User-Friendly Friday: Improving CiviCRM Usability
on
March 28, 2008
User-Friendly Friday: Improving CiviCRM Usability
Yesterday I met CiviCRM co-founder Dave Greenberg to discuss potential usability improvements to CiviCRM, an open source constituent relationship management system. Dave is heading to Australia for the CiviCRM retreat and wanted to have wireframes in hand. Dave suggested we start by focusing on two specific pages: the Contact Summary and Search Results pages. A newbie CiviCRM user, I hoped my "beginner's mind" would help me understand the "pain points" our clients feel in using the new system. I quickly realized that I'd need to have a better sense of how people typically use CiviCRM in their daily workflow.
Here's a call-out to those who regularly use CiviCRM:
1. What do you use CiviCRM for?
For example: I use CiviCRM for our contributions database, our donors database, and our customer database.
2. What are the most common scenarios in which you use CiviCRM (that specifically involve the Contact Summary or Search Results pages)?
For example: After receiving a few contribution checks, I go to the specific contacts to record their contributions.
3. Describe the click path you use to accomplish your actions.
For example: Home>Search Results page>Contact Summary>Contact: Contributions tab>New Contributions
4. What are your "pain points" on the Contact Summary or Search Results pages? Do you have any specific recommendations as to how to improve them?
For example: I think the "select records" radio buttons should be ABOVE the "print" and "more actions" buttons/drop down.
For example: I think there should be "Edit" buttons in each section of the contact summary page, not only at the top. Perhaps a "pencil" icon next to each collapsable field set that allows you to edit the date just in that section.
Post your comments here!
For example: I think the "select records" radio buttons should be ABOVE the "print" and "more actions" buttons/drop down.
For example: I think there should be "Edit" buttons in each section of the contact summary page, not only at the top. Perhaps a "pencil" icon next to each collapsable field set that allows you to edit the date just in that section.
Post your comments here!
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| contactscreen_actions3.jpg | 65.55 KB |
| ContactPage.jpg | 446.57 KB |
nadavoid March 29, 2008
I am not yet a user of civicrm, although I'm evaluating it for some upcoming projects. A major use I would have is to send out email campaigns. Currently I see no way to stop in the middle of setting up an email, and resume with the finishing later. What I would like to see added is an "edit" link beside each mailing, unless it has already been sent.
It's just a little thing, but it's pretty major for our workflow. It would be pretty rare that we would go from start to finish on a mailing, in one sitting. The workflow would be something like this...
- Techie person creates the basic mailing, puts in some dummy text, and selects some recipient groups.
- Admin person adds a recipient group, and puts in the real text.
- Graphical person adds some final formatting.
- Techie person sends a test.
- One day later, after official approval, Techie person sends the real mailing.
