Have you ever needed to quickly modify data or look it up. But while the task is simple the entire process of changing one value frustrates you?
Well, this is very common to me, bad UX is annoying. I quite often have to either lookup, or edit, two disparate, yet related pieces of data, and sometimes it is an exercise in frustration.
An all to common occurrence is I just needed to check the edit history of a "Company" our database. This is a simple process, go to the admin find the Company model, do a search and you have your answer.
Except, it isn't that easy in reality. Lets run through what really happened.
I went to "http://superawesomesite.com/admin/" and logged in.
I then looked at how my model options extended well below the fold of my browser so I had to scroll. No problem I'll just hit "ctrl+f" and search for it. WTF!!! where is my company model?
I then proceed to scroll down and finally find it only to remember it was pluralized. If I had searched for "Companies" I would have been good to go, grrrrr.
I click into and see the list of companies available to me. I see that there is a search feature at the top so I do a search for the relevant information. Unfortunately, I don't know the company name that is what I am trying to find out.
Except, we aren't filtering our search in the admin based on that field. So no results show up.
No problem I can do a list filter on the side. So I set the correct filters and still no luck because someone didn't set all the metadata that was supposed to be set for the company. Again grrrrr.
Finally, I abandoned the admin and opened up the django/python shell and did a query with the model, and in about 30 seconds had the record I needed. Took the id and plugged that into the django admin and I was good to go.
This was an exercise in frustration because the 30 seconds that was taken during development to decide which fields should be filtered didn't let that person imagine the field I needed. Also the fact that whomever added the company didn't add all the correct information, made it almost impossible to find the data. In the end I had to go outside this system that is hailed as one of the greatest tools for django to get the information I needed.
I propose we as a community reduce our reliance on the django admin, especially in production.
I also created a Video on the 5 reasons we shouldn't use the django admin.