> I actually didn't want to get involve in this discussion, because it > is almost like Apple vs PC, but if I don't ask or discuss clarity will > never be reached, and some people actually think that WordPress is > just a blog and can't be a CMS.
I hope this thread doesn't derail into a discussion about whether tool y is better than tool z. In my original post, I was trying to put forward that I see a huge opportunity for collaboration and cross-fertilization between the ixda community and the drupal community. I feel both communities can profit from each other's *expertise*. > [...] Why is it then that the "experts" > fear WordPress? Why do the "experts" choose systems that are known for > their higher learning curves and shun the systems like WordPress that > has excelled in user experience? Well, in an ideal world, software would be so adaptable to one's needs and personal experience level, that we wouldn't need distinct 'software for experts'. I feel that Alan Cooper's suggestion to optimize for the "perpetual intermediates", rather than for the beginners, is good advice and something I feel Drupal is aiming for. > Does empowering the user, scare the experts because they might no > longer be needed or feel less of an expert among their peers? That is an interesting question. I am curious, where do you see evidence of such behaviour? Consider for example that Dries Buytaert - original creator and project lead of Drupal - has been evangelizing about empowering the user by "eliminating the middlemen" for years: http://buytaert.net/drupal-and-eliminating-middlemen > [...] But if you are evangelists for a better user > experience, shouldn't you be supporting the products which have a > better user experience? Building software with great user experience "for the masses" is hard. That's why I point out that there is a great opportunity here ripe for the taking - for the ixda and drupal communities to actively collaborate on the ixda networking platform project. The ixda site building team will benefit from drupal's developer community. Drupal will benefit from expert ixd advice that can be incorporated into the core framework. And most importantly, the members of this community, who notably will be the "end users" of the resulting platform, are participating in the process. Hey, I am talking about user-centered, participatory design here. :-) > The funny thing is that Drupal & Joomla can improve their user > experience with leaps, if only they will only choose to stop using > engineering and programming terms and start talking the user's > language. It's interesting that you mention language here. In fact, the terminology used in the system was what originally led me to Drupal and its community - namely Drupal's "taxonomy" module. As far as I am concerned, Drupal introduced a paradigm shift on how to organise and structure content. Drupal's abstract way of storing all content types as 'nodes' and then allowing all kinds of navigation - content-linking, filtering, searching, ... where hierarchical organisation is only one option, rather than the dominant one. Drupal was and is developed by a bunch of forward looking technologists, right there on the "web frontier". IxD'ers, come and play! :-) -- :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::. Philipp Schroeder DIN15 / Information Architecture & Interaction Design www.din15.org, phil...@din15.org ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
