[wp-testers] Center

Dirk Hohndel dirk at hohndel.org
Thu Mar 27 16:54:40 GMT 2008


User interface design has been researched a lot over the last decade.  
And many, many, many of the choices made in the redesign of the WP  
user interface go squarely against the results of that research.

- unintuitive links:
   -- "editing a comment by clicking on the author's name" (that  
should get you somewhere related to this author, not to this specific  
comment)
   -- "editing your profile by clicking on your user name" (that is  
not quite as weird, but still, it's not intuitive)
   -- a "Manage" link that allows you to manage lots of very different  
things, but not comments
- bad screen layout
   -- yes, a maximum width is good, but then it needs to apply to  
EVERYTHING - so the "Howdy <user> | Log Out..." and the "Settings  
Plugins Users" also need to be bound by the width - otherwise they  
become invisible to the user
   -- top level menu items are in three locations ("Dashboard" at the  
very top, "Write, Manage, Design..." a little below, "Settings,  
Plugins, Users" on the right
   -- there are two items named Dashboard on the screen (or put  
differently, Dashboard is a submenu of Dashboard)
- bad minimum requirements (why can't I use the wp-admin pages from a  
Blackberry?)
- really hard to use with a text based browser (which means that you  
create lots of problems for blind people)


Every time one of us criticizes the new design we are told how hard  
the team tried and how much work went into it. Look. The team writing  
Windows Vista tried really hard and a lot of work went into it. It  
still sucks. Same goes for lots of other software. In open source  
usually software gets better BECAUSE the constant feedback of the  
community is taken seriously. I don't feel that our feedback is taken  
seriously at all - most if not all of the things I list above have  
been reported over and over again, yet nothing has changed.

The user interface of 2.5 is a CLEAR STEP BACKWARDS. And saying that  
this will be "fixed in 2.6 if enough users complain" is just  
ridiculous. Why make it worse to begin with???

(just to be fair, there are new features that I love - like the media  
upload thingy; it also has usability issues (why does "insert into  
post" close the window if I just uploaded multiple pictures? Makes no  
sense), but it's a huge step forward)

/D

On Mar 26, 2008, at 11:41 PM, DD32 wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:14:13 +1100, deliciousdays <oliver.seidel at deliciousdays.com 
> > wrote:
>
>> I agree, the 980px limitation in width is not good *to say the least*
>> and the fact that a 'plugin' is offered to overwrite this CSS  
>> setting is
>> a joke, right?!
>> No offense intended D, but I'm getting more and more frustrated with
>> many of the recent design and UI decisions.
>
> None taken at all, The way i see it though, Is that the design  
> choice has been made for the 2.5 release, I dont agree with it, I  
> might as well offer a plugin to change it. Theres a few things i  
> dont agree with the new interface, but its not worth going into them  
> all.
>
> The feedback given will be what steers the UI changes, Theres been a  
> remarkably small number of complaints about the width from what i've  
> seen, which means most people who have been testing dont mind that  
> much. Most feedback on the changes have been positive, So its either  
> people like it, They dont care, or they dont complain.
>
> If once 2.5 is released, and theres a huge backlash of users wanting  
> their fluid back, then feedback may dictate a change to be made.
>
> If those who want the fluid design back, feel strong enough about  
> it, go rate it: http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/topic.php?id=1291  
> Might as well collate the votes somewhere.
>
>> To a point where I simply don't care and am happy (and already  
>> have) to
>> apply my own admin CSS theme with JS driven menu tabs.
>>
>> But why not spend more time on fixing real issues than trying so  
>> hard to
>> come up with a different UI, that seems to be put together 'on-the- 
>> fly'.
>
> To be fair, HappyCog( http://www.happycog.com/ ) did put a fair  
> ammount of effort into the new design, And based it around a lot of  
> user research, Put together some wireframe mockups of a better  
> interface, And piece by piece, the Devs have done a great job of  
> implementing the changes, and improving WP in so many other ways at  
> the same time.
>
> WP 2.5 also includes the ability for Plugins to overrule the Admin  
> theme all together, So i'd expect to see a few spinoffs which  
> improve upon the current design, If the changes are popular enough,  
> then i'm sure Devs would consider pulling those changes into the core.
> Once you've used the 2.5 admin for awhile, Its much comfier, if  
> you've just changed over from the old interface, then its going to  
> take some time to get your grips on it, As expected.
>
> All i'm trying to say, Is give it a chance before writing it off  
> entirely.
>
> There'll allways be people who do *not* want to change,
>
> There'll be people claiming the old interface is better, and  
> *nothing* will change their minds,
> There'll be people who like it, but dont agree with some aspects,
> and there'll be those who love it,
>
> Those 3 groups of people are expected,
> Theres people who absolutely hate the old interface,
> Theres people who liked it, but found it cumbersome, or felt it was  
> time for a change,
> and theres people who loved it.
>
> Point is, nothing much has changed, its just the people may have  
> switched group.
>
> So, If someone doesnt like a current design choice, Voice it, get it  
> known, Who knows, Fluid width might be back in 2.5.1
>
>> O
>>
>> PS: Someone somewhere wrote "WP is the new Windows" - I hope not.
>>
>>
>> DD32 wrote:
>>> Aparantly most people prefer a thin content frame rather than a  
>>> fluid content frame.
>>>
>>> Personally, If i want my content thin, i resize the browser window.
>>>
>>> I wrote up a plugin to remove the maximum width if you would like  
>>> to try a full width admin.
>>> http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/remove-max-width/
>>>
>>> D
>>>
>>> On Thu, 27 Mar 2008 09:06:49 +1100, Eric Amundson <sewmyheadon at gmail.com 
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 03/26/2008 Vladimir Vuckovic wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I don't know is this bug, but I'm running my computer on 1280x960
>>>>> pixels and I notice that whole WordPress 2.5 (which is so  
>>>>> amazing) is
>>>>> on the left align, not centered or streched 100%... I think that  
>>>>> it's
>>>>> better to be in whole window, not only on the left and there's a  
>>>>> lot
>>>>> of blank space at the right...
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Vladimir
>>>>>
>>>> Hi Vladimir,
>>>>
>>>> I'm running on a few monitors - both wide screens.
>>>>
>>>> I think if you look closer, the header and footer expand to fill  
>>>> the
>>>> width of the browser, no matter what the width.
>>>>
>>>> The 'body' of the admin panel, which is wrapped in a div  
>>>> class="wrap"
>>>> has a max-width of 980px, which is likely to spare the design from
>>>> breaking or becoming too hard to read (excessive line lengths),  
>>>> when
>>>> maximized on wider screens.
>>>>
>>>> I like this a lot and rarely maximize my browser anyway on a  
>>>> wider screen.
>>>>
>>>> eric
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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