[TYPO3-hci] Starting the HCI team

[Bas v.d. Wiel]

Hi Kasper and others,
In the past year or so I gathered a lot of feedback from users of small, 
medium and now also a very large TYPO3 implementation. Right now I'm in 
the process of moving house, so everything's packed up in boxes 
(including my notes) but the most important from the top of my head:

- way too many alternative ways of doing things in the BE.
- default content elements visually have a 'special' status in the BE 
(different icons, positions) for no apparent reason other than legacy.
- A 12" mac laptop is too small to work comfortably in the normal BE 
layout, got this complaint 4 out of 5 times. Condensed layout works, but 
is cumbersome.
- Clicking on the icon of a record does something else than clicking on 
the label, especially in the page tree. This confuses inexperienced 
editors. The get used to "the TYPO3 way" eventually, but it throws many 
first-timers off.
- The rigid 4 columns representation in the BE has got to go. I'd love 
to have a method to visually imitate the frontend design in the BE so 
that editable "zones" (the old columns) actually match the real site layout.
- Faster loading page tree. When a site contains thousands of pages, it 
can take over 10 seconds to load the page tree. That's a long pause if 
all you want to do is add a link to a page. I've seen Vignette do this 
much faster with a page tree implemented as a Java applet.. (gets ready 
to dodge the flames)
- Search option in the page tree area so you can quickly find a page 
based on its title.
- For the admins: a new and stable GIFBUILDER that does away with the 
ImageMagick version hell. I consider this a major 'gremlin'.

I'm very busy learning as much as I can about the internals of TYPO3 so 
I hope to be able to contribute actual code soon.. ;-)

Bas

Kasper Skårhøj wrote:

>Hi Everyone (maybe I'm still the only one on the list ;-)
>
>Welcome to the HCI team list.
>
>This is the melting pot for ideas about usability improvements for  
>version 4.5 of TYPO3.
>
>Next week (waiting for all interested people to subscribe) I plan on  
>kicking off a structure brainstorm on focus areas with my own  
>thoughts first.
>
>In the meantime, announce yourself, maybe present a quick idea about  
>what you hope 4.5 will be like.
>
>
>The HCI team:
>Eventually we will form a team with members and tasks and define what  
>sort of authority our results will have for version 4.5 and the R&D  
>committee whom the team willl be under.
>
>Shortterm: How can we innovate on TYPO3s usability in a network  
>community? How do we identify true solutions from a pond of opinions?
>
>Longterm: How can we (the team) sustain an improved usability and  
>consistency in TYPO3 over the next generations of the software?
>
>
>
>- kasper
>
>"A contribution a day keeps the fork away"
>-------------------------------
>kasper2006 at typo3.com | +45 20 999 115 | skype: kasperskaarhoej |  
>gizmo: kasper_typo3
>
>
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