User problems with latest update

I will admit I’m not impressed with version 3 of Yoast SEO. And, I think I’ve pinpointed what is disturbing me the most.

Many of my client sites use Yoast for SEO. And, many of my clients take awhile to understand the benefit of spending extra time writing content. Once they get past that and actually begin to use the plugin input fields, they seem to have a rough time figuring out exactly how to add content to those fields. This makes it pretty clear to me that Yoast has always had a problem with UI. They’ve gotten around it by using the colored dots as visual feedback. But, there has been a problem.

Well, version 3 seems to make that problem much bigger. I even found myself, a UI/UX developer, wondering what happened to the meta description field the first time I used version 3. Until you hover over the input, it may as well not exist. I will say, there are some pretty cool new features, and lots of nifty eye candy. But that doesn’t help users actually use your plugin. The UI devs have completely missed the mark, in regards to guiding the user through the process of adding content. Currently, the plugin guides the user to a better understanding of how SEO works on a page. But if users can’t add the appropriate content easily, that understanding is somewhat useless.

Until these problems are resolved, I’ll be either sticking to an older version of Yoast SEO or utilizing a different SEO plugin for new sites.

I hope the team can focus on these glaring issues and provide an appropriate response to them.

-D