When you install views you are confronted with the message " If you install the advanced help module from http://drupal.org/project/advanced_help, Views will provide more and better help. Hide this message. "
However clicking "Hide this message." takes you to a page with loads of checkboxes where it takes you quite some time to find the right one. This doesn't seem like the right experience. The right experience should be that Hide this message, just hides the message.
| Comment | File | Size | Author |
|---|---|---|---|
| #16 | 1828776-advanced_help_warning_text-9.patch | 1.64 KB | slv_ |
| #11 | 857282-fragment.patch | 1.66 KB | dawehner |
| #11 | 857282-fragment-7.x.patch | 1.65 KB | dawehner |
| #5 | 857282-hide-advanced_help-7.x.patch | 2.66 KB | dawehner |
| #4 | 857282-hide-advanced_help.patch | 2.67 KB | dawehner |
Comments
Comment #1
dawehnerMove to drupal6.
Personally and really personally i don't like it because the user should install it to have the documentation of views. More people will just click on it and forgot and come to the issue-quque and ask "what the hell this is a module and there is no documentation WTF": critical support issue assigned to them.
Comment #2
Bojhan commented@dereine I find that very disturbing, so people should have it but you dont provide it by default? Help text should not solve issue-queue problems, its not designed for that.
Eitherway I find this almost "critical" bad user experience, as we are kind of pushing it. Which is bad in any user or opensourcey way ofcourse.
Comment #3
esmerel commentedThere just aren't that many checkboxes on the page, and it's not that hard to find the right one.
Comment #4
dawehnerHere is a patch. If earl said it's okay.
Comment #5
dawehnerAnd here is the 7.x version.
Take sure that you clear the menu cache.
Comment #6
merlinofchaos commentedI think when this was initially presented to me, I got the impression that the checkbox wasn't on the page or something, so my initial response to this was colored by it sounding like an actual bug.
I don't have a problem with the message taking you to a general settings page. Heck, it's one way to get users to even know there's a page there. I'm not in favor of making an extra page for the express purpose of hiding a setting that I don't want people hiding to begin with. The whole point was NOT to make it easy to do something you shouldn't do, but to give people who are stubborn (or experts) the option.
Comment #7
dawehnerThanks! I'm happy that you have my oppinion but bojhan will not be happy about it.
It's sad that people misunderstand each other :(
Comment #8
Bojhan commentedMisunderstanding each other happens, either way I do not see anyway for it to be good practice to tell to a user :
If you want to disable it, good luck finding it on this page.
That you want to tell what a user should and shouldn't do is totally beside the point, that this is solution that causes a usability problem (because you have to find it on a setting heavy page) its a practice we tried to ban as much as we can in core.
I never voted for having an extra page, I only said that you should be able to hide the message @ the message. Either way I hope you understand that I would never favor an practice that is intentionality unusable to create some kind of behavior, like downloading another module.
Comment #9
merlinofchaos commentedIn my opinion, your description of how difficult it is to find the checkbox on the settings page vastly overstates the reality. It's barely a page of checkboxes. It's only hard to find if users are unwilling to read even a little bit.
To be honest, users who are unwilling to read a little bit have a monumental task ahead of them trying to build a website...in anything. But particularly, using an advanced, powerful, flexible tool like Views.
Once again, I fall back on my old aphorism: Views to website building as Photoshop is to image editing. Many attempts have been made to produce packages that are easier to use than Photoshop but users always come back to Photoshop.
Comment #10
merlinofchaos commentedesmerel suggests we could possibly add an anchor so the link puts the right checkbox at the very top, which is sensible.
Comment #11
dawehnerHere is a patch for the fragment, even a doubt that having the checkbox moved up for 200px helps that much.
Comment #12
Bojhan commented@merlinofchaos I understand you feel if its "there" people should find it, sadly that is not the case and you reinforced that with your statements. I mean I am not just guessing here, I have observed many many people struggling with pages that offer many visually indistinguishable options and people are unable to find the one option in the crowd of options, even if its right in there face ( I understand that without experiencing this first hand, you won't see this as a reality - in that case I can only recommend to tune in at a usability test)
People scan on the web, if you want people to read you are asking the majority of not whole of internet to change their behavior - isn't that inconsiderate?
I don't see how this issue is related to anything about Photoshop? But I understand your trying to explain your fundamental position on this, I think Photoshop is unfair to pull into this discussion. Fundamentally Photoshop has many more interaction designers helping and testing it with their (potential) users, I feel if this is tested once it would already show people struggling with it.
Comment #13
Bojhan commentedOops, moving it up will mean another option has to go down - making that one less obvious, so yeah - its not ideal but better then nothing - I guess.
Comment #14
merlinofchaos commentedWhat you say would be true if I actually wanted it to be easy to turn that option off.
The fact is, I don't.
If a user is unable to even find the option they need when scanning that page, IMO that user needs advanced help and should be given one more incentive to go find the module and install it rather than trying to turn off the warning that they need documentation. Is this unfair? Maybe. Is this bad UX?
Maybe.
Then again, your statements have made it clear that in your opinion, I don't know what I'm talking about. So there is no point in continuing to explain or defend my position, as my position is irrelevant based on my complete lack of knowledge or understanding of UX.
Comment #15
Bojhan commentedFor those following this issue and didn't see our IRC discussion. We agreed that it creates an usability issue, but choosing between two evils - going for strongly suggesting advanced help.
For the record, I will never imply someone doesn't understand UX - only responded to the word "reality" as I have experienced differently in testing (which is a point of discussion, rather then implying something - understanding this point is very much about experiencing this too). Sorry if you got that impression always try to be very clear on that!
Comment #16
slv_ commentedThanks dawehner for pointing me at this from this. I'm not reopening the discussion of whether there's a UX issue or not. In any case, as I made the attached patch in the linked issue trying to help, I still think it applies to this issue and can help users with doubts of what the link does.
So, I've changed the wording of the link to something I think is more suitable. Instead of a "Hide this message", which can make the user think that clicking there the message will be hidden (once, or forever, it doesn't matter), now it clearly states that there's a settings page in which users can disable that message, and points them to that page.
Hope it's of any help.
Comment #17
dawehnerCommitted and pushed one of the two patches :)
Thankyou for this improvement.
Comment #19
slv_ commenteddawehner, are you sure this was ever committed? I can't see the commit anywhere, and pulling recent changes from 7.x branch shows the same code / message that was before.
Might be worth double-checking. Thanks!
Comment #20
slv_ commentedComment #21
slv_ commentedoh dear, Some day I'll click RTBC in the first attempt.. =)
Comment #22
dawehnerOh damn you are right!