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Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress

Posted by kdawson on from the apples-and-orange-trees dept.

An anonymous reader writes "PlayingWithWire profiles two open source tools for Web development, comparing Joomla! and WordPress through the lens of usability. The article has apparently upset a few people at the Joomla! forum, but it does bring up a good point. Many open source projects are developed by engineers for engineers — should they focus more on usability? PlayingWithWire makes a bold analogy: 'If Joomla! is Linux, then WordPress is Mac OS X. WordPress might offer only 90% of the features of Joomla!, but in most cases WordPress is both easier to use and faster to get up and running.'" The article repeatedly stresses that blogging platform WordPress and CMS harness Joomla! occupy different levels of the content hierarchy. How fair is it to twit Joomla! on usability?

31 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Quite fair by rallymatte · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm a Linux Systems Admin. I write php code quite often, I know several other script languages and I know the basics of CSS.
    I managed to install Joomla quite easily, but I must say that once it was installed, it was really hard to use. Modules wouldn't install properly and simple things were really hard to accomplish, like being able to upload files etc.
    It was also really hard to brand the page, we wanted our company look of the page. Took a good while before we got to something that only looked ok.
    Maybe I'm being harsh as this was a few versions back. But still...

    1. Re:Quite fair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I develop with Joomla daily, and you do certainly need skills in PHP to be able to get it work - a non-programmer would be unable to get the most out of the package and modules. Saying that I've only been developing PHP for 6 years, and it took me about three days to be able to work and build complex e-commerce solutions with Joomla. I was able to create good sites for customers after a couple of days and didn't experience the probelms you mentioned.

      In terms of usability it is quite poor though. In previous jobs I've had to present clients with several CMSs (open source and propriatary) and they never once chose Joomla.

      I've come to like the flexibility and massive choice offered by Joomla, but think you should use the best tool for the job, and Joomla is simply overkill for the majority of sites we develop, and it is overly complex and badly designed in terms of usability for simple sites.

  2. upset a few people? by howlingmadhowie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    at the moment, the link goes to a thread with 5 posts, none of which seem to have been written by an upset person.

    1. Re:upset a few people? by tnok85 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe the poster was hoping we'd see this and get all pissed off, then go sign up and post on that thread to make a fuss about it. :)

    2. Re:upset a few people? by krou · · Score: 4, Funny

      Indeed, one user on the forum even said "I'm sure that clear usability suggestions with ideas for implementation would be welcomed!"

      Feel the rage!

      --
      'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
    3. Re:upset a few people? by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yes, They were about as upset as I would be if someone compared my minivan to a Ferrari and came to the conclusion that the Ferrari was faster.

      Like one of the commenters said, it is comparing apples with oranges - Wordpress is for blogging, so blogs are easier to produce. Joomla if a general CMS system, capable of more, but slightly harder to use if you just want a blog.

  3. Fair comparison considering the scenario by Einmaliger · · Score: 4, Interesting

    He is comparing the usability of the two very different applications for a quite limited scenario, namely setting up very simple web sites with only a few static pages. For larger projects Wordpress simply won't do the job, but in that simple case, I agree that WordPress is a often much better choice. For my personal homepage I tried out lots of Open Source CMS, but finally got stuck with WordPress + some plugins. It does a surprisingly good job as CMS, but I would not recommend it for - say - my company's website.

    1. Re:Fair comparison considering the scenario by DiegoBravo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I use BOTH systems for the company web site. Joomla!, lets me create and customize things like menus, download zones, galleries of images, a forum, etc. A link points to our blog implemented in Wordpress. There are blog extensions for Joomla, but WP is IMO better than those.

      Joomla is both a CMS and a framework to add powerful extensions, and using just for a blog is overkill. Wordpress is a blog (and of course able to present a simple static web site), but is limited beyond that.

      Note also that there are many Joomla extensions in order to let other projects being integrated in the Joomla framework. See for example:
      http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/content-&-news/blog/6659/details (integrate WP with Joomla)

      It's pretty obvious that Joomla will have a larger learning curve so the comparison is really pointless.

  4. Can you say 'Bias'? by tnok85 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, this article is blatantly biased. Just look at the way he writes.

