Its great that Joomla.org start doing usability testing and it should of course be done with Joomla Framework-CMS as well!

But I believe it should be done in a more scientific professional way so its really show the, as much as possible, right implications for improvements on all levels.

Not exactly similar like post Joomla already ready Tobii solution but it should be done professionally to understand what the end user expect and need from a WCM system – not a core developers guessing.

I am surprised that Joomla development so far have not set this as before hand testing priority JUX as number one, before starting to recode again from J 1.5 –>J 1.6.

But Its still not to late but more work of changing things and get it right.

Now it have been more like somebody, or a few, in the core devs like it to be and not tested how it really could be and look like for the best for end users.

But its also never to late to make things better step by step of course.

One major thing I dont understand is why Joomla 1.6 (J 1.5.+, J 1.0.+) need its (sections)/categories instead of using menu(s) and menu module(s) instead? Do you ?

All the best!

It would be nice if the community could band together and somehow have more input on Joomla usability overall, instead of having so many fragmented ways of training and supporting it. Hands down Joomla beats Drupal and WordPress for expandability but, backend user friendly, it isn’t.

So far, Joomla is still a tool built by developers for advanced users. We need to find a way to dumb it down (backend) and simplify, not add to complexity. I for one, are not looking forward to 1.6.

Joomla 1.5 is complex enough to meet 99% of SMB (small to mid size businesses) and individual needs. Joomla 1.6 is geared more to the corporate market (20%) than the user/SMB (80%) market.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a strong fork (not what’s out there now) of Joomla to keep 1.5 alive for those of us who don’t need ACL’s or nested categories. It would be OK if someone created a plugin that totally disabled the 1.6 ACL feature and stuck with the top level groups like 1.5 but, I don’t think that’s possible (to un-ACL Joomla).

One good approach to Joomla 1.5 nested categories would be to call Sections, Master Categories. Then users can create sub-categories. Granted, they can’t go 3 levels deep but, since 99% of the sites out there have less that 100 articles (err. pages), why do you need nested categories beyond 2?

Joomla would REALLY benefit IMHO by keeping both branches alive, 1.5 and 1.6x-1.xx. Let 1.5 meet the need of the larger market and 1.6 or later handle the big stuff. Addon purchases should be the true deciding factor of if, Joomla 1.5 should go. Not just because a bigger, better mouse trap was built.

Joomla 1.5 would continue to be refined to be simpler for users, not more difficult.

You are absolutely correct Merav about the amount of time you have to impress a visitor before you are never to see them again.

Smart money has it that you take something that is inherently complex and make it as streamlined and functional as humanly possible. In other words, build a workhorse and not a temperamental thoroughbred. That should apply not only to the front-end but to the back as well.

Cheers!

Also, great comments everyone else, I totally agree.

Usability will certainly be a big part of the upcoming redesign of the site.

Usability will also be a huge part of the JUX (Joomla User eXperience) which will focus on the admin portion of J!

I’m also sold on more usability tests for my own admin templates 🙂

Thanks for the great comment. I couldn’t agree with you more. We started doing usability testing to Joomla 1.6 because I think there is not a whole lot of point doing it for 1.5 at this time. I will be posting the testing as soon as I am done compiling them.

Some of the most immediate challenges with new users is the menu to content/component relationship. To start, the acronyms used in Joomla are very confusing to noobs. We have tried to simplify this as much as possible using comparisons to common terms. For instance, Articles vs Pages. Why articles were chosen vs pages is beyond me. I would say easily 95% of our clients would consider this a number 1 gripe.

Second, why stay with plugins, modules, etc. Some usability testing needs to be done to see what makes more sense to users vs. admins. For instance, why still a component when something like Feature or Application would suit better. Customers can relate to that. I can live with plugins since that’s behind the scenes. As for modules, this would need some community think-tank time to get sorted out. This is probably one of the most difficult concepts for people to grasp.

Don’t change the way this works, just rethink the way people would think when navigating around the backend and label it something more natural for people to comprehend. If we had the time and financial resources, we would create an internal mini-fork of Joomla just to go through and edit all the graphics and language files.

The downside to this approach is when updates are issued, things get overwritten and you have to spend a lot of time testing to make sure you didn’t miss something.

Just some thoughts on more usability testing.

Bullet point with the benefits is also something I agree with. I tried to keep the design as much as possible as it is, just so that it’s super easy to implement, but an overall re-design of the home page is something I would recommend.

Call to action should be something that makes sense. But asking them to download a file that they then don’t know what to do with – not a good idea. I think the main calls to action should be “Learn More” “View Demo” and “Get Started” in this order.