By davidbl on

There is an interesting article at Linux.com comparing Drupal versus Wordpress: I find very interesting the usability analysis it does in the first section.
Except for the administrator interface usability, Drupal is generally better rated than Wordpress in the article, but it hints as well some interesting points for improvement.
I think its well worth reading:
http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/03/20/193214

Comments

JohnForsythe’s picture

JohnForsythe commented

It's not really a fair comparison. They seem to be reviewing a copy of Drupal with several modules already pre-installed for them. The article should take into consideration the effort required to get these modules installed and properly configured, which for the average user, could be significant.

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heine’s picture

heine commented

To find out, Linux.com used a preconfigure[d] Drupal site from Bryght and a free site from WordPress.com to set up two similar sites.

So, partially, more a bryght vs. wordpress.com review then Drupal vs. WP.
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ica’s picture

ica commented

The article analyses Drupal as a bloggin tool and compare it to WordPress,

A fair judgement would be in one line can be said that WP is a bogging tool in heart trying to act as CMS whereas Drupal is a full fledged CMS -here you can also call it Community and/ content management system in heart also acts as a blogging tool -AND to lot more combined.

BUT the article hits a right nail or an 'achille heel' of Drupal despite its strenght it fails in terms of UI backend where WordPress and some new coming CMS's well ahead

- going 'deep down' blues -why make it harder?

One improvement that would especially benefit Drupal would be a submenu that would allow users to move freely between items at the same menu level. As it, users cannot skip directly from Adminster -> Logs -> Recent Hits to Logs -> Top Visitors, for example. Instead, they have to return to Administer -> Logs first, a necessity that not only adds to the number of mouse-clicks, but also makes learning the interface considerably harder.

Similar can be said for the node, article, media, block, categories management / sorting department

I like to give an example i recently came across with Cupcake -a new CMS based on CakePHP

here is their backend screenshot, -imo- a better sorting logic in terms of UI point of view
http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=116773
and
http://sourceforge.net/dbimage.php?id=116767

SORTING THE 'SORT' UI
where they get it right from the start that sorting WEIGHT and SORTING ORDER with arrows (i am not talking about FUNCTION not the cute icons here -though simple icons is part of the UI language and its important too- i.e
for sorting functions of UP-DOWN-RIGHT-SUB-LEFT-RIGHT-ABOVE
instead of weight of -40, -39,...., -2, -1, 0 1, 2, ...... -38, -39
this makes more sense to me from UI point of view where code developers by default fail to see and code upon

whereas in Drupal
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/i-osource6/hook_block_...
here is an attempt to improve -ceratinly some work/ effort goin on
http://drupal.org/files/issues/menu_ui_annot.png
but it does not exactly cut

If we understand that why in the car industry you get engineers, mechanics and industrial car designers you need both to make a car, imagine what shape it would be a concept car if it designed by car engineers! and certainly a good looking and car could NOT MOVE if it engineered by car concept designers! ;)

its a failure by specialisation of skills and knowledge on both cases and its understandable but for a better 'product' they both should work in harmony

... just some thoughts i wanted to share