    For the Joomla! examples, they feel the need to put quotations around everything. 'Control Panel', 'Title', and so on. Those same words (or similar words) in the WordPress section are for some reason easier to understand, so they don't warrant quotations.

    Not to mention he described Joomla!'s processes as a technical writer would (loosely) and then described WordPress' processes as if casually telling a friend.

    That alone stopped me from reading the article.

    Disclaimer: I've used Joomla! once, and WordPress once. Both did their jobs admirably, but you can't compare apples and oranges - which is what this article is trying to do, with a heavy bias.

  5. not a question by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    should they focus more on usability?

    Errr... yes?

    How can you possibly answer "no" to that question? Do you want your stuff actually being, you know, used by people? There's a reason it's called "usability" and not bumblebee.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re:not a question by moosesocks · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Errr... yes?

      How can you possibly answer "no" to that question? Do you want your stuff actually being, you know, used by people? There's a reason it's called "usability" and not bumblebee.

      Go read up on the arguments against the GoboLinux filesystem structure. (These Ubuntu folks have a bunch). There are some fairly passioned "screw the n00bs" rants out there. Does anybody honestly think that the traditional Unix filesystem heirarchy makes an ounce of sense in 2009?

      Both vi and EMACS seem to have taken the "fuck the users" approach to heart. I suppose I might be of the wrong mindset to operate either application, though the developers could have at the very least taken the time to provide a decent set of documentation for their astonishingly-complex applications.

      --
      -- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
    2. Re:not a question by tpgp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Both vi and EMACS seem to have taken the "fuck the users" approach to heart.

      There is a difference between being easy-to-use-first-time and usable. You appear to be confusing the two.

      --
      My pics.
    3. Re:not a question by Xabraxas · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Both vi and EMACS seem to have taken the "fuck the users" approach to heart.

      Really? Both Vi and Emacs have some of the best builtin help available. They are both modal editors so they aren't going to be easy to understand without reading the manual but is it really the fault of the programs's creator that you cannot do advanced editing without reading the manual? If you want easy there are are hundreds of other text editors that are easier to use although they can't do half as much.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    4. Re:not a question by DaleGlass · · Score: 3, Informative

      Does anybody honestly think that the traditional Unix filesystem heirarchy makes an ounce of sense in 2009?

      Yes.

      In Linux you install things with a package manager. This means that for 99% of users, it doesn't matter whether it's called /usr or /Programs, they're not going to go there anyway. You're not going to install things in Linux in drag and drop style by dropping stuff into /Programs, because it's most likely not writable by normal users (never used Gobo though), and because the vast majority of applications are dynamically linked and won't work without the dependencies in place.

      This just seems a pointless waste of time. As a sysadmin, this sort of thing means I have to learn where everything on this system is, and when something breaks it'll take extra effort to fix.I much prefer consistency, so this won't be the distro I'll be going with. The existence of a kernel module to keep compatibility is annoying and limiting. And this won't end there, I'm sure some other distro will think that it should be /Applications instead of /Programs. I'd rather stay with the normal layout, thanks.

      As an user, everything outside of /home might as well not exist, so it doesn't matter what they call it, I don't care or notice any benefit from it. So it's a waste of time as well. Also it doesn't really make anything more intuitive, it simply moves things around. /System/Settings/passwd isn't any more intuitive than /etc/passwd: It's still the same file, with the same weird formatting and editing requirements (keeping shadow in sync)

    5. Re:not a question by Draek · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you find something usable only after months of practice, that application is not usable for most values of the word usable.

      I once heard a definition of "usable" I quite liked, though I can't remember where: "it makes the simple easy, and the complex possible". ViM and Emacs may require some initial training and a willingness to RTFM, but once learned they excel at the latter in ways that no other editor I've tried has done.

      --
      No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
  6. Different software appeals to different peopl by gravos · · Score: 4, Informative

    Different software appeals to different people. I like linux because it gives me flexibility. You like MacOS X because it is easy to use. I like Wordpress because it is simple. You like Joomla because it is adaptable.

    You know what? That's fine. One-size-fits-all is not a relevant concept when it comes to software. Diversity is a good thing, and we should encourage it, not worry about it.

