News-Feeds:
Powerful = Powerful and Simple
A Riddle: I have two books on my desk. One is called "Don't Make Me Think," around 200 pages. The other weighs in at 800 pages and is called TYPO3 4.0 - just looking at it may cause brain spasms!
What do they have in common?
They are both about developing websites.
Both are great and extremely useful books when developing websites with Typo3.
One book spends 200 pages pointing out how exactly to make websites and interfaces clear to your users.
The other spends 800 pages describing how exactly to make full use of Typo3's powerful feature set.
Achtung! Patience and a sense of humor required to read the following!
Shhhh....
Let's turn our attention now to my favorite scene on the mailing lists!
Noobee: I'm having problems doing something-that-should-be-easy, does anyone know the answer?
T3Pro: (sigh) Come on. You need to read the documentation. The answer is there.
Noobee: I DID read the documentation, and couldn't figure it out! Can somebody help?
T3Pro: (sigh) Ok, the answer is on page 97 halfway down the page.
Noobee: Great! I spent a few hours trying everything....why is that so complicated and unintuitive? With other-program-XYZ it is really easy! And the documentation is tough to understand!
T3Pro: Yeah...Typo3 is powerful and that means it's complicated - it is not for the weakhearted - You must be brave, daring, intelligent, handsome, and be willing to give up your firstborn to learn it!
Noobee: Um. Ok. But wouldn't it be easier to do it in-this-obviously-easier-way?
T3Pro: Memorize TSref and then we can talk, buddy.
Can I say something?
Powerful and Complicated have nothing to do with each other.
Powerful and Hard To Use have nothing to do with each other.
Powerful and Unintuitive have nothing to do with each other.
In fact, the most powerful things in life are the ones that seem most simple.
Complicated is just complicated. It takes more work to make things simple, more thought, more effort, and more informed choice.
Simple is a part of powerful. In my view, powerful software does the thinking FOR the user. Intelligent software makes it's API and UI clean and at the same time is flexible and extensible.
Remember Occam's Razor? It's that great little theory that says (hacked into friendly conversational terms) that if you have an array of potential answers to a hypothesis, the simplest one is the most likely the correct one.
What am I trying to say?
Despite being a great and extensive tool, Typo3 has a long way to go before it comes down to the level of 'difficult,' even longer before it comes down to 'challenging, but not hard to use' and God Knows if it will ever taste of 'simple and powerful.'
It's time to adopt a new attitude towards web development. The other option is to be left behind as the web-dev world gets what it wants: Easy to understand, easy to use AND powerful tools to help their business.
Don't get me wrong
I'm not complaining or fail to understand the complexity of Typo3. I spend my days hacking away at Typo3 on all levels. I'm not a core developer, I'm not the guru but I get around and make a good living with it.
What I am doing is being honest.
So let's talk.
...and not about how the answers are in TSref!
Users are not just Surfers.
We need to spent more energy paying attention to the users of Typo3.
"Users" are:
- PHP developers using the Typo3 API.
- BE developers using Typo3 as a tool to create dynamic sites.
- Content Monkeys filling sites with BE or FE tools.
- Last but not least the visitors to those created sites.
We need to turn our attention to the needs of the users, to developing usable interfaces for each group. We need to listen to what they are asking for, and be honest. Does this feature really need to be that hard to use, or are we being lazy by not making it more clear, more usable?
Typo3 is a sharing community
It's like a democracy (with most members living in Germany ;) That means WE get to decide Typo3's direction and it's fate! We have complete control! Speak loud my friends. I want usability. I want consistent API. I want to show my Content Monkeys the BE and not see a glazed look in their eyes and hear them swallow loudly. I don't want to say "I know it doesn't make sense, but click on LIST in the menu, and then find that really small button in the corner, and then ignore most of those fields on the next page, and then...."
I work with Typo3, see it's value, but I want change. I don't want to make a nice BE skin, I want a BE that is smarter than I am. Of course I'm willing to work for it, as long as there is open-mindedness and other people who feel the same way as I.
Test Question 1: Do you run a business based on Typo3?
Let me ask you a question.
It might hurt, but be honest!
What percent of your clients do you actually give backend logins to? Come on! Honest now - Who enters the content. You? Or the client? Give me numbers.
