So.  on ThePloneBlog we use a product called Quills.  Quills is fscking insane.  It looks like Jon made it a tad more sensible since the last time I logged in.  But before his modifications, the out-of-the-box usage of Quills is just plain sad.  Its un-Plonic.  What is "Plone"?  Plone is sensible defaults and easy to use out-of-the-box ala It Just Works.  Quills is nerdware; technology looking to solve a problem.  In fact.  I'm not sure if your familiar with Plone's history.  But I think Plone's history speaks to why Plone is popular today.

History Lesson

    Some time ago when #zope had 2 people on it about 7 years ago (god i'm getting old) there was dracvl and runyaga.  dracvl was limi, I am runyaga.  Limi was baffled by Zope's inheritance; I was baffled by XHTML/CSS.  I fixed limi's inheritance problem; limi helped me fix CMF's default ugliness.  The fact that the scope of What Became Plone was "Fix CMF ugliness" was limited in scope and user-centric.  Two essential characteristics of a successful project.  I'm not sure what Quill's scope is but its certainly not user-centric or user-friendly.  I did Python Scripting, Limi did UI/CSS, Vidar did graphics.  Very simple.  Focused on user friendliness.

    The untold secret sauce, btw of how this happened was two things.  instaresponse and internet time.

instaresponse and internet time

    Limi would send me XHTML/CSS.  He is in Norway.  He would wake up and have emails from me.  He would reply back to me so fast that I could work on his changes and get them back before he went to sleep.  Finally I could work before I went to sleep getting stuff ready for him.
Its not really internet time, thats some stupid catch phrase a loser like Gary Meshell, my old CEO would have made.    Its more like globalization.  Ah thats more like it.  UI sensibilities and care of scandanvia mixed with american elbow greese. 

Zope has been plagued with technoweenies

    But its not just Zope.  It's Python!  Look at round-up's web interface.  Look at python.org.  Its horrible.  It screams of "We are engineers and we dont care about pretty buttons".  To some extent Python's documentation suffers as well.  Too few examples compared to php.net which is full of examples.  What python documentation needs is to integrate, PLEAC and Python Cookbook into it. 

    Back to Zope.  Zope Corporation, well at least Jim Fulton understands that their money comes from empowering scripters and people who can quickly throw together a website.  Then the system grows outside of their understanding and they hire Zope Corp.  This is great.  And I suggest people looking at Zope Corp., Enfold Systems, Cignex or anyone who is a competent services firm.  But what about the usability of Zope?  Its anti-usable. 

    Zope is engineering-centric.  Lots of *amazing* technologies come from Zope.  But life is not about technology.  Its about communication and
working with others.  And for you to make a steaming pile of money it's all about sexiness.  That is why Plone is getting all the action like Mick Jagger in the early seventies.  Oh right.  Like Mick Jagger, Plone does not descriminate and loves ALL groupies.  Zope only wants the brainy groupies.

Make it usable, stupid

    I know very little about usability.  I defer to limi for that stuff - even then I argue but its his domain and I respect his decisions.  But Limi cant be everywhere and he has to make money and have a social life too.  Where are our other designers and UI guys?  DannyB is awesome.  He could sure fix Quills.  But the fact is -- we dont have enough USABLE software out-of-the-box. 
    Plone software should not care about feature lists it should care about a 1 out of 5 gold star for usability and UI.  We dont need features.  We have more features than postnuke, drupal, and all other PHP systems combined.  We need usable software and usable add-ons.  We need to make a community where usability isnt only desired but its paramount and thats the criteria add-ons are judged by.  The out-of-the-box usefulness.

Plone, the MAC of CMS

    My personal opinion is that Plone's aim should be the Macintonish of Content Management Systems.  We have had blind people give us input, human computer interaction experts, lots of end user feedback.  We absorb this feedback and put it into Plone.  But there is so much more we could do.  Plone and its community is sensitive to these issues.  That gives us a huge edge on money grubbing profit-driven eat-your-children CMS companies and the lowly in-line-my-function-and-sql-into-my-presentation open source CMS's. 
    Plone and its add-on components must work out-of-the-box and must not be fucktarded.  Software has never been a problem.  Want a Poll software?  Geoff Davis wrote some nuclear decaying results algorithm and someone implemented it!  Ben is writing Skeletor!  We have a schema language - etc.  But what about UI efforts?  What about the usability guys stepping up to the plate?
    The usability guys use blogs.  They use Plone.  They use Poll's.  Why dont they work with the authors of the package to make them better?
Usually the usability guys can not write software.  Why dont they ask plone-users or #plone for help to FIX the usability of a add-on component?  Even better why dont Add-on developers ask usability people for help?  

If you dont ask you will never know.

Its like a box of chocolates

    I love reading books and watching films.  When I was a kid. I really liked neuromancer.  I am a huge fan of scifi.  Then I got to college and everyone started reading Real Books: Dubliners, The Crying of Lot 49, As I Lay Dying, etc.  I liked these books too.  I asked someone "Why dont you like neuromancer these others scifi books?"  And they said "because its a buncha gadget talk and too little human experience".  Well I kinda agree.  If you want something that is low gadget talk and high scifi appeal read anything by Philip K. Dick -- wow.  A Scanner Darkly.  Anyway.  I think that software should be thought about in the same manner.
    Software should be about humans getting shit done.  Not about acquisition, sql, configuration twiddling.  Its something technologist continually forget that humans are using this software.  And the fact that my friend installed EZ Blog and "clicked install" and voila it ate his Plone site - is bullshit.   His experience should have been more like eating a random chocie out of a box, i.e."I dont really like this chocie" and spit it into a towel.  Not "my god this is horrendous chocolate" and throw the entire basket out.

Us, as the Plone community need to think and collaborate with end users much more.  If people are continually telling you your software is destroying their work -- you should fix it.  Its sort of your responsibility.  Or you should write in big letters on your product "THIS SOFTWARE HAS CAUSED OTHERS SUFFERING, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK" -- be honest.  If you dont have time to maintain software; dont write your own -- work on someone else's.  At least try to make your software sensible and incorporate user feedback.