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A talk I gave on Drupalcamp Colorado
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Creating Considerate Web Applications
Bojhan Somers & Jimmy BerryGoogle Summer of Code ProjectJuly 2008
About me
• Student• Usability Consultant at Usendes• Google Summer of Code Co-mentor• Bojhan.nl
Why does most software suck?
“Know thy user, and you are not thy only user” - Arnie Lund
Why does most software suck?
How do you expect to do X?
Don Norman
User-centerd Design
• Manage expectations• Design first, code second• Adding a feature to core is dangerous• Remove features that are not neccesairy
Disclamer : This is not how you do it.
Finding functionality
• Drupal jargon• Optimize for muddeling trough
Finding functionality
Do you really readme.txt?
Finding functionality
Card Sorting
Online Card Sorting
Optimal Sort
• Picture Wordpress Dashboard
Finding functionality
• Visual seperation of functionality• How do users categorize and label
functionality?• Workflow• Embedded functionality? let the user know..
Flexibility
• Interface focused on to many target groups• Inflexible interface
4 diffrent screen states
• Regular• Blank• Error• Flooded
Blank state
Why?• Introduce the concept• Good first impression• Avoid beginners questions
Blank state best practices
• Quick introduction • Give a sample screenshot or screencast to see
how the page would look it it has data.• Explain how to get started• Refer to extra documentation if its available
Flooded State
What happends to your interface if you have 20.000 nodes?
Flooded state best practices
• Don’t let it constraint your design.• Reconize flooded state• Adaptive interface
Copywriting is interface design!
• Instructions is a last resort• Stop writing for everyone• Let someone else do it• Read your interface outloud, does it sound
right?
Killing good ideas
ProblemA participant was confused of the terminology to describe the web site’s main page. The participant expected to see Home Page used instead of Front Page.
SolutionRethink the term front page. Consider using a more conventional term such as home page.
Killing good ideas
+1
Killing good ideas
“I'm not sure why Home page should be more consistent than Front page in anyone's vocabulary.”
“I'm not suprised that people are more familiar with the term home page -- but its a very non specific term used in a wide variety of contexts.”
Killing good ideas
“How are we going to solve opinion wars, so we can improve the usability of Drupal?”
Allowing good ideas
Data!Usability testing
