Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Open Source and Usability

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Posted by Michael Feldstein on
I'm glad you raised this issue, Simon. I found myself agreeing with the article on most points. I have thought about this some and have a few suggestions:

  • Create a slightly customized version of ticket-tracker intended to implement Jakob Neilsen's heuristic usability methods. These are relatively easy to learn for all and lend themselves well to a community-based approach. Add some help or coaching text to enable people to learn this approach through the tool itself.
  • Create a (group-scoped) footer that turns on a link to the heuristic-usability ticket-tracker. This way, any portion of any OACS-based site can be put into a usability testing mode fairly easily.
  • Develop user-interface guidelines (such as the ones that Lars developed for ACS-Java) for the entire project. (In fact, somebody who is authorized to do so ought to attempt to contact RedHat and get permission from them for us to use these guidelines. AFAIK, the only reason we haven't thought seriously about adopting them here is conflicts with the ADPL.)
  • Pair non-programming UI volunteers with volunteer programmers. In fact, such a pair should be appointed to coordinate usability development on this project.

That's a start, anyway.