[wp-design] Molly talks about WP2

[Joen Asmussen]

"I really want to strip all the admin presentation down and get back to 
the lean, mean, admin machine WP was prior to the 2.0 release."

See this tears open a wound for me, and I'm going on a rant here. I 
apologize in advance.

Attached is one of the earliest mockups I can remember (v2.jpg).

Before you all scream up, I'm not saying we should revert back to that. 
But now that we've all got the current Wordpress 2 admin under our skin, 
and are working on getting it to actually look like our latest mockups, 
I'm sure we'll see the attached file in a new light.

It's light on the eyes, it's clean, it's cruft-free, and it's just a 
no-bullshit design. It's got many shortcomings that our latest mockup 
addresses, but to be quite honest, I think it's got some qualities that 
somehow got lost during the development.

Joshua says: "Hmm, the amount of blue is overwhelming."

I agree.

While the new admin interface in 2.0 is light-years better in 
functionality than the 1.5 interface, it's not nicer, or necessarily 
more usable.

I know that Wordpress is not my property to do with as I please, but I 
always approach projects like these as a consultant. That's what I do in 
my day time job. I advise clients as to what will work best, based on my 
experiences. Call me an arrogant bastard if you must but damn I'm 
getting good at it too! Still, the client is always right, and sometimes 
I have to make do with what I have.

But Wordpress.org is not a client! And I feel that shuttle could be 
special for that very reason. This could be where things were made to be 
the best they could! Yet I feel that not all art direction issues in 
shuttle are decisions the shuttle team blindly supports.

Attached is also a screenshot of the current interface in 2.0 final. 
Flame me if you must, kick me off the team if you must, but I want to 
speak the truth! It's a MESS! Fonts galore, Blue colors galore, seven 
types of buttons, umpteen types of input box styles. And what actually 
changed since wp 1.5? Rearrangable, collapsible menus. Yet one seems 
simpler to use than the other. You pick.

So what am I actually trying to say? Well, here it is:

What the hell went wrong? And what can we do in (less than) a month to 
repair that damage?

Vents closing. Temperature dropping. All systems nominal.

Regards,

Joen



Michael Heilemann wrote:
> http://www.molly.com/2006/01/05/wordpress-20-and-akismet/
>
> --
> Aloha,
> Michael Heilemann
> http://binarybonsai.com
> _______________________________________________
> wp-design mailing list
> wp-design at lists.automattic.com
> http://lists.automattic.com/mailman/listinfo/wp-design
>
>
>   


-- 

Joen Asmussen

CPH, DENMARK
ICQ: 2462161, AIM: workjoen

work: www.titoonic.dk <http://www.titoonic.dk> | private: 
www.noscope.com <http://www.noscope.com> & www.turtleshell.com 
<http://www.turtleshell.com>

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: v2.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 120466 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-design/attachments/20060105/e66b3b26/v2-0001.jpg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: current.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 246693 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://comox.textdrive.com/pipermail/wp-design/attachments/20060105/e66b3b26/current-0001.jpg