https://forums.modx.com/thread/?thread=83386 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-491918
Not sure if you are aware but we have formed a MODx User Experience Working Group to address issues with the manager and I have personally surveyed the forums to at least get some intelligence into the process. We have exited the kickoff phase and are moving into an in-depth product evaluation.

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For more information or if you have any further input regarding your issues with the MODX Manager please post it here this week.
http://forums.modx.com/thread/88987/modx-manager-ux-working-group
***

Meantime, attached are summaries indicating what we found so far.
(a) Sounding board - the core ideas of concern around the product we gathered so far
(b) User Mandala - a sketch that outlines the user types and tasks at a high level.


Cheers,
Gabriel]]> timbodrumbo Mar 06, 2014, 07:41 AM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-491918 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-481441
So when I add up the numbers; I have to get in contact with end users another way. I don't think forums will be they way because these users will probably solve these problems there selves. I want to get in touch with the CMS-illiterates in the first place.

@Jay about your view on developers as users; To collect the problems they might be facing concerning the GUI of a CMS (deliberately CMS not MODx) are probably even more complex and time consuming job.

EDIT: Nice read about CMS and workflows. http://www.cmsmyth.com/2013/09/the-cms-workflow-myth/#more-3032]]> jambek2003 Oct 29, 2013, 08:41 PM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-481441 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-480748 jambek2003 Oct 21, 2013, 08:52 AM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-480748 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-480641 Do you have a lot of MODX tags in the content field? I've always made it a habit to avoid ever putting MODX tags for snippet calls and chunk calls inside the content field by using TVs or other fields to incorporate. It's a valid request though as a more competent user may wish to do just that. I bet the folks working on CKEditor will be able to do that.

@myradon

Revo 2.3 sees some significant changes to the UI and the overwhelm that users feel when coming into the manager. In 3.0 we have the opportunity to do much more as ExtJs will not be a part of the UI and nor will it's structural limitations.

With regard to your statement that we are not users, I disagree. Site builders, developers, designers and etc are equally users whose UX is important as well. I think simplicity and elegance is equally important to those types of users. The challenge is that many are not able to articulate that appreciation or execute beautiful and simple UI/UX as it's not necessarily in their skill set.

I think real user testing is going to be more productive than interviews surrounding UX, however, asking your colleague about what pains them or what things they find clunky or difficult will be helpful to show friction points. Often users come up with solutions that could be incremental or limited in scope when a more large scale change to enable them to do the task entirely differently is in order.]]> smashingred Oct 19, 2013, 04:10 PM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=4#dis-post-480641 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480630
My colleague only use a small portion of the manager. I think I' m going to interview him about his experience with CMS'es in general and features he would love to see.

My first approach would be interviewing getting insightful data. I mean no solutions. Developers and men even more are problem-solvers. When coming up with presentational solutions too soon can gave you tunnel-view and not seeing probably better alternatives. Haha I think this is the difficult part; we are not the user.

If got limited spare time so let see where it goes. Okay that's it for now.

edit: @Jay that would be most helpful. First I'm going to fiddle what could be the best approach and then we can see further. This thinking up aloud isn't by any means an idea to substitute the current manager. I'm curious if there is a probably slimmed down User Centered alternative.
]]> jambek2003 Oct 19, 2013, 09:31 AM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480630 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480623 sottwell Oct 19, 2013, 04:27 AM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480623 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480603
My view is that since the end user/client has to live with the site on average 3 years and devs on average spend 3-6 months building it. It should favour, in the manager, the end user. I think we do well when compared to many CMSs but OS CMSs keep moving the benchmark higher. MODX is pretty good as are many other CMSs but we can always strive to do better at each iteration and major release.]]> smashingred Oct 18, 2013, 07:26 PM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480603 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480585 end-user friendly. Not to kick anybody to his leg but I see the marketing-guy at our company struggle with Evolution and most with the WYSIWYG-editor which insert all crazy html-elements underneight. He struggles using it. He doesn't know HTMl and then he comes to me "Raymond I've got a lay-out problem can you help me?" I quote him "I hate that piece of crap!" From personal experience I think MODx is a really nice CMS in respect to front-end code. Can't say that cough eg. Drupal cough. As MODx gospel is HTML is first-class citizen. How about for daily usage make the user first-class citizen?!

What about a GUI which also work let say on iPad and maybe even more simplistic version on a smartphone. Only doing it's job for day by day usage so post development aka live. I mean like editing, adding, deleting content. I'm thinking about loads of whitespace to make it more focussed on the small set of jobs. This is already a step to soon because that's already problem-solving. First I'm thinking doing about an inventory about problems, task analysis on daily usage of MODX.

What do you guys think? Okay I'm of to the local bar to get some beer it's weekend! First see how this idea lands!

By the way I also think it's great MODx has won best-CMS-price!
]]> jambek2003 Oct 18, 2013, 03:08 PM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-480585 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-461776

Great Romain!

+1 for MIGX-like functionality, or MIGX itselft

I also had some problem with resources with a lot of children, partially solved with "articles"

when a user clicks with left mouse button on a resource, what about giving the chance to open the menu instead of modifying directly the resource?
For example I've some customer with hundreds of resource and sub-resources, if they click on a resource title instead of on the "+" next to the parent resource it's a drama...

I like the resource tree on the left, and end-users usually like it

the file manager is another topic, right?

]]> tillilab Apr 05, 2013, 04:18 AM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-461776 https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-460721 rethrash Mar 28, 2013, 10:22 AM https://forums.modx.com/thread/83386/help-create-the-best-content-management-experience?page=3#dis-post-460721