Problems
Lack of connection between the real world and the system
Adding an item to a menu seems like it would be a task that involves adding the new item to a list and then providing a link for that item. The system, however, forces the user to first create a placeholder page, and then add it to the menu. Since the item is for an external link, it seems strange to create a page for it. At another point in the process, the system also requires the user to type in a "Unique Key." This does not actually have much use to the user, seeing as if they wanted to search up the page in the database, they would find the title and contents more memorable than a random key.
The Full-of-Potential "Manage Menus" Section
When given this task, the most natural place to start is at the
"Manage Menus" page, as opposed to the "Manage Pages" page, seeing
as "Manage Menus" sounds most relevant to the task at hand. The
title however does not logically explain its function – managing
a menu should involve adding and linking items to
that menu. The "Manage Menus" page, however, is for adding more
menus to the website. This part of the "Admin Panel" is
also for moving around items within menus, but does not provide
the option of editing these items. The "Manage Menus" page is
especially critical to this task because our testing demonstrated
that users spent the majority of their time trying to figure out
this page.
Visibility of "Edit" button
The "Manage Menus" page has a list of all of the menus on the website.
Each menu also has a checkbox near it. Seeing as humans tend to read
left to right, the checkbox naturally draws attention, and may
confuse the user into thinking "If I cannot simply click on the
menu's name to access its contents, then perhaps I should select the
checkbox." In reality, the user must select the edit button on the
far right. This button is an image of a pencil writing on a piece of
paper and may not be as clear to the user as the word "Edit" might
have been. Fortunately, hovering over this icon does provide a text
tooltip, confirming that it is, indeed, the "Edit" button.
Lack of documentation for an unfamiliar interface
Selecting the "Edit" icon brings the user to the "Edit menu" page.
While the page title seems to be on the right path, this page is
perhaps one of the most baffling pages the user might encounter.
It offers the user the ability to interact with 2 document
structures. Without any extra information about how to use this
interface, the user is left without any understanding as to how to
alter either structure. One document structure has the title "Menu
Configuration" while the other has the title "Frontend Pages."
Neither title describes how these structures relate to one another
and what changing them will do to the website.
The user is left on their own to figure out how to use the interface. After much testing, our team finally discovered that "Menu Configuration" was a document structure representation of the menu being edited, while "Frontend Pages" is a list of all pages that have been added to the site (via the "Manage Pages" section of the "Admin Panel").
Design of elements do not imply their behaviour
Pages from "Frontend Pages" can be graphically added to the menu by selecting the arrow pointing to the left. Pages can also be removed from the menu by clicking the arrow misleadingly pointing right (as if the item will be sent to "Frontend Pages"). If the user selects an item from the "Menu Configuration" and clicks the right arrow, the most natural expectation would be to have it disappear from the left and appear on the right. This, however, is not the case, as it is simply deleted from the menu and not removed from the list of pages. A better option would be to only have one arrow pointing to the left.
Inconsistency with right-clicking & lack of linkage between correlated features
Another frustrating part of this interface is that the user can
right-click on the folders under "Menu Configuration" to add, delete,
or edit items. The ability to right-click items for new options is
not an established UI element for the "Admin Panel." Regardless, being
able to add a new item directly into the menu may seem useful, however,
the user can only give the item a name. They cannot provide a link or
change where the item links to unless the page exists under "Frontend
Pages," making this tool effectively useless. For this test, this was
the farthest a user could reach to adding an external link via the
"Manage Menus" interface before they were forced to try elsewhere.