[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #21583: Improve discoverability and visual design of Screen Options and Help Panels

[WordPress Trac]

#21583: Improve discoverability and visual design of Screen Options and Help Panels
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 Reporter:  chexee       |      Owner:
     Type:  enhancement  |     Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |  Milestone:  3.5
Component:  Help/About   |    Version:
 Severity:  normal       |   Keywords:  ui-feedback ux-feedback
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 The Screen Options and Help panels are not very discoverable and, in part
 because of this, aren't very helpful to our users.

 Here are the problems with them right now:

 * Most users are blind to these tabs.
 * The labels and positioning give little indication as to what these tabs
 actually do.
 * For a lot of users, Help is not that helpful.
 *They’re position in the admin creates yet another point of navigation for
 users to be aware of (and per #1, most of them aren’t).
 * The very wide container for text makes a lot of the help text difficult
 to read.

 Here are some proposals to improve the design and discoverability of these
 tabs (related images and mockups are here:
 http://make.wordpress.org/ui/2012/08/06/we-did-some-brainstorming-at-dev-
 day-today/) :
 * Adding icons to these tabs would (hopefully) both make these tabs more
 visible and give a better indication as to what these tabs too.
 * Moving these to the right side of the toolbar would give even more
 context to what these do, as they would be grouped with other user-
 specific settings.
 * (6) The toolbar dropdown would allow for a slimmer content area for
 better readability.
 * (7) The slimmer content area would let us make screen options read like
 a list for better scannability.
 * (4/5) Putting the gear on the upper right would standardise with several
 other web apps (Twitter, etc).

 Related: #21326

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/21583>
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