I sent a user through the new page on front flow, as well as a few steps in the customizer (including the new color picker). I sort of cheated on this one by telling him exactly where to click at times, but the purpose of this test was not to test if he could get there, but once he got there if the changes we’ve made make sense.
Here’s the video, and my notes:
Step One notes – Log in
No problems.
Step Two notes – Add static front page
No problems.
Step Three notes – Preview your blog
2:19 – “So people can leave a comment on my homepage?” (see my note below)
Step Four notes – Go to customizer
No problems.
Step Five notes – Change your tagline
No problems.
Step Six notes – Change your background color
4:23 – Unfortunately, the new color picker failed again, even with the new “current color” tooltip. User simply clicked the right hue selector, and assumed that the color had been changed to blue.
5:55 – “Ah, I have to drag this, oh. Well that was a little bit confusing”, as he goes back to the customizer color selector and discovers that he has to move the puck in the left-side box.
Step Seven notes – Edit your home page
7:31 – Makes it to the home page to edit it, but then says, “Alright I’m confused”.
8:30 – Goes back to dashboard, “How come this doesn’t look the same as what I was just messing around with”, referring to the customizer.
9:09 – He’s getting confused from my instructions, I said “Change the title” but he’s thinking about the site title, which he saw in the customizer. I’ll have to fix my wording here.
Recap
- He pointed out that comments are turned on for his static home page. Should we consider turning comments off by default when a static home page is enabled?
- Having to click twice to select a color is still confusing.
- Having the static auto-generated “home” page be blank might be a bit confusing. Perhaps we could pre-fill the page description with a bit of helper text. Something like, “This is your new default home page, you can edit the content of this page via the pages section of your dashboard.”.
Sheri Bigelow 4:10 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink
The difference is a little jarring if you’re not aware of the differences. It’s interesting to see stuff like that through the eyes of beginners.
I would argue that some people do want comments on for a home page and some want them off. My assumption though, is that more people would want them off, so having them off by default seems like a good idea.
Maybe include a link to some documentation with the pre-filled text?
Andrew Nacin 8:39 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink
When we’re creating a page, I agree, we can very easily set comments to off by default.
Isaac Keyet 8:35 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink
Makes sense – the left hand side only shows “one color” to the user, with a different white/black balance.
In order to make the deadline we may want to consider simply “resetting” the left side (removing the picker bit) after you’ve changed the hue. The text could then read “no color selected and perhaps an outline is set to the left side.
A better long term solution would still be a UI which puts the focus on the color instead of the shading of it, e.g. http://cl.ly/image/3B3S1q343218
Andrew Nacin 8:39 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink
@lessbloat and I have asked @mattwiebe to try exactly this. (I’ve been referring to it as the MS Paint color picker.) Should be done early next week, after which it will be tested side-by-side with what we have currently. Good to have some validation; thanks!
NewClarity 11:46 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink
“He pointed out that comments are turned on for his static home page. Should we consider turning comments off by default when a static home page is enabled?”
Oh please! I was begging for this years ago.
Mike Schinkel 11:47 pm on September 21, 2012 Permalink
Oops, I was logged in as my company and not as me. That was my comment.