[ckan-discuss] Fwd: [ckan-dev] Proposed changes to dataset and resource WUI UX

Tue Nov 22 15:09:51 GMT 2011

Hi John,

This sounds fairly encouraging. Just one more comment:

On 22 Nov 2011, at 14:42, John Glover wrote:
>> 7. CKAN terminology for the Extra fields is really confused throughout the UI. In the current dataset page, it's called “Additional Information”. In the edit page, it's called “Extras”. In much of the documentation, it is called “Extra fields”. I feel that the same term should be used consistently. I think that this term should be “Extra fields”. Admittedly, “Extra fields” isn't very helpful to a casual visitor who is not familiar with the CKAN model, but neither is “Extras” or “Additional information”.
> 
> Yes this may be a bit confusing, but I think that 'additional
> information' is better than 'extra fields', although neither are
> ideal. But you're right, it's not currently consistent with the rest
> of the UI.

The problem is that people who are familiar with CKAN habitually talk about “extra fields” when discussing among themselves. But as soon as you have a less-than-expert users in the conversation, there's confusion, because they can't find those “extra fields” anywhere in the UI. This is why such inconsistencies are so bad – they make off-site discussions about CKAN usage really difficult. I imagine that similar problems occurs when new users nose around in the documentation.

“Additional information” is a content-free label, and replacing it with the equally content-free “extra fields” can't really do any harm. The difference is that the second term actually has been accepted by the community, while the former hasn't.

Best,
Richard