    --
    This game will waste your life. Don't clicky!
    1. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by Architect_sasyr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Diversity is a good thing, and we should encourage it, not worry about it.

      Great in theory, shit in practice. The amount of "geeks" and/or "nerds" out there who tell me I simply must use wordpress, or I must use Joomla (or Drupal) because it is better - regardless of my own needs - is so spectacularly high that I'm tempted to just say fuck it and write my own, portability be damned. The same applies to the Apple/GNU/Microsoft argument as well. I don't care if one is easier to use than the other, for me, OS X goes to my designers, wordpress to my blogging clients, joomla to my own systems, GNU for my servers, Microsoft for once off uses. The right tool for the right damned job. The second the people writing these "Vs." articles (and threads and what not) get that through their heads, is the second everyone figures out what they really need, not what they're told they should use.

      --
      Me failed English...
      FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
    2. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by KylePflug · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Blind, uninformed apple criticism gets modded troll. The Mac community isn't all sycophants and dummies any more than the Linux community is all revolutionary closeted sociophobes. Guess what? I have a laptop running Linux, a desktop dualbooting Windows and Linux, and a MacBook running OSX with Windows 7 and XP in VMs.

      It's not just that different software appeals to different people, though that's part of it. Different software has different purposes. I've tried at length, and Linux (or OSX, for that matter) don't offer anything comparing to the ease-of-use and efficiency of running a tablet PC in Vista with OneNote for academic settings. I've set it up in Linux, screwed with input drivers for weeks on end, only to have a hacked, barely workable solution. In Windows, I had excellent handwriting recognition and a superb interface with good features. Yeah, Windows is a fundamentally flawed OS - but they all are. Maybe Windows more than the others, but it was what I needed for that purpose.

      Macs are similarly useful in the academic community, as well as for designers and editors. Yes, Linux is a great OS, but it simply doesn't have photoshop or anything that compares to it. GIMP is a clumsy hack and is frankly like Paint in comparison. Gnome, KDE and Explorer have nothing on the frankly revolutionary changes Mac has seamlessly implemented in the last few years. There are a lot of poorly implemented whizbang features like Time Machine's GUI or Safari 4's Top Pages, but there are also features like Spotlight, Expose, the new stacks in the Dock, and Quick Look, none of which the competition can approach with a ten foot pole.

      Call me back when Linux works with my hardware out of the box (and don't give me any of the normal bullshit; I've tried it on five laptops and two desktops in the last couple years, most of those very recently, and it never Just Works; I can tinker, but I shouldn't be expected to and certainly won't be won as an apostle if I need to). Call me back when Linux or Windows have system-wide drag-and-drop that lets me drag an image off a webpage or into an chat window, or from my desktop into the Mail icon to start a new mail with an attachment, or from an email to a filesystem icon which pops open, lets me browse my hard drive by hovering and dropping where I want, and then goes away.

      I'm the first person to advocate open source, the last person to advocate Windows, and no stranger to alternative operating systems. But the ridiculous closedmindedness of the FOSS community is exactly why it is so curmudgeonly and slow when it comes to any widespread adoption. Nobody cares what a bunch of zealots have to say because their zealousy discredits them from the offset. The new Macs are all remarkably well-constructed, fast machines with good features and a superior operating system for the vast majority of end-user and even power-user purposes. If you need more, buy another computer or install another operating system, I won't complain. But flatly decrying the entire platform is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

    3. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The amount of "geeks" and/or "nerds" out there who tell me I simply must use wordpress, or I must use Joomla (or Drupal) because it is better - regardless of my own needs - is so spectacularly high that I'm tempted to just say fuck it and write my own

      Some guy called Nietzsche on the line ... something about the perils of fighting monsters.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Have you used any adobe programs lately? the UI is an abomination (especially on the Mac!). Check this website number sometime. I dropped major cash for Adobe CS3 Master Suite for OS X last year. Major mistake. The UI doesn't look or feel native, is slow, full of quirks, and hard to use.

    5. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by soliptic · · Score: 4, Informative

      Have you used any adobe programs lately? the UI is an abomination (especially on the Mac!). Check this website number sometime. I dropped major cash for Adobe CS3 Master Suite for OS X last year. Major mistake. The UI doesn't look or feel native, is slow, full of quirks, and hard to use.

