[development] what's a "user"? (was re: Have you ever laughed fate in the face?)

[Bèr Kessels]

Op dinsdag 18 juli 2006 20:08, schreef Derek Wright:
> they're an "admin"  
> IMHO.  not all "admins" necessarily download and install the software  
> themselves.  some have a working, basic site handed to them by a  
> drupal hosting service, others by a consultant/web designer/etc.  i  
> don't really care.  if they mess around in [site]/admin/*, have power  
> to ban/approve users, do administrative stuff, etc, they're an  
> "admin"...

All the sites that I built for various clients can be split up into two kinds 
of sites: over-the-wall and nicely-preprepreprepared. The first group is for 
people who know Drupal well, know php etc (usability is not an issue with 
these sites), I finish requested modules and trow it over the wall.

The second group allows me to be very creative with settings, permissions, 
modules, filters, roles etc. They require a very tight focus on usability.

And frankly,
* the more freedom Drupal gives me, the finer grained the permissions are, the 
more modules I have, the better the usability for the end-user/client is! 

If *I* am given more flexibility I can build a very good, usable, well 
structured site for a client. 
If Drupal (or any module) takes that power away from me, (oversimplifying) I 
end up delivering a less usable site. My client has to see/do things he/she 
could do without. My client gets options on his screen that he really does 
not need. (Yes, you still need to give someone full administer node 
permissions if all he wants is promote a node to frontpage). My client has a 
much less usable site. 

Take views, or cck: They are very complex, but I can learn it once, and my 
clients never need to learn it. So why simplify views to make it 
more "usable"? All my client sees is a table with all his products in it. He 
never needs to know that I fought with views exports. That I digged for the 
proper CCK field setting. 

And FWIW: I count myself as a Drupal user. My clients never (should) need to 
know they are Drupal users. They use a site. They really don't care what 
stuff is behind it.

Bèr
-- 
| Bèr Kessels | webschuur.com | Drupal, Joomla and Ruby on Rails web 
development |
| Jabber & Google Talk: ber at jabber.webschuur.com |
| http://bler.webschuur.com | http://www.webschuur.com |
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