. CMS. Developer orientation or web builder/cms user orientation.