4/25 Weekend Design Challenge Comments

I’m not surprised that the Fluency designs got so many votes. It already has a popular following.

If you had to change, I’d say that Matt’s comp (MT) is a better option because it’s more consistent with the current design. The polling is right in line with this.

I like the Fluency designs, but I voted for MT for one main reason: I don’t want to have to use fly-out hover menus. I like being able to expand a nav menu section and leave it expanded. It makes it much easier to click than hovering and then maneuvering a second time to the submenu option.

I mean, it looks great. But for usability’s sake, I hope we keep something like the existing system, where menu sections can be expanded.

I don’t want to have to use fly-out hover menus. I like being able to expand a nav menu section and leave it expanded.

I think Jane said in this thread that the menu behaviour (expanding/collapsing etc) most likely wouldn’t change if the design changes.

I should have just left the exmaple flyout menu off of my mockups… ??

An addition to my previous comments, I want to say I fully agree that this urge to keep changing the layout of the dashboard doesn’t help many of us at all. I also implement WP as a CMS for clients, and having to explain that the admin interface has changed again is always a letdown.

Make it themeable, folks, make it fully themeable — and stop changing around stuff that breaks the themes or forces us to change support material again. Also agree with the suggestion that the most popular entries should be implemented as choices.

@mr.knoss The short duration of the poll was to fit within the 2.8 timeline, should there be a standout winner that might have been implemented in 2.8. As you said (and as the post on the dev blog about the results stated), because the top choices were so close in numbers, we will not be making any changes in 2.8, but will wait until 2.9 so that we can do more investigation into what works as is and what could stand to be improved. This will include user testing, community surveys, IRC discussions, etc.

I agree that 2600 votes is not statistically representative of the WP community at large, but it is 2600 more people that got to express their preference, as opposed to the decision being made by the core team with only a handful of people’s input. As we move toward more community involvement in the UI, we’ll be experimenting with different processes to see which methods get the most useful feedback.

Personally I voted for Fluency2.

The current menu has pros and cons. Pros include a clean look and the ability to allow more room for additional menu items. Cons for me is the fact that its on the side and to access items you have to expand the menu to reach them. (With no “collapse” or “expand” all option)

To me, it is frustrating to constantly have to scroll down to access certain features on the menu when making changes. The more items that are expanded, the more I have to scroll.

What I like about the fluency design is that when I hover over the main item, I get a flyout menu that allows easy access. It makes the accessibility much better and I don’t have to scroll!

That being said, Fluency2 isn’t perfect. The letter/number shortcut options (while a cool idea) fail to keep a great look when working in IE. Hey, I know we should all use Firefox, and personally I have made that change with FF 3.0, but the masses still use IE, so we must keep that in mind when styling.

I would be fine with keeping the current style as is if we could add a simple OPTION to use javascript menus that do what Fluency does. This would give the user more control over how they wanted to use it.

For now, I am using the Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu plugin which places the admin menu back at the top. For me it just makes life easier, feels more intuitive and allows customization! If someone can make the new admin menu more flexible I’d probably convert.

I just noticed the comments by richschmidt and deanjrobinson about the flyout menu…

Dean, personally I feel the flyout provides me more flexibility and I love the look. See my prior comment about my concerns with IE though.

Rich, I have to disagree on the useability of the flyout. For my uses it makes it much more sense… but every user is different, right?

I think the answer is providing an Option for the menu… collapse or flyout. That way the user can decide which way they want it to work. Or as codeispoetry stated.. make it Themeable. If the admin side could be themed or skinned easily, I think we’d see some GREAT designs come forward. But as it stands, there are only a few and they are hard to find!

@enailor There are two ways you can use the word accessibility in this conversation. You appear to be using it to mean “I can access these links more quickly/easily.” However, just to clarify, when I say accessibility, I’m talking about being compliant with section 508 and being accessible for all users, including those who do not have JavaScript enabled.

The main thing I want is the ability to smash all that header stuff into the top of the menu on the left. Then I am going to minimize the menu ??

Seriously if you have the tick-mark on menu to show you where you are why do we need that huge title? And the rest of that stuff would fit nicely in a 12px bar. Could at least make that a screen option.

That said, I absolutely love the ability to minimize the menu, and really appreciate that you are listening to a million different viewpoints.

Great job on 2.7!

@enailor I recently wrote a plugin changing the location and minimize direction of the admin menu.

Adding flyout menus to the full width menu should not be too difficult. If you would like to be part of deciding what that looks like contact me at: https://luke.gedeon.name/contact

I would appreciate a second poll with only the top four designs and hopefully much more votes.

100% agree!

@janeforshort: So, will there be a new poll before 2.9 release or is the winner of the last poll definitely implemented in 2.9? I 100% agree to mr.knoss′s statement. This poll wasn′t representative for the large communtity.

@infected: We’ll probably poll again in 2.9 dev cycle, but with new choices based on the winners of this one. At that point, any choices presented in a poll will have addressed any issues around accessibility etc.