Right Now
The first UX design challenge for the UI working group is a small one to help us work out our processes and iron out the kinks of collaboration. The Right Now module on the Dashboard of the WordPress admin tool causes confusion to some users because of the way the data lines up… they think Pending applies to Categories instead of Comments, for example, because of the way the lines are arranged. The first challenge is to restructure the Right Now box to be less confusing. Simple wireframes are due on Wednesday night to be discussed on Thursday during the weekly UI chat. If you want to submit a wireframe, leave a link to the image in the comments and explain what you’re changing and why.
Matias 7:35 pm on February 3, 2010 Permalink |
I made some very rough wireframes and mockups just to get the conversation going. Seeing the current state of the «right now» module I thought the structure was already there, just flipped sideways. I did not want to touch much of it, though it might be improved by labeling the two rows — as [content] and [discussion] for instance. But if the information is cleanly presented, the less words the best.
Muhammad Yoosuf 2:48 pm on April 6, 2010 Permalink |
it seems better move go on dude….
ehspayne 9:37 pm on February 3, 2010 Permalink |
Matias – I like the looks of #1 better. The problem with #2 would be trying to read the colored numbers.
SteveJB 1:56 am on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
#1 by Matias certainly is easier to scan.
windhamdavid 2:54 am on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
@matias is pretty much ‘on the money’ with that grid based design. It’s 100% more intuitive.
I’m a fan of the bold tab elements in #1 ~ I’m headed in the same direction and I pretty sure you could pull that design off in under 10 lines of new css with the current structure if you really want to keep a I’ll work ~here~ on some options – should I consider menu admin, terms/taxonomy, and/or multi-site if it’s enabled as optional features of the “right now” module?
Dre 3:08 am on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
agreed on #1
Dean Robinson 5:17 am on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
I don’t mind the wireframe, its similar to an idea I was going to explore (just haven’t found 5 minutes to put anything together yet). Not so much a fan of the mockups, but thats just my opinion
I think its the left aligned label/right aligned stat that puts me off.
Will see if I can find time when I get home from work to piece my thoughts together in time for tomorrows discussion.
Augebang 1:07 pm on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
I choose colorful # 1.
“At a Glance” Design for WordPress | Nathan Barry 2:28 pm on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
[...] Though I don’t think this is perfect visually, it adds much more differentiation between the comments group and the rest of the content. Let me know what you think and get involved with the discussion here on the WordPress UI blog. [...]
Nathan Barry 2:37 pm on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
I actually like the current design quite a lot, it just has the one issue of not distinguishing between content and discussion. So instead of completely changing the layout, we should just add some visual grouping. Here are my ideas:
http://nathanbarry.com/at-a-glance-design-for-wordpress/
Not changing much, but just offsetting it a bit, and changing the headings. Also showing a hierarchy for the comments section is, in my opinion, really important.
Matias, I like your idea quite a bit (flipping it on its side is intuitive), but the grid based design is seems harder to scan. Also how does it account for the extra information from WordPress MU/MS ?
Matias 3:16 pm on February 4, 2010 Permalink |
I actually agree with you Dean. I just rushed the mockups in a few minutes to show something out of the wireframes; what is worse about them is that they do not blend that well with the overall feel of WordPress’ dashboard.
Mo Jangda 7:47 pm on February 5, 2010 Permalink |
Just a thought: the Right Now widget should allow for and automatically accommodate custom post types when added, i.e. separate entries for each post type.
I would say the same for custom taxonomies, but I personally don’t see much value in having those numbers there (other than acting as quick links to get to the category/tag/taxonomy management pages). I think the key numbers of interest and value to site owners are their posts (and similar) and comments.
R'phael Spindel 4:21 pm on April 11, 2010 Permalink |
Yes, definitely add support for Custom Post Types AND Custom Comment Types.
Emil 9:40 pm on February 5, 2010 Permalink |
Right now, I have my dashboardset up for four columns. Sometimes I rearrange it to either two or three. I’d like to be able to set a colspan (Column span) so that some of the info, such as the dashboard, will span two or more columns. Would this be hard to do?
Howard Bowers 8:03 pm on February 6, 2010 Permalink |
One issue with both wireframes – the top for boxes are distinct vales: the names of posts, pages, etc. The bottom four values all relate to comments: IMHO they should look like a unit rather than be separated. I think that is the essential miss with the current design, at a glance the info isn’t chunked well.
ehspayne 4:09 am on February 19, 2010 Permalink |
http://www.angelwoodpines.org/at-a-glance_ehyspayne.png
I think that a section for USERS need to be added to the RIGHT NOW block. First for security – how many admins are listed. Second for maintenance – How many users need to be registered.
jane 5:45 pm on February 25, 2010 Permalink |
I disagree, and think that is best left to a plugin to add (the module has hooks). The bulk of WordPress users are not power users with large numbers of users to manage, and it would just be clutter to list their 1-5 regular users.
dl meckes 5:17 am on March 8, 2010 Permalink |
Interesting… I find #1 visually cluttered. That becomes tiresome to live with. The cleaner style of 2 seems less confrontational.