Over the years, I've noticed that it's pretty common for new Drupal site builders to add a vocabulary and then, thinking they're adding terms, continue to add vocabularies. (3 out of 5 web-savvy users at a recent training did this, even with accurate written directions for how to add a vocab and terms at their disposal.)

It seems like two changes could be a big usability win, not just for new folks, but for experienced users a well.

As is the page doesn't really reinforce the task the user is performing. It just says Taxonomy.
add_vocab.png

Adding

  1. text to the title
  2. a button to save and immediately begin adding terms

seem like straight-forward ways of improving the user experience. Of course, I don't know how difficult this is to actually do and perhaps I'm thinking about it from too narrow a perspective. I know I'd sure like to go straight to adding terms rather than locating my new vocabulary in the list of vocabularies and finding its Add terms link.

add_vocab_changes.png

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#19 redirect_after_adding_vocabulary-1302986-19.patch1.26 KBstBorchert
#6 redirect_after_adding_vocabulary-1302986-6.patch1.24 KBstBorchert
#1 terms1.png42.57 KBeliza411
#1 terms2.png56.7 KBeliza411
#1 terms3.png42.92 KBeliza411
add_vocab.png11.5 KBeliza411
add_vocab_changes.png17.17 KBeliza411
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Comments

eliza411’s picture

eliza411 CreditAttribution: eliza411 commented
FileSize
terms3.png42.92 KB
terms2.png56.7 KB
terms1.png42.57 KB

Randy Fay says it's kind of hard to visualize what they're doing. Maybe this will help:

terms1.png
terms2.png
terms3.png

webchick’s picture

webchick
she/they
Primary language English
Location Vancouver 🇨🇦
CreditAttribution: webchick commented
Issue tags: +Usability

That sounds great! Tagging.

Bojhan’s picture

Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commented

What if, we redirect to the actual vocabulary its listing?

eliza411’s picture

eliza411 CreditAttribution: eliza411 commented

Redirecting straight to the listing would solve the problem, too, with the bonus of making the behavior consistent with adding new menus.

Speaking of which, on admin/structure/menu it says:
Each menu has a corresponding block that is managed on the Blocks administration page.

I don't see anything similar on admin/structure/taxonomy to explain that a vocabulary must be added to a content type to be useful. Maybe that's a separate issue.

Bojhan’s picture

Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commented

It is an seperate issue, if you supply a patch to move directly to listing of that vocabulary its RTBC'able

stBorchert’s picture

stBorchert
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Primary language German
CreditAttribution: stBorchert commented
Status: Active » Needs review
FileSize
redirect_after_adding_vocabulary-1302986-6.patch1.24 KB

Here is a patch that creates a redirect to the term listing after a vocabulary has been added.

eliza411’s picture

eliza411 CreditAttribution: eliza411 commented
Status: Needs review » Reviewed & tested by the community

This applied cleanly to Drupal 7.8 and worked perfectly. I don't usually mark RTBC because I'm not much of a code reviewer, but this seems completely straightforward.

Thanks, stBorchert!

Bojhan’s picture

Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commented

Looks fine to me! Awesome

stBorchert’s picture

stBorchert
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Primary language German
CreditAttribution: stBorchert commented

Do we need to add some more text to the success message?
E.g. "You may now take the next step and add terms to the new vocabulary."

Bojhan’s picture

Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commented

nope, no need

Dries’s picture

Dries CreditAttribution: Dries commented

An alternative solution would be to extend the dsm() with a link to add a term and possibly some extra text to explain the difference between vocabularies and terms. That would also be more consistent -- but that is not always more important.

eliza411’s picture

eliza411 CreditAttribution: eliza411 commented

I see three choices on the table here:

  • Make Taxonomy behave like Content types by adding a Save and add terms button.
  • Make Taxonomy behave like Menus by redirecting to the Add terms page
  • Extend the dsm() making it consistent with none of the core features in the Structure section but consistent with other places in Drupal.

@Dries, if I understand, which I may well not, you're saying that consistency for the sake of consistency alone is not as valuable as meeting user needs.

We have an RTBC patch that makes Taxonomy consistent with its nearby Structure sibling Menus, and I believe that patch effectively addresses the identified usability issue.

What is the next step here?

Bojhan’s picture

Bojhan CreditAttribution: Bojhan commented

Getting Dries to commit it :)

I am not sure about the dsm(), I am still on the fence that is even a favorable pattern for other places in Drupal. We dont want "messages" to take over the function of navigation.

catch’s picture

catch
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Primary language English
CreditAttribution: catch commented
Assigned: Unassigned » Dries

Overall I think I prefer the redirect to the dsm(), if only because it's less text. However Dries already weighed in here so I'll let him do the honours or not.

eliza411’s picture

eliza411 CreditAttribution: eliza411 commented

@catch: did you mean *not* to redirect to the dsm() or am I misunderstanding:

  • The dsm() is pretty much all new text, right?
  • Adding a button involves a few words.
  • The patched solution has no text to be concerned about at all.

Clarification doesn't change that we'll wait for Dries to weigh in. :)

catch’s picture

catch
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Primary language English
CreditAttribution: catch commented

I meant I prefer doing a redirect (i.e. the current patch), to doing a dsm().

catch’s picture

catch
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Primary language English
CreditAttribution: catch commented
Issue tags: -Usability

#6: redirect_after_adding_vocabulary-1302986-6.patch queued for re-testing.

Status: Reviewed & tested by the community » Needs work
Issue tags: +Usability

The last submitted patch, redirect_after_adding_vocabulary-1302986-6.patch, failed testing.

stBorchert’s picture

stBorchert
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Primary language German
CreditAttribution: stBorchert commented
Status: Needs work » Needs review
FileSize
redirect_after_adding_vocabulary-1302986-19.patch1.26 KB

Updated patch after core directory structure changed.

Dries’s picture

Dries CreditAttribution: Dries commented

After having given this some more though, I actually prefer: "Make Taxonomy behave like Menus by redirecting to the Add terms page".

Dries’s picture

Dries CreditAttribution: Dries commented
Assigned: Dries » Unassigned
Status: Needs review » Fixed

The patch in #19 seems to do exactly that (see #20). Committed it to 8.x. Thanks!

Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.

Anonymous’s picture

(not verified) CreditAttribution: commented
Issue summary: View changes

Fixing broken images