MP6 Color Schemes

Hi there, WordPress community.

The MP6 team has been working on adding color schemes in the past couple weeks. Now, we’d like to get your input about which color schemes you want to see make it into the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. Please check out the schemes and let us know which color schemes you would use:

Which of these MP6 color schemes would you use?

We’re also taking suggestions for color scheme names.

#3-8, #mp6

CEUX, Sept 17 Chat Notes

Couldn’t make it last week? Check out the chat log.

Design updates

This past week, we’ve had some new designs pop up:

  • @joen presented these in chat:
    • http://cl.ly/image/2K3U0p3H0t2B
    • http://cl.ly/image/3J2n332l4341
  • I made some quick riff on them:
    • http://cl.ly/image/1H120H3R461F
  • @joen worked on some more mockups based on his earlier idea:
    • http://cl.ly/image/0u1M3D401F3x
    • http://cl.ly/image/2g3u2Z061C2Z
  • I tried a different approach:
    • https://cloudup.com/ctmVnQPCz07
    • https://cloudup.com/cafHOqUrBEM
  • @diegoliv made an alternate version to that approach:
    • https://i.imgur.com/q8mE8uX.jpg
    • https://i.imgur.com/Ym3FjNb.jpg

UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it. feedback is welcome, though keep in mind these are still ideas. We’re looking for big-picture issues. 🙂

Getting stuff done

We’re going to continue to work on smoothing out these ideas, then will need some people to help us prototype them. To help that along, we’ve put together a spreadsheet of tasks. If you’re interested in claiming a task, let me know.

CEUX Poll

We’re pretty deep into various design concepts, but I think I want to also take a step back and evaluate what we’ve done so far. Are we on the right track? To help this, I’ve put together a survey:

Writing Posts in WordPress

Please take this when you have a moment and share it along. The results will be used to help us figure out if we’re solving the right problems, or if we need to step back and try out some different ideas. It will also help us determine if there are any “quick wins” we can implement prior to adding content blocks.

Chat is tomorrow, Tuesday the 24th at 17:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui. I’ll be on a plane, so I might not be able to make it, so @joen has agreed to lead in case of my absence.

#3-8, #ceux

DASH Update

Accomplished this week

1) I updated our planning spreadsheet.

2) We held our weekly IRC chat last Tuesday. @joen shared:

Along with the following thoughts:

  • Far right column is for mini widgets. The added whitespace adds balance, centers the middle columns. Is reminiscent of the “Publish” box on the Write section.
  • We pulled back on the ambitions of the activity stream (for 3.8). We still have high hopes of filling out the activity stream with valuable information in a later release.
  • HooksHooks In WordPress theme and development, hooks are functions that can be applied to an action or a Filter in WordPress. Actions are functions performed when a certain event occurs in WordPress. Filters allow you to modify certain functions. Arguments used to hook both filters and actions look the same. would be added to the top, middle, and bottom of the activity stream to make it immediately pluggable.

This mockup solicited the following feedback:

  • Maybe play with a splash of color?
  • Maybe try light or regular font-weight for the big headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. at the top?
  • Let’s experiment with rotating through different languages/idioms for the header text: aloha, Bienvenido, etc…
  • How about “Site Content” instead of “Right Now”?
  • Can we remove the # of widgets in “Site Content” area?
  • Maybe try one header area with “Recent Activity”, and two sub areas with sub headers, “Publishing Soon”, and “Recent Comments”?

3) Joen shared the following mockup in our Skype chat:

4) I uploaded an updated combined news feed patch. Please test this patch out if you have time, or dive in for a code review.

5) I riffed off of Joen’s latest mockup, and came up with:

Up next

#3-8, #dash

CEUX, Sept 10 Chat Notes

We had a pretty exciting chat last week! Here’s what happened:

  • Briefly went over our initial wireframes and Jen’s feedback. @joen is planning on working on some wireframes based on her suggestions.
  • Next, we talked a lot about @diegoliv’s WIP prototype and agreed it’s a great start to move forward from.
  • @JustinDGivens and @wonderboymusic worked on moving Diego’s prototype into pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party form, then merged it into the content blocks plugin, which now generates a new “add post (prototype)” page for testing out content blocks. Diego will continue work on the prototype in this plugin.

This upcoming week sounds like it’ll be a work week, so I’m thinking the meeting will just be a check-in. Come with your questions, comments, and any progress you’ve made with sketching or developing. As always, chat is Tuesday at 17:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui.

