It is difficult enough to get a business user to adapt to a new way of doing things without inconsistent labels added to the mix.
[ul]
[li]Why in the Content Explorer is it called a ‘Content Title’ but in the Content Editor it is called a ‘System Title?’
[/li][li]Why after the 6.x upgrade are ‘variants’ called ‘templates’ but are still called ‘variant’ in the search drop-downs?
[/li][li]Manuals do not need variety, they need clarity. Please use one term, and one term only, for each and every concept or feature - make sure it matches the term that appears in the application. (For text and screen captures.)
[/li][/ul]
Please, Percussion, help us convince our users that a CMS is not some arcane, over-complex technology.
A lot of this is the result of a highly customizable system. About 80% the text in the Percussion UI is editable as part of your implmentation. That makes it hard for Percussion to unilaterally impose consistency - though we think we have a answer for that coming soon.
Specifically, the title text or “label” used for columns in Content Explorer is defined by a setting in the Display Format which is editable by customers in the Workbench. I edited our Display Format to use “System Title” as the label for example. (A few versions back the term “Content Title” was used as the label for that field, and many display formats were created with that as the label.) When we upgrade customers with a new release, we cannot simply overwrite old Display Formats, because they might have been customized and we would be wiping out those customizations. Parts of the search UI text are covered by this as well.
Our answer to this going forward is to provide a means to control this type of thing through a new configuration layer and upgradable “packages” of implementation. Implementers (and Percussion and our partners) will be allowed to define things like the UI text in a configuration file, the system - including the implementation packages - can be upgraded and the person who owns the config file can make a single change to a term (or just accept the upgraded name for the term) without loosing other customizations. This is something that should be available very soon - months or so.
I’ll be posting more about it as we get closer. It’s actually pretty exciting because it helps to address so much of the “unnecessary complexity” that can be left over after a customized system. You’ll be able to pick and choose only those areas where you want to be different.
Bernadette,
Manuals do not need variety, they need clarity. Please use one term, and one term only, for each and every concept or feature - make sure it matches the term that appears in the application. (For text and screen captures.)
Can you cite some specific examples?
We strive to ensure consistent usage in the Percussion documentation, but as features are modified or new features are added, terminology sometimes changes, and sometimes we may overlook some instances of specific terms.
RLJII
We have said this for the past two years…