To the newbees
Don't let yourself be cheated. If something is difficult, realize that change comes from precise explanation of your trouble and more importantly, taking yourself equal to the experienced developers. After all, you just wasted 5 hours trying to figure out how to get a templated site up. You may as well spend 20 minutes describing what your expectations were and how Typo3 could be built to properly serve you, the potential Typo3 lover.
To the pros
Unless you specifically enjoy being an expert knowing your way around a really complicated system and pseudo-language (be honest, I sorta do sometimes!) then there is something for you to take home here. LISTEN. You job is a developer, and your audience are these people who are TELLING you what they care about. Listen to them, spend the time and your expertise not telling people to read TSref, but being honest about Typo3's weak spots, the places it still needs work, and going after them. Repeat: TSref is not the bible! We are allowed to change it to make it work better for us, and we are the people who have the ability to make those changes.
To Both: No insults!
I work with this software. Maybe you do too. I'm not better or worse than you as a human being. Maybe you are better at Typoscript. Maybe you are a core contributor. Maybe I write cleaner code. I don't really care. I'm not here to fill my ego, and I'm not here to help you fill yours. I have huge hugs and respect for Kasper (if I ever meet him) and the rest of the core team, especially big ones for anyone just starting out and everyone in between.
....only together, with honesty and respect for each other can we create something beautiful.
Expect some detailed examples coming from me in the coming months - or run away now, as fast as you can and do your best to ignore the guy with the hat at Typo3 Developer Days.
comments
March 29, 2007
18:53
Greetings
Andreas
March 30, 2007
13:34
Andreas: I'll be sure to hang around the hci list and see what's in the works.
Oliver: I'll buy you one ;) But after we get Typo3 more usable - deal?
March 30, 2007
16:54
Once you work a lot with Typo3, and you know where to look for answers, things become much easier. I think a little more organization and refining of the documentation would go a long way to help.
Sudara makes a good point here, that responsibility falls on everyone to help make things better. I think thats why the pros on the newsgroups have RTFM set as a ketstroke command to automagically insert into ever post/reply. I am no pro, and I get a little annoyed when people ask a question that IS explained in a manual (someplace)... but I remember that that was me only a few months ago, and kindly point them in the right direction.
March 30, 2007
17:13
Been using Typo3 (from occasionally to daily) for more than a year now but would still tag myself as an intermediate beginner. Yes, it is powerful, but I never really got into it because of lack of usability and (for me) logic in its configuration. Also, I think that semantic, CSS based layouts need to be better supported and integrated as a core feature. The code that`s produced by CSS-styled content is worse than any simple, table-based layout, which is inacceptable for me.
March 31, 2007
23:59
@ Birgit: I know many people intelligent people who dedicated many hours to Typo3 - In the end, the learning overhead was just too high to justify the results produced by the system. I believe that the curve can be substantially lowered, and still retain 100% of the complexity and flexibility that we love it for.
Typo3 has been incredibly slow jumping on the Web standards bandwagon, though the code produced by the core is getting better these days - What is really hard for me to see is that extensions developers will follow the standards set by the core. I can't say how many times I download an extension where the concept is great and creative and looks like it will fit my needs, but the produced code is next-to-unusable.
@ Oliver: I'll be there! I can't wait.
April 2, 2007
09:36
First of all, I tought similar some years ago when I started with TYPO3 and sometimes it overcame me again to shout at the project.
But what I learned now, kind of ilumination:
The Power of TYPO3 is:
The things get done, created, built and published. Most of them are not perfect but they are there, and most of them work.
That's the big difference about TYPO3. It's not the cms for newbees, it's not the cooles fancy AJAX cms, it's not newest PHP OOP cool API crazy tought student intelligent project cms.
!! It is simple the only open source CMS that let us solve nearly all the problems the customer has. !!
I'm working as Head of Development of one of the oldest TYPO3 focused companys in switzerland.
So about the Numbers:
90% Of our customers fill and manage theyr content them selves. And most of them are totaly happy with the way they can work with TYPO3. I swear they preferre TYPO3 over a totaly drag n drop full page RTE CMS where you can move everything. They don't want to, they just wann copy paste the text and insert some images.
The best tought of Kasper, and perhaps one of the best ideas in the whole content management area, was to work with content elements and a hirarchical page tree!
But what it needs for TYPO3 projects is:
- A lot of expiriance.
- A good planning and a clean project structure.
- A good look at the whole project (testing).
- A good training for the customer.
Open source has it's price. The price is, that most of the developers programm to solve theyr own problems and publish theyr solution. That's great, but that's the difference to a company who want's to sell expensive licences and does programm the whole product focused on easy-use and sales purposes.