      I'm lacking mod points atm so I'm going to quote this with my fancy pants +1 karma bonus, because it deserves to be seen. That website is utterly hilarious as well as totally spot on. Even if you don't care in the least about Adobe interfaces, give it a read for the comedy value alone.

      I've got CS3 here (on Win), a new colleague recently started in my team and they don't sell CS3 licenses anymore so they ended up with CS4. I can't show them how to use anything based on my knowledge of CS3, because everything has been changed around for no apparent reason. I can't show them how to use stuff based on an educated guess of how Windows apps usually work, because it looks and works nothing like that. Well, in a lot of ways, they never did behave quite like native Win apps (what with the Mac heritage), but now even less so. And nowhere near native Mac either. It just looks like - bleh. Words fail me really. It's some bizarro dark grey explosion-in-a-flash-factory disaster. It's a total clusterfuck.

    6. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by jvervloet · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, Linux is a great OS, but it simply doesn't have photoshop or anything that compares to it. GIMP is a clumsy hack and is frankly like Paint in comparison.

      Compared to Photoshop, Gimp might be like Paint, but compared to Paint, Gimp really is like Photoshop :-)

      Gnome, KDE and Explorer have nothing on the frankly revolutionary changes Mac has seamlessly implemented in the last few years. There are a lot of poorly implemented whizbang features like Time Machine's GUI or Safari 4's Top Pages, but there are also features like Spotlight, Expose, the new stacks in the Dock, and Quick Look.

      Maybe you can check out

      Call me back when Linux works with my hardware out of the box

      Call me back when you buy hardware that works with Linux. :-)

    7. Re:Different software appeals to different peopl by Beetle+B. · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Call me back when Linux or Windows have system-wide drag-and-drop that lets me drag an image off a webpage or into an chat window, or from my desktop into the Mail icon to start a new mail with an attachment, or from an email to a filesystem icon which pops open, lets me browse my hard drive by hovering and dropping where I want, and then goes away.

      In other words, "call you back when they make an OS X clone in Linux".

      Sorry - won't happen. You seem to like OS X. So stick with it. What's the problem?

      Certainly there are folks out there who are trying to achieve all that you ask for, and more power to them. But Linux is king when it comes to customizability, and it's damn hard to make a system with the interoperability that you want, while still maintaining customizability. Perhaps in the OS X world (don't know - I don't use Apple), the emphasis is on ease of use. In the Linux world, it's flexibility - if the user doesn't like how the system is, he should easily be able to customize it to his needs. Sure, they do focus on user-friendliness, etc. But all DE's and WM's I've seen in Linux that sacrifice flexibility for user friendliness don't get far. And all the people I know who use them eventually leave them.

      --
      Beetle B.
  7. Considering a CMS? Read this! by randomsearch · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hi All,

    If anyone is looking at Joomla etc. right now and trying to decide on which CMS to use, please take my advice:

    If you're a competent programmer, appreciate good design, know PHP to some extent, etc. then use *Drupal*. It has taken me 6 painful months to learn how frustrating the other systems can be if you already have these skills.

    Joomla et. al seem to be designed for people without a strong technical background. Drupal is a tool that speeds up the process of building sites for technical literate designers without constraining them too much.

    RS.

  8. Joomla is evil. by Swampash · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I have administered (and currently administer) a number of sites for various clients across a wide range of publishing systems - flat html, php, various CMSes running on Linux, UNIX, and Windows servers.

    I cannot find the words to convey the depth of the hatred and loathing I feel for Joomla. It embodies the worst of Open Source - as if it were written by a million angsty teenagers suffering from ADHD, with duplicated functionality across a hundred different modules, little or no sensible documentation, and the usability issues...! Most CMSes try and at least look like some thought has been given to how people in the real world will use them. Joomla feels and behaves like it was designed to be DELIBERATELY confusing, as if the author of any given module was sneering at his imaginary end user, thinking "it's perfectly obvious to ME what to do here, fuck you if you can't work it out, n00b".

