[drupal-docs] Usability guidelines

[Steven Wittens]

>Just to illustrate, the node creation form should be able to be
>designed for different node types. This is a major failure of Drupal's
>design in my experience so far. That there is no distinction between
>creating a blog entry, book page and forum post, IMHO, creates many
>more problems than it solves from a usability perspective. I should
>have control over what the user sees -- after all, that's my job. Not
>having that control limits my effectiveness and ultimately makes it
>extremely difficult for me to improve upon what Drupal provides.
>  
>
I think the main reason is that a lot of this is not so much theming 
(i.e. variations in looks) but essential usability.

Moving things into themes means that every theme needs to have the 
changes applied to it, tested and maintained. And let's not forget that 
third-party themes will need to be updated as well (remember people not 
finding their way in the 4.5 admin interface because their custom 4.4 
templates did not display tabs).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying themes should be limited to changing 
some colors and margins, far from it, but on the other hand it doesn't 
help Drupal much if we have one killer, über-custom theme that is very 
usable, while the stock Drupal is still a usability nightmare. I don't 
think it's a theme's job to fix broken interfaces.

I get the idea that you think your toolset is limited to making a theme. 
Drupal is open-source and if you don't like the submission form, suggest 
changes and help get those changes into core. Make mock-ups, write 
usabilty reviews, etc. This would benefit everyone, rather than just the 
site you're theming.

Steven Wittens