Thanks to all the great TYPO3 developers, you do a good job!
Greetings from switzerland
Jonas
April 2, 2007
22:44
I agree with you in almost all of the points you make.
Typo3 IS the only open source program to take seriously as far as flexibility, extendability, etc. It is deep and powerful and well-built. Wonderful!
It is actually good news that 90% of your clients enter their own content. In my experience, working with several different companies in Europe and America, 10-15% of the clients handle their own content. From my observation, it requires a fair amount of training to help clients understand what is going on, they must be technically smart to begin with, and often the companies don't have time to provide the user training.
Please don't misunderstand my intentions - I have loads of respect for the hard work put in by all contributers. As a developer, I have a lot of respect for the Core code.
I am only saying one thing loudly and clearly:
The usability of this system is poor.
Secondarily, I want to help other experienced developers understand that increasing the usability of the system only brings productivity boosts while lowering the crazy learning curve that comes with this wonderful tool.
There is nothing to lose, actually, and a huge amount to gain.
Typo3's invention was a major innovation for the web. Let's keep innovating.
Greetings from Innsbruck, Austria!
Sudara
April 3, 2007
13:31
I think the integration of all the extensions into one big system where everything works togeteher is the 'big deal'.
That's just my opinionl.
April 3, 2007
22:17
I am afraid I must criticize your article though. It is nicely written, but I don't think it has any practical value. It is catering to the newbees, but I don't think it has any real advice for them or for the development of TYPO3. On a logical level I believe your basic assumption that power does not entail complexity is stemming from other areas. Some of the reasons that come to my mind are (the most complicated one first):
- Knowledge barrier: TYPO3 is hard to learn, but obviously also in considerable demand in some markets. The same fact that makes it hard to learn keeps DiY'ers out and secures value for those in the know. This is by the way a typical pattern of economical behaviour.
- Just try to think of the opposite situation: a totally accessible system would put it's promoters out of work. Some day a simpler software will offer functions that TYPO3 will offer and will put more web developers out of work. By then we should have a system that offers so much more, that those challengers are no problem. This effect is called commodization. The challenge is to benefit from it by maintaining a lead over competitors. The lead can not be gained by making the system simpler, because that is harming it's sales force: you.
- Complexity is a natural side-effect of powerful software. No professional level software like Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Oracle 10g, SAP Netweaver, MS Project or anything comparable is simple. "Don't make me think" is a book about web usability, not about software usability. To quote from the book: "The answer: if your audience is going to act like youre designing billboards, then design great billboards." We are not in the business of designing billboards, we are in the business of providing tools for people that sometimes design billboards, sometimes build enterprise-ready software and sometimes build an online XML-creating editing system for printing catalogues.
In other words, the book has little relevance for what TYPO3 is and so has your call for simplicity. What makes it irrelevant is the difference between the kind of usability I compared to a Nikon D200 DSLR, a pro's tool and the point-and-click-intuitiveness you seem to ask for, which is catering to the occasional user. TYPO3 is not and will never be for the occasional user. From my vantage point it will be succesful as long as it stays the most versatile solution for it's price tag and that is the only relevant way to measure the "right" level of simplicity.
cheers,
Daniel
April 4, 2007
01:22
I agree - it is important to sit down with the client and to spend a lot of time perfecting and tuning the internal workflow. Both of those things lower the usability barriers. Thanks again for your feedback!
@ Daniel
Thanks for your thoughts. I'm going to pull out a few things and respond directly.
* The Knowledge Barrier and keeping out the Do-it-yourself crowd
Typo3 requires a person to learn a wealth of knowledge to operate it. The only people who can possibly survive and become a professional ARE the Do-it-yourself crowd (the stubborn ones ;) With the messy UI and the scattered and not-so-friendly documentation, it takes personal investment, trial and error, and tinkering.
There's a reason why I posted the chat between "noobee" and "T3pro" - Those requests should be a wake-up call and highlight an opportunity. Instead, usability feedback is often treated as an annoyance or groundless complaint.
* "Don't make me think" is a book about web usability
Yup! And Typo3 is a *web* application. People have expectations for their user experience on the web and the web platform has limitations. Typo3 does not play well with either of these.
