[TYPO3-hci] The Constant Triptichon

[Alex Heizer]

Christopher wrote:
> Alex Heizer wrote:
>   
>> Hi Phillip,
>>     
>
> <snip>
>
>   
>> 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.
>>     
>
> Alex I understand what you're worried about, but I think your logic is 
> suspect here. If what you're suggesting were true then it would already 
> be impossibly difficult to train end-users in FE editing instead of, as 
> it is, a 10 minute task (once they're familiar with the TYPO3-specific 
> elements of the UI).
>   

This is exactly my logic. However, I go under the premise that it is the 
standard BE interface that tens of thousands of users already use which 
lets us create standard documentation to teach people "the 
TYPO3-specific elements of the UI". Somewhere, somehow you need a 
standard interface that doesn't change on a per-site basis so that 
someone, anyone, can create documentation for people to learn from. 
Currently you have the BE which is standard over all installations and 
the FE which shows you, representationally, an editing interface that 
mirrors the site layout.

My question to you is: with the FE editing, what is the benefit of 
making the BE representative of the website layout? Ripping out a 
standard BE that we can create documentation for, just so that we can 
make two versions of the same interface (both FE and BE), would be a 
very bad idea in the usability department.

Check the English list for people asking questions about features that 
have changed minorly but the documentation doesn't reflect this. I 
remember one person needing to make an export in v3.8 and being totally 
lost because the documentation showed the export for an older version of 
the T3D export which didn't include all the new features. Check the 
English list again for a person who asked a bunch of rudimentary 
questions that should easily be found in documentation and then after a 
short while simply asked "how do I take my site out of TYPO3 and move it 
to another CMS?" (yes, they actually asked this on our mailing list -- 
"how do I stop using your product"!) Having a standard interface that we 
can create documentation from is important, and we already have the FE 
for editing in a representational interface.

Say there are 1,000 websites done in TYPO3. Currently the documentation 
isn't keeping up with minor changes to the core featurelist, not to 
mention major changes such as TemplaVoila and workspaces. People get 
confused using TV because all of the documentation is already based on 
the standard interface, even though, as you say, people just need to be 
familiar with the TYPO3-specific elements of the UI. Take that one step 
further and not only present a second interface that's already different 
than the documentation, but make it so that *every* site has a different 
interface, and all of a sudden you've made a problem that already is 
shown to exist and compounding it 1,000-fold. We already have the FE for 
editing in a representational interface.

Keep a standard interface that people have been able to use to learn for 
years, improve it, create documentation finally (how many years has it 
been since core documentation was updated to reflect new features?), and 
let people edit in the existing FE interface if they need to edit in a 
representational interface. If you need BE features in the FE, then work 
towards extending the FE. We already have the FE for editing in a 
representational interface.

There's just no logical reason to remove a standard editing interface 
for all installations, but I can think of a huge reason not to. What 
would be the benefit of giving editors two versions of the same editing 
interface instead of giving them two that they can choose from to allow 
them to work the way it suits them best? Don't forget, not all editors 
work best in the FE, so having the BE the way it is also gives these 
editors the freedom to work their best.

Alex