[TYPO3-hci] The Constant Triptichon

[Alex Heizer]

Hi Phillip,



Phillip wrote:
> One thing that bothers me about T3 (front and backend) is the  
> obnoxious Triptichon paradigm. Left, Normal, Right, Border. Enforcing  
> (at least verbaly) left-aligned 1999ish column layouts. 
For usability, having a standard layout isn't obnoxious, it's sensible. 
End users currently have 2 editing paradigms, the BE column view which 
is fixed and consistent, and the FE direct editing on the page in the 
"real" locations. In the BE, editors can be trained with their specific 
site to know which column goes where, which is never a problem. If 
people get confused then it means they weren't trained well. In 
addition, having standard layouts means documentation can be created 
that demonstrate how to use the site for 100% of the content editors 
instead of having to create documentation for each site after it's been 
created based on that site's setup. Even with the differences between 
the classic BE and a TV BE can be hard if documentation was written 
using one BE or another. Now you have to have 2 sets of docs for the 
same set of actions and tasks. Taking this concept further, look at the 
Maya 3D interface, with a selling point being that it's very 
configurable. Next, what happens, as in the case of my brother who took 
a course on using Maya and the first week was spent having everyone in 
the class reconfigure their interfaces to match the teacher's so that 
the teacher could effectively teach. Now, all of a sudden, every Maya 
book and tutorial available in stores and on the Internet becomes 
instantly harder to follow. There is a reason that MS Word and 
Photoshop's interfaces haven't changed significantly in 15 years, and 
aren't especially customizable by IT or end users.
> Naming should  
> be more abstract (Segments) and one should be able to define the  
> amount of Layout segments by oneself. I know this is yet another  
> architecture thing, but one that is once again strongly tied to  
> backend usability.
>   
I agree, but usability for the majority can be enhanced by promoting a 
good standard interface rather than putting hours and money into 
creating a customizable interface that makes it more difficult or time 
consuming to teach editors to use. The hours and money should be put in 
refining the standard interface so that it is the easiest to use, learn 
and teach. It can be the difference between a site developer spending 
another 20 hours just for documentation for their users because the 
standard 1000 pages and hours of video don't make sense any more. And 
would the developer upload all of their docs to TYPO3.org so that the 
rest of us can benefit from them? Personally, I'd rather spend those 20 
hours per project relaxing or working on a new project and guide my 
editors to the existing docs and videos. That's usability on a 
big-picture scale that you can't get by having an infinitely-tweakable 
interface on a per-project basis.

> Shouldn't we start shedding that in the backend already? I mean,  
> Triptichon Layout could be something like a default preset, but  
> naming and layout of the "Move Element" view should be customizable  
> to fit the templated grid.
>   
I agree that labels and namings could be refined in some cases, but 
those refinements are what we should be concerned about instead of an 
interface that can be customized infinitely for each installation or BE 
user.

Cheers,
Alex