Friday 11 December 2009 7:00:49 am - 57 replies

Introduction

eZ Publish 4.3 will take a big step towards refreshing the administration interface. A first blog post was made here (comments by the bottom of the page) , have a look at it first!
The second round is presented below, having integrated the feedback from the first round.

» Read full blog post

Author Message

Eirik Alfstad Johansen

Thursday 04 March 2010 1:05:45 am

Very good post, Bruce. You articulate something that I've been feeling all along, but have been unable to put the right words to.

Sincerely,

Eirik Alfstad Johansen
http://www.netmaking.no/

Magnus Hellman

Thursday 04 March 2010 2:09:38 am

@Gaetano: Thanks for the ggssysinfo suggestion.

Bruce's anti PBiS strategy should definitely be implemented before the release. Great suggestions!

Bruce Morrison

Tuesday 09 March 2010 4:10:55 pm

Hi

I've just had a look at the beta2 and not a lot seems to have changed visually. Just wondering if the starkness will be addressed prior to release?

Are there any more betas scheduled before the final release?

Cheers
Bruce

My Blog: http://www.stuffandcontent.com/
Follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/brucemorrison
Consolidated eZ Publish Feed : http://friendfeed.com/rooms/ez-publish

Kristof Coomans

Sunday 21 March 2010 6:51:28 am

I agree with Bruce as well. There is no clear separation of the different elements on the page. eZ, what are the plans regarding this? We're getting very close to the release date...

independent eZ Publish developer and service provider | http://blog.coomanskristof.be | http://ezpedia.org

jack mark

Tuesday 06 April 2010 10:12:43 pm

Administration interface refresh, take 2: tell us more of what you think! is a nice and informative post. I visit this site daily to see if anything new has been added. You have a nice work dedicated server in your all site! It looks that you are highly expert blogger. Your post is an excellent example of why I keep coming back to read your excellent quality content that is forever updated.
That was exactly what I needed to read today.

Thank you

Marko Žmak

Monday 19 April 2010 11:44:59 pm

Take a look a the admin interface of Kentico CMS:

http://webscripts.softpedia.com/scriptScreenshots/Kentico-CMS-Screenshots-29118.html

There's no way that I can convince my clients that eZ Publish is better when they compare this admin interface to the one that eZ has. So this "refreshed" admin interface is far away from being a plus for eZ Publish.

Yes, eZ publish has a lot of advantages that make it a very excellent choice but I'm talking about the selling point and features that I can present to my clients when offering eZ. Because there's no use of all the wonderful eZ functionality if I cannot sell it to the clients.

--
Nothing is impossible. Not if you can imagine it!

Hubert Farnsworth

Morten Zetlitz

Tuesday 20 April 2010 12:12:13 am

"

Take a look a the admin interface of Kentico CMS:

http://webscripts.softpedia.com/scriptScreenshots/Kentico-CMS-Screenshots-29118.html

"

Hubert, you can always make a killing sale showing your client the websiteinterface, frontend editor of eZ. It will probably cover the ease of use that your client require.

To be honest, the Kentico CMS UI is far from revolutionary, it looks more like a design process born out of someone in love with File Explorer and Photoshop Elements merged with 1999 design skills. It also looks like a zillion other CMSs out there.

eZ admin is nothing grand either, but in order to convince your client I would focus on the strength of eZ, not it's weaknesses. Do a presentation of how easy it is to do daily editing and how easy it is to do user permissions & roles. To my experience that works well when selling easy. Even better if you have a local installation of eZ with WebDAV and show the operation between documents (OpenOffice) and creating articles in eZ and/or images.

My twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wwater

Bertrand Dunogier

Tuesday 20 April 2010 1:19:31 am

Hubert,

the "killer" interface that sells eZ is usually eZ Flow. I agree with Morten about this Kentico CMS interface. It is a page oriented interface, very classical and even a bit old school.

Bertrand Dunogier
eZ Systems Engineering, Lyon
http://twitter.com/bdunogier
http://gplus.to/BertrandDunogier

Marko Žmak

Tuesday 20 April 2010 1:58:03 am

Morten, the websiteinterface frontend editor of is nothing special or innovative, it's just an addon that can easily be implemented in most other CMSs. And many clients don't want this kind of "ease of use", but an administration with many useful and sparkly features.

