Two more menus user tests, focusing on this layout concept: User 5 (in the series) & User 6.
User #5
Step 1: Log in
No issues.
Step 2: Go to menus
No issues.
Step 3: Add a menu
No issues.
Step 4: Add pages to menu
No issues.
Step 5: Reorganize pages
No issues.
Step 6: Set as primary menu
- My instructions make less sense now that everything isn’t on the same page. But she figured it out eventually.
Step 7: Add another menu
No issues.
Step 8: Add links
- She adds the links without entering a label, but then figures it out, and corrects it.
- 7:53 – BUG – Oops… My code broke menu item editing links (i.e. cancel, remove)
Step 9: Add custom menu widget
No issues.
User #6
Step 1: Log in
No issues.
Step 2: Go to menus
No issues.
Step 3: Add a menu
No issues.
Step 4: Add pages to menu
No issues.
Step 5: Reorganize pages
2:25 – BUG – “cancel” link doesn’t appear to do anything.
2:53 – “sub item” help text FTW! – “Oops, no I don’t want a sub item”, she says when she drags a menu item to a sub menu spot (and the new “sub item” helper text shows up). She immediately recognizes her error, and fixes it.
Step 6: Set as primary menu
5:00 – This user also gets hung up trying to figure out where to set this. Note: The instructions were originally written for when the “theme location” meta box was on the same page.
6:00 – She finally figures out that it’s under the “manage menus” tab.
Step 7: Add another menu
No issues.
Step 8: Add links
7:42 – She adds the links without entering a label.
Step 9: Add custom menu widget
No issues.
Observations/Thoughts
- I think this went really well. Much better overall, compared with the first four user tests.
- We should likely add a yellow success message when they change their “primary menu” (under “menus within your theme”).
- The “cancel” link when editing a menu option doesn’t appear to do anything, and I unintentionally broke the formatting of those links.
- The second user noticed the “sub item” helper text, and quickly remedied her dragging error (woot!).
- Setting a primary menu doesn’t really flow well on the “manage menus” tab (at least with this set of scenarios). The users both figure it out (after some searching). I don’t think we can move the “menus within your theme” meta box back to the add/edit screen (it just doesn’t belong there IMO). Any thoughts as to how we could improve the flow of setting a primary menu after a menu has been saved?
- Both users initially add links without entering a labels (one of them spots the error later, and fixes it). We’ve seen this with previous users as well. At one point I had suggested changing “label” to “link text”. I guess we could try that. What else could we do here to improve the chances that they’ll include a label?
Any additional observations or thoughts?
lessbloat, 
Andrea Rennick 7:32 pm on January 9, 2013 Permalink
Can you add to your test adding a link to the home page?
From what I see with new users, they make a page called home and add that to the menu instead of filling out the custom link box.
Andrea Rennick 7:54 pm on January 9, 2013 Permalink
Just to add to this… many new users do not realize that their URL is their home page.
Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 8:22 pm on January 9, 2013 Permalink
Yeah, this is a pain point for many, I’m sure; it’s a pretty non-obvious process to add “Home” to main navigation, and unfortunately one that varies from theme to theme. :-/
lessbloat 2:49 pm on January 10, 2013 Permalink
Hmm… That’s a good point. What if we added a new meta box called “common links” which just had a couple checkbox options:
If we added that, where would we put it? Now that the “Theme Locations” meta box is on another screen, we could probably get away with:
What do you think?
Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 10:45 pm on January 10, 2013 Permalink
Just thinking out loud… since so many use WordPress as a CMS, you could argue that a checkbox for “Blog” makes sense. Maybe have it show only if someone has set a Posts page in their Reading settings (so hidden by default) and get the menu link from that setting?
IMHO RSS is an edge-case, but it can’t hurt.
Andrea Rennick 2:59 pm on January 13, 2013 Permalink
Log in definitely, as it is a pain to add it otherwise. (If you want it to be dynamic)
Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 7:43 pm on January 9, 2013 Permalink
How about a link in the yellow success message that says something like “would you like to add this menu to your site” or something similar? Seems like a good way to prompt them, and also links them back to where they can make that setting change.
lessbloat 2:15 pm on January 10, 2013 Permalink
I like that. We’ll test it.
Jerry Bates (JerrySarcastic) 8:18 pm on January 9, 2013 Permalink
Instead of “Label” how about “Display as” or “Display link as” instead? I think that would be easier to grok the “link text” for the typical (non-techical) new user.
Siobhan 2:56 pm on January 10, 2013 Permalink
How about “Link Text”? That would be more intuitive. A “label” is usually attached to something else (like a form field, or suitcase, etc)
lessbloat 3:18 pm on January 10, 2013 Permalink
Ya, I think I’ll test “Link Text” next – see what comes of it.
lessbloat 4:05 pm on January 21, 2013 Permalink
It appeared to work with the two most recent user tests.