[wp-hackers] Usability Expert Review

[Jeff Minard]

Gabriel White wrote:
>>"Replace the numeric 'level' attribute with a set of descriptive user 
>>levels, such as:"
>>This is a nice idea, but the proposed user levels look _worse_ than 
>>all-numeric levels, I think.  "Manager Level 2" seems too bulky.
> 
> 
> The important thing here is to make them meaningful rather than
> abstract concepts you need to refer to the manual to remind yourself
> what they mean. Again, I'm open to other suggestions.

I think the whole "user levels" concept is a little odd, to be honest. 
It's great because of its simplicity, but I think it's far too inflexible.

I would much rather see "user permission groups" that could be custom 
named (hence meeting your requirement). Each "group" would have a slew 
of permission check boxes that could be setup by the admin. Users would 
be placed in whatever 'group' is appropriate.



Additionally, I'm not sure it's really such a bad idea to force people 
to look up what a user "3" can and can't do. If you've got an admin who 
see's "manager, level 2" and doesn't realize that they can (potentially) 
turn on/off plugins, that would be a problem as well. Basically, it 
would (as with 'post slug') be difficult to aptly -- and concisely -- 
name the user levels without possibly misleading, or under-informing the 
admin of the user level power.

I would lean towards making sure that Admins (the only group who can 
really change user level) actually know quite distinctly what they are 
doing -- even if they do need to look it up.



But again, this is moot as I think the whole 'levels' concept is due to 
be replaced.

Jeff