As for the Kentico, I'm not saying that is revolutionary, but it's what most clients like. And the fact that it looks like "a zillion other CMSs out there" only shows that this is the design and look that clients want.

As for focusing my presentation, most of the stregths that eZ has, are to complicated for the client to undesrstand (remember that the client is not an IT specialist, but mostly some chief or manager). Importing Word documents is the only true presentational feature of eZ that makes a difference for such people. And here it stops.

Also, editing permission and roles is something that an average client is not interested in and doesn't even want to know about it.

I'm not saying that the bad admin interface is the main issue for eZ Publish, but making a more advanced and innovative interface would make a great presentational difference for eZ Publish, and would greatly help it's promotion. I think it's worth to make an effort in this direction.

For the end, just one question: What's sells a car (or even a web page), it's many powerful features that are known only to the mechanics or it's look and design?

--
Nothing is impossible. Not if you can imagine it!

Hubert Farnsworth

Morten Zetlitz

Tuesday 20 April 2010 2:30:20 am

"

As for the Kentico, I'm not saying that is revolutionary, but it's what most clients like. And the fact that it looks like "a zillion other CMSs out there" only shows that this is the design and look that clients want.

"

Marko, I apologize, I mistook your quote in your signature for your name.

Anyways, I beg to differ. The reason why you feel this is probably because the client haven't seen anything else. It is not what clients like, it is what clients have been having to deal with for years.

I agree with you that the admin UI has no unique selling points both past and present. But eZ has heaps of it. As I said, focus on the strengths and do a presentation of the ease of use. Clients wants to save time and gain a happy workday doing so, so by showing how quick you can edit (either through the admin or the frontend) will make your case.

What eZ admin UI needs is user testing, user testing and user testing. Regardless of how many jquery eases or collapsible divs, fancy icons or not, the raw feedback from clients and admins who use this daily will tell you what clients need. I doubt it is Kentico UI or the current admin UI.

My twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wwater

Marko Žmak

Tuesday 20 April 2010 2:43:31 am

Morten, your thinking is reasonable and has some good points, but I still think that the new admin interface is still far away from fresh and innovative. It still needs a lot of work and a lot of good usability ideas.

--
Nothing is impossible. Not if you can imagine it!

Hubert Farnsworth

Bertrand Dunogier

Tuesday 20 April 2010 3:03:23 am

I find it quite funny that in the same message you say that the interface you've shown as an example is good because it is what customers expect and is used by most products, and later on you explain that what you would expect for eZ Publish is an innovative interface.

Should we innovate, with the risk that this won't fit what the customers expect, as they expect what they know, or stick to what is known as working ? ;)

Regarding administration interfaces, it's far from being a simple debate. Maybe end customers aren't looking for what is in admin2 (and I'll add that it depends on the end customer), but maybe it is what administrators are looking for ? Or developers ? I don't think a distinct admin interface will ever be able to match anybody's needs. That's why we, and most products, encourage a smart integration of a front-end editing interface, as the only interface an editor usually knows about is his website's.

Bertrand Dunogier
eZ Systems Engineering, Lyon
http://twitter.com/bdunogier
http://gplus.to/BertrandDunogier

Marko Žmak

Tuesday 20 April 2010 4:52:56 am

"

I find it quite funny that in the same message you say that the interface you've shown as an example is good because it is what customers expect and is used by most products, and later on you explain that what you would expect for eZ Publish is an innovative interface.

"

Actually is not so funny. When a new and refreshed admin interface comes it should have at least one of this two features:

- something fresh and innovative

- a visual enhachment that will make users say "wow!"

This new eZ admin interface doesn't have any of these two features. Yes, it is an improvement, but it doesn't seem as a big one and it's coming a little bit late.

As for the "innovative" part, I'm not talking about inventing brand new things and concepts, but about making innovative solutions for the user needs.

--
Nothing is impossible. Not if you can imagine it!

Hubert Farnsworth

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H-Works Agency

Wednesday 06 July 2011 6:49:21 am

Is there a doc about how to make work this theme ?

Logical way would be to say SiteDesign=admin2 but that create a blank site with no theme.

EZP is Great

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