One small example: Click on a page icon in the page tree. What do you get? An ajax request to the server (translate: unexpected delay with no indication of movement) and then a menu full of items (translate: unexpected response and a wealth of unwanted choices). After 1000 times a month? Yup, I'm used to it. But it is slowing down workflow and creating confusion for many users - is it wise to ignore that it could be improved?
Examples abound. I'm voting for a turn around. Let's develop features from the user's point of view (developer, content monkey, visitor) and NOT the programmer's. At worst, lets remember the user a bit more when making those really cool xml features.
* Commodization of the Market
Imagine: When a better system is developed with the flexibility and power of Typo3 AND it provides a great user experience, Typo3 loses value. A business owner would lose money not migrating to this new system. Personally, I would move to it in a heartbeat if it's sexy AND gets the job done.
I don't want to move to a new system, I want to add value to what exists.
Paying more attention to the user experience on the web is the name of the game for the past 5 years. Not a trend, but a market demand.
* Complexity as a natural by-product of powerful
A great metaphor, and hopefully you don't mind if I use it. I have not used a Nikon DSLR, but I would place a high bet that a lot of time and effort went into the positioning and naming of each feature.
Would Nikon ever say "Let's just leave it complicated and confusing." No way. They not only innovate the feature set, they design the hell out of the product. It's in their best interest to be the best, and that includes the interface.
April 4, 2007
11:49
it seems you are speaking about the interface for editors now, not the overall complexity from the view point of the developer, or may be I misinterpreted all along. In that case I would not have chosen to write at all, actually.
Firstly because there already is the HCI team, which you should invest your time into, if you care about this issue. Secondly because our findings when teaching people to use TYPO3 are very reassuring that the system already is very user-friendly, provided the configuration options are used properly.
In reply to your arguments:
* The Knowledge Barrier and keeping out the Do-it-yourself crowd
The only people who can possibly survive and become a professional ARE the Do-it-yourself crowd (the stubborn ones ;)
With DiY crowd I meant potential customers that try to build web developments themselves, instead of buying the service from specialists.
"There's a reason why I posted the chat between "noobee" and "T3pro" - Those requests should be a wake-up call and highlight an opportunity. Instead, usability feedback is often treated as an annoyance or groundless complaint. "
Not at all, there is even a special team for the purpose. Join it!
* "Don't make me think" is a book about web usability
"Yup! And Typo3 is a *web* application. People have expectations for their user experience on the web and the web platform has limitations. Typo3 does not play well with either of these. "
in terms of the web experience I suppose that is up to the specific design and implementation quality, but has little to do with the choice of a CMS.
"One small example: Click on a page icon in the page tree. What do you get? An ajax request to the server (translate: unexpected delay with no indication of movement) and then a menu full of items (translate: unexpected response and a wealth of unwanted choices). After 1000 times a month? Yup, I'm used to it. But it is slowing down workflow and creating confusion for many users - is it wise to ignore that it could be improved?"
I have never heard that complaint from a customer actually many have rather greeted the Ajax page tree.
"Examples abound. I'm voting for a turn around. Let's develop features from the user's point of view (developer, content monkey, visitor) and NOT the programmer's. At worst, lets remember the user a bit more when making those really cool xml features."
Again: do it. Don't talk about it.
* Commodization of the Market
"Imagine: When a better system is developed with the flexibility and power of Typo3 AND it provides a great user experience, Typo3 loses value. A business owner would lose money not migrating to this new system. Personally, I would move to it in a heartbeat if it's sexy AND gets the job done."
Exactly. If it was easy to make a better system it would have been done. If it was a good investment, it would even have been done it it was hard. The problem is it takes many years and some of the best brains to make a better CMS.
The 5.0 team is working on it, the HCI team is working on it and so is the 4.x team and many constributors. It's easy to find like-minded people and to make a contribution.
"Paying more attention to the user experience on the web is the name of the game for the past 5 years. Not a trend, but a market demand."
Actually that trend has helped TYPO3 win lot's of accounts over less user-friendly competitors (like Imperia, Infopark, SixCMS, Weblication but also Zope/Plone, OpenCMS, Apache Lenya and many others).
The real challenge is to make a plan about how to implement a steady process of interface improvement and control and to put that into practice - in this open source project.
If you have an answer to that, complete, well-thought out and with the right players on board that are dedicated and able to put it into practice, that would be a major contribution.
* Complexity as a natural by-product of powerful software
"A great metaphor, and hopefully you don't mind if I use it. I have not used a Nikon DSLR, but I would place a high bet that a lot of time and effort went into the positioning and naming of each feature."
