[Zope3-dev] Are there Graphic Designers?

[Bjorn Stabell]

We've tried the CMF on several websites, and we've tried the ZMI.  The
CMF was just too incomplete to use, and in the end we had to teach
serious content managers about the ZMI.  So, we changed to only using
the ZMI, but that didn't work well either.  The ZMI very confusing in
that it includes a lot of "low level" objects and tabs that users don't
normally need to worry about, it doesn't look very "polished", and it is
so modular in its use of UI components that it hides important
information from the content managers.  The tabs confusing in that it
makes the website look like an application so much that many users think
changes will be automatically saved when they switch to another tab.

I really hope ZopeTop will be skinnable, multilingual, and have
information portal pages (dashboards, zopetop today, or similar) that
extract out the most important information to show the users.  For
example, a site manager should have a home page that shows the workflow
queues, recent changes to the site, used disk space, and have easy
access to manage contents and users.  I hope the management interface
will look a lot like MS Outlook's Folder List view, which has become a
"standard" UI metaphor, but that it only includes content that the user
"needs to know about".

It's very useful to look at other CMS's, like RedDot and eGrail, to see
how user friendly the CMS can be.  Zope has all of their features (more
or less), but the CMS interface isn't nearly as effective or attractive.

Bye,
--=20
Bjorn


-----Original Message-----
From: Casey Duncan [mailto:casey@zope.com]=20
Posted At: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 00:21
Posted To: Zope3 Developer
Conversation: [Zope-dev] Re: [Zope3-dev] Are there Graphic Designers?
Subject: Re: [Zope-dev] Re: [Zope3-dev] Are there Graphic Designers?


I would hesitate to say that I "love" the ZMI. But given the limitations
of an HTML GUI, it is quite good in many ways. We must remember though
that the ZMI has evolved along with Zope, and their are plenty of
opportunities to rethink things in the current light.

Regardless of how different we make it, the ZMI will be rebuilt from
scratch in ZPT anyhow. So whatever we wind up with is going to be a new
animal.

-Casey

Dieter Maurer wrote:
 > Adrian Hungate writes:
 >  > ... ZMI critiques ...
 >  > Personally I
 >  > love the ZMI in the current versions. I have also found there is a
>  > negligable learning curve for users who already know how to use=20
Windows
 >  > Explorer and similar products. I just don't see the need to throw=20
out the
 >  > ZMI - Are we in a baby/bathwater situation here?
 > I agree with you.
 >
 >
 > Dieter
 >





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