    Gah! Just thinking about Joomla makes me want to go and wash my hands.

    1. Re:Joomla is evil. by gravyface · · Score: 3, Insightful

      See, here's where you're wrong: Joomla makes it incredibly easy to grant full editing access to anyone visiting your site!

      How?

      With hundreds of essential 3rd-party modules! These action-packed add-ons feature high-quality and easy-to-use SQL injection exploits, empowering your visitors to take full control and do whatever they want to your site.

      Now that's usability!

      --
      body massage!
  9. I think I might compare... by sortius_nod · · Score: 4, Funny

    Linux with a fountain pen.

    While Linux is more feature packed, my fountain pen is easier to setup.

    Therefore, fountain pens seem to be designed for "average Joe", and Linux is designed for engineers.

  10. Complete and utter rubbish. All of it. by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, at least the summary is complete and utter rubbish. The article is slashdotted, but from what I can extract from the comments, the author doesn't know what he's talking about.

    WP does not have '90%' of Joomlas features. That's nonsense.

    I have used, deployed and administrated WP since the b2 days, before it became WP and have been using, deploying, adminstrating and developing Joomla since the Mambo 4 days. And - take it from someone who makes a living on this stuff (and is a member of the Joomla Bugsquad) - both are very sohpisticated webkits!

    WP is basically a Blogging engine. Plain and simple. It's a very pimped out matured blogging engine and is used as the foundation for some very large sites and complex apps - which is totally ok - but it started of as a blogging engine called b2 and all it's workflows are derived from blogging workflows. Which explain it's simplicity and thus its notable ease of use.

    Joomla is a full-blown web-cms. It gives backend controll over what functions the frontend has, it has 7 user groups by default (which you can't change or extend - one of the downsides compared to other systems like Typo3) and basically is a feature behemoth right off the bat compared to WP. The built in editing toolset dwarves that of WP. Contrary to that, Joomla is extremely easy to install and installation plays in the same leage as WP usability wise. I actually find Joomla 1.5 easyer to install than WP 2.7.

    That aside, Joomlas featureset and philosophy required that you sit down and learn it!. WP will have you publishing 5 minutes after installation, while Joomla might take an hour until everything is halfway in place. And you still won't understand half of it. Which is entirely due to the wide range of options Joomla offers, compared to WP.
    Likewise doing nifty things like moving the login and/or search widget aroud the layout to make room for a large bulletin with 3 or 4 clicks of a mouse is simply impossible in WP. With the upside that you don't have to know what Joomla modules and module-positions are.

    I currently use a plugin-pimped WP for my everyday blog (which I share with another blogger) and I use Joomla in 4 different sites, which are all more complex than a online essay site - and both do a very fine job and are very usable. ... Aside from maybe the fact that WPs editor lacks the features I'm used to from Joomlas TinyMCE setup. But for people who'd rather screw up the layout when given to much power this would be a plus. So there's no wonder why WPs editor is slim by default.

    Bottom line: Ignore the rubbish and choose the best tool for the job. Both Joomla and WP are well suited for the prime choice in their field.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  11. Re:Who uses Wordpress for Web development??? by MazzThePianoman · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://autoshows.ford.com/ http://psiurpi.com/ http://www.rannieturingan.com/ http://lonnroth.info/ http://www.friskdesign.com/ ...

    --
    "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
  12. really by unity100 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Blind, uninformed apple criticism gets modded troll.

    my experience is that any kind of apple criticism gets modded troll regardless of the criticism's informedness standing.

    --
    Read radical news here
  13. Forget the comparison.... by Saint · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The real message is that joomla suffers from a lack of useability. The fact that a software component can perform complex tasks, does not require that the interface be confusing.

    Comparing joomla to wordpress is silly as everyone else has noted...but it accomplished the author's goal of getting a lot of traffic....:)

    I have to say that IMHO the Joomla developers would see an explosion of new users if they would just allow someone with useability experience to walk through the admin ui and suggest changes. It is repetitive. There are aspects that are not clear and thus confusing. In 2009, there really is no excuse for that.

    Having said that, it is an excellent piece of software for catalogs, commerce sites, etc. I can think of none better in general...even considering drupal.

    Just my opinion.