[drupal-devel] two minor usability issues, introduced recently

[Dries Buytaert]

On 25 Sep 2005, at 12:53, Richard Archer wrote:







>> Case: node aggregator has some settings for this: how many feed  
>> entries to
>> show etc. Now the current thing would enforce me to make a second  
>> page for
>> RSS settings. Users should not have to visit two pages in  
>> different places to
>> set their RSS settings.
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> This is perhaps a terminology issue and one that has confused the
> heck out of me. On several occasions while I've been learning Drupal
> I have enabled the aggregator module in order to activate an RSS feed
> of MY news. When what I really needed to do was turn on the RSS block.
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This issue is new to me; I don't know about other people being  
confused about this.  Interesting nonetheless. Maybe the module  
description (shown on the 'administer > modules' page) needs to be  
improved upon.  Feel free to make concrete suggestions (or better  
yet, a patch against Drupal CVS).  You know better than anyone else  
what could have avoided the confusion.







> Out of interest, why is it that module settings show up under the
> Settings admin menu option and not in a pane within the module's
> own menu option?
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It's a hard problem, but one we have to solve.  I think we all agree  
that the current situation is a bit of a mess.  An important part of  
the problem boils down to the question: "What exactly makes a  
setting?".  For example, adding profile fields is an uncommon yet  
reasonably complex task.  Is it a setting or not?  Does it belong under:

   1. administer > settings
   2. adminster > profiles
   3. administer > users > profiles
   4. <something else>

I believe Kieran's usability study will help us reorganize the  
administration section, however, maybe not at this level of detail.   
We'd have to ask Kieran.

What would be really useful for us, is for you to compile a list of  
situations where you expectation did not match the actual location of  
a setting/task/function.  If we had a dozen such lists from different  
people, we might see a pattern or two.

--
Dries Buytaert  ::  http://www.buytaert.net/