I ran a user through a couple of new media tasks this morning.
Here’s the video.
And here are my notes:
Step 1: Login
No problem
Step 2: Publish already uploaded image
No problem
Step 3: Preview post
He didn’t publish the post, and as a result got confused about how to preview the post (for the sake of this test, we’ll ignore this, I’ll try and clarify my instructions for future tests).
Step 4: Publish 2 images to a single post
No problem
Step 5: Download additional images
No problem
Step 6: Upload new images & add captions
- 7:18 – Looks like he stumbled upon a bug here. If you add a post through quick press, and then attempt to use the “upload/insert” button to add pictures to a second post, the modal doesn’t display.
- 9:10 – He got himself into the same mess by posting a “clear post” and then trying a second post with an image. Oh man, this is hard to watch…
- 10:00 – And again, he tries saving a draft, and then using the new image modal (with no success).
- 10:40 – He was finally able to do it from within posts.
- 11:40 – He tries again and succeeds from QuickPress
- 12:20 – He makes a note that as he clicks into the caption box, the “Describe this image” text doesn’t disappear.
Step 7: Publish new images as a gallery
- He had to look closely to find the “Add to gallery” button (even though it was blue).
- 17:00 – He was kind enough to do these last 2 steps over again (and made it through without any major difficulties).
Recap
- Overall, only one major hiccup (See bug at 7:18).
- He had to really look for the “add gallery” button. His instinct was to continue using the “Insert into post” button. Anything we should/could change here?
- Also noticed captions aren’t showing up for non-gallery images that are inserted into a post.
- When adding a caption under an image (in the new media modal) as he clicks into the caption box, the “Describe this image” text doesn’t disappear.
Thoughts?
Bart Dabek (WebCultured.com) 8:39 pm on October 16, 2012 Permalink
Other then dev chats where are people voting on next areas to work on? The entire widgets screens need quite a bit of work.. more and more users are using WP as a CMS and the old sidebar mentality for widgets is quite outdated and get’s quite unusable on bigger sites… sorry to be hijacking this thread…
lessbloat 8:59 pm on October 16, 2012 Permalink
Hey Bart, welcome.
That’s where decisions get made for WordPress.
Priorities are determined at the beginning of each cycle. We’re mid 3.5 cycle now. The best thing you can do (if you’d like your voice heard) is start contributing. Feel free to hit up the #wordpress-ui IRC channel with questions you may have on getting started.
toscho 11:54 pm on October 17, 2012 Permalink
I asked in dev chat to improve the widgets area when the goals for 3.5 were set. The answer was: No, maybe later.
There are many things to work on: preview, overall layout, hooks … but it is hard just to start somewhere without some proper planning.
Helen Hou-Sandi 3:46 pm on October 19, 2012 Permalink
We’d love to tackle widgets, but with everything else that was already slated for 3.5, there was no way to fit it in. Not being a part of the current cycle doesn’t mean it can’t be worked on, though. It would be really nice to see more folks writing up ideas they have (whether it’s words, wireframes, code, or all of the above), much like @ipstenu did on her site. I’m guilty of having ideas and never writing about them
toscho 4:31 pm on October 19, 2012 Permalink
I am too busy with WPSE.
One idea I had:
1. Remove the the narrow sidebar column on the right hand.
2. Add a new meta box between Available Widgets and Inactive Widgets named Preview.
3. Themes can register different templates for the preview.
4. When a template (front-page, single, page …) is loaded in the Preview, overload
dynamic_sidebar()and make those areas a drop target.You might remember that discussion. We would need more hooks on the widget admin page, maybe we could reuse some code from the customizer, and backwards compatibility is another issue. Too much for some quick shots. It would require a lot of time, and my experience with patches is very … discouraging.
I would love to contribute, and I am quite familiar with the current code, but I will not start writing something without knowing that my patches are welcome again.
Helen Hou-Sandi 6:21 pm on October 20, 2012 Permalink
And I have a full-time job with an agency (admittedly with about a day a week of company time to do core things, provided we’re not extremely busy, but don’t imagine that I only spend 8 hours a week on community things)
We’re all busy, but if you really want to see something happen, there has to be at least some dedication to even just asking about it on a regular basis, or finding like-minded folks who also want to tackle the same idea.
I’m not sure I really understand why you feel your patches are not welcome? I think widgets also happens to be one of the cases where patches are awesome to give things a tangible try, but, much like the work on the media overhaul, really needs to start with thoughts about user workflows and what that means the UX should ideally be, without necessarily thinking about what is currently there. Iterating on what we have is good, too (what patches often are), but it can be helpful to get a whole new take on something. Even if your particular idea doesn’t become the exact final product, all ideas help shape what happens.
JerrySarcastic 7:17 am on October 21, 2012 Permalink
I actually had the same problem when adding a gallery the first time. Even though the blue button should dominate, I clicked the “insert into post” button as well, and I *should* know better.
Is there a way to simply hide this button/drop-down? It just doesn’t need to be there.
By the same token, it would be good to hide the alignment settings when inserting other media (audio, text docs, etc.) as that is not needed for these files.
Is there a way to show/hide some of this stuff conditionally? Based on the file extension or (in the case of galleries) if more than one image is selected?
mtourtellott 2:58 pm on November 3, 2012 Permalink
Having just finished a couple WP sites for small business people, and spending the vast majority of time on designing workflows that they could easily comprehend. Is there a design thread/discussion that is talking about work flow design? That would help inform your smaller conversations on icons and widgets. It looks by this discussion that your trying to do some user testing, is there somewhere that you are collecting this information for study and organization?