Yes, given that TYPO3 has thousands of features, I would say it has solved it's imminent interface design questions comparatively well.
"Would Nikon ever say "Let's just leave it complicated and confusing." No way. They not only innovate the feature set, they design the hell out of the product. It's in their best interest to be the best, and that includes the interface."
That is exactly what people in the TYPO3 community in the aforementioned teams are doing. They are just not writing general manifestos asking for improvements, they have resorted to doing something about it. That is the logic of open source and only as long as the oversupply of opinion is not drowning out what supply of motivation can be rallied to actually improve things will it continue to work.
In that sense: please stop tipping the scale in the wrong direction with writing pieces like this one. It is a nice read, but it is not only useless, it is counter-productive to what your aim is.
cheers
Daniel
April 4, 2007
22:44
I talk and do. It's the way I work. I was asked to take a blog here and talk (against my own warning that people would complain) about the topics I see fit.
I see the usability of Typo3 as something to talk, improve, and promote. Just like I see having a kick-ass Typoscript editing environment on the Mac something to talk about, create and promote. In the latter case, I'm able to do the work and release it. In the former, it requires lots of communication, thinking and collaboration. I just read an amazing 108 page document containing dozens of proposals of ways to improve the BE. It's a monster task. Right now, my aim is to communicate my thoughts, listen to others, and not pretend I can solve the issues singlehandedly.
The only thing I'm sure of is that there needs to be more usability awareness and honestly amongst the developers. We haven't been good at it. Programmers come by default with their usability switch off (I know I did), and Typo3 has been all about the programmers. Kasper even calls himself an 'ex-usability terrorist' ! - at some point, there needs to be some face-to-face time with programmers, designers and usability folks to begin a complete re-work of the BE. This is a matter of time - I want to make sure I'm there and armed with the needs of the community.
I'm thankful for the constructive feedback you and the others have given, please do continue to give it and please do continue to keep it constructive.
Greetings from Innsbruck
Sudara
April 5, 2007
04:30
I build TYPO3 sites every day of every week; I wouldn't do that if I didn't love the project. However, I also have users (mainly frontend users) who come to me every day and tell me they can't figure out how something works, or who tell me that they can't make simple changes to their site because they simply don't know where to find the typoscript or the checkbox or the setting that allows them to make that change. Is the answer in the documentation? Yes. Does that mean that my user is out of line having not looked for it? Probably not - they shouldn't have to. Does my user forfeit the right to critique the system having not personally contributed to it? No way! Is it my fault, as the developer, for not having configured the backend as well as I should have? Probably -- but then, why should I have to do that when I can be focusing on making a better site for my client?
Let me pose another question -- if a user or a developer points out a usability issue, do we really want to judge the credibility of their point based on their ethos? That is, if Kasper or Robert or any other TYPO3 developer complains about the usability of the system, does that complaint necessarily hold more weight than that of someone who isn't well-versed in the TSREF or the APIS or the backend interface? Perhaps -- there are certainly criques that obviously come from a misinformed position. But there are also critiques that come from users who clearly aren't ill-informed. Heck, Sudara has written a great tutorial on setting up a private TER, he's put together an excellent textmate bundle for TypoScript, and he's clearly interested in making the project better. My point is that if he has a usability concern, we ought to listen to him and encourage him to spell out the specifics rather than to hit him with the tired old response: "if you care, fix it yourself or join a team or etc etc"
My point is, if enough people say that they're having a hard time figuring out how to do certain things in TYPO3, then it points to a problem, regardless of who is doing the pointing out. Odds are, it points to a problem that can be solved. In my mind, critiques like this, insofar as they point to specific problems, present us all with an opportunity to make TYPO3 better.
On the other hand, some days I find myself really enjoying TYPO3's complexities, its hidden APIs, the way it makes me work to figure things out and, more than anything, the way the different minds behind the project express themselves at various points in the code. Some days I think it wouldn't be the same project if, say, we made it look like Basecamp or some of the other usability-centric applications out there. Some days it seems to me that we'd give too much up in a focus on usability. But most days, I think that someone who knew more about usability than I do would tell me I'm wrong in thinking this way.
It's late -- hope I haven't ranted too much.
April 5, 2007
04:31
Like I said, it's late.
May 6, 2007
23:57
June 28, 2007
17:55
powerful - powerful = powerful + simple - powerful
nothing = simple