#3-8, #ceux

DASH Update

Accomplished this week

1) We held our weekly IRC chat last Tuesday, and @joen shared the following:

He also shared a whittled down version of the current “Right Now” widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. which looks like this:

These mockups solicited the following feedback:

  • Can we merge the “3 new comments since your last visit” and “recent comments” sections?
  • Under QuickDraft, let’s just start by showing the title. On keyup, the other elements will slide down.
  • Unclear what the three dots mean in the vertical divider (they’re drag handles). We’ll keep working on it.
  • Can we add the plugins widget into the new combined “News” widget somehow?
  • Note that multisiteMultisite Multisite is a WordPress feature which allows users to create a network of sites on a single WordPress installation. Available since WordPress version 3.0, Multisite is a continuation of WPMU or WordPress Multiuser project. WordPress MultiUser project was discontinued and its features were included into WordPress core.https://codex.wordpress.org/Create_A_Network. hides the plugins widget. Something to keep in mind as we refactor these.

2) Joen worked up 2 additional mockups:

Option A:

Option B:

3) In our Skype chat we brought up 2 additional things to think about:

  • What doe the activity feed look like when a user first installs WP? When there isn’t any updates, scheduled posts, or comments?
  • Where does the welcome screen fit into all of this?

We need your help

  • We need developers. We’re ready to start building some of this out. But we need some coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. developers to join our ranks. If you have any interest, please leave a note in the comments.
  • Feedback on anything above is much appreciated.

Up next

We’ll hold another IRC chat this coming Tuesday at Tuesday, September 17th, 2:00pm UTC in #wordpress-ui.

#3-8, #dash

Update on THX38

Things have been in motion for the themes project. I’ve been working on making the pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party prototype ready for some initial testing. It’s looking like this:

@shaunandrews ran a test with it, and here’s the video.

Compared to how bad last test went, it’s pretty cool to see the dramatic effect the “add new theme” blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. had. (Also helped by the removal of the tabbed interface and extra information.) The user grasped immediately that she was seeing some themes that were already available to her blog, and how she could add more. Fairly straightforward, which is all this test was about.

Then, of course, as soon as she got to the filters page everything went down again, but we already expected that — still good to have one more test showing the same fundamental problem there.

Directions

On last Tuesday’s meeting we discussed the different mockups that were shared so far, apart from the plugin ones.

  • Shaun: http://cl.ly/image/0p3Z2y3r0U14/o
  • Emil: http://index56.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/quick-draft.png
  • Paal Joachim: http://easywebdesigntutorials.com/wp-content/uploads/Theme-Browser-Mockup-1024×704.jpg

It seems we have mostly two directions to try for themes.php. The one the plugin is building (simplify the screens, remove the tabs, but keep a distinction between “your themes” screen and “installing new ones”), and one that merges installing new themes with your currently installed themes on the same screen. As a quick analogy, themes.php as your apps folder, or themes.php as an app store. Another possible outcome is that this screen could render a specific experience for new users alone.

Shaun is polishing his prototype so we can test it. We argued that it would be hard to know which of these two was the better one, since we would also need to test with people that already have a bunch of themes installed and don’t care much about the discovering new ones part. But having some insight is still good.

Finally, we talked briefly about multi-screenshot support. The plugin has a proof of concept implementation, showing the screenshots on the expanded view of a theme as a gallery. To test it, add a screenshot-2.png image to the root of a theme (up to five). Also relevant coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. ticket: #19816.

#3-8, #core-plugins, #thx38

CEUX, Sept 3 Chat Notes + Wireframes

This week’s chat was uneventful — not a lot of progress this week as people continue to work on wireframes.

This morning, I touched base with @jenmylo to get her feedback on some wireframes I’ve been working on. She had a lot of great UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it., usability and accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) feedback that’ll help shape how we move forward with this project. She plans on typing up her notes and posting them here when she has a chance.

One thing we quickly figured out was wireframes are a really bad method for communicating interaction. She suggested I join forces with a developer skilled in jquery to quickly prototype our ideas instead of trying to wireframe them moving forward. Any jquery-savvy developers interest in pairing up? Otherwise, I’ll look into storyboarding as a method for communicating interactions.

If anyone else has worked on some wireframes, this would be a great place to post them.

Next chat will take place next Tuesday, 17:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui, but please feel free to post and comment here if you have ideas or questions.

#3-8, #ceux

CEUX, Aug 27 Chat Notes

Sorry guys, I’d meant to get this out earlier. Here’s last week’s meeting log.

Chat notes

  • Chatted a bit about embeds WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. currently supports, and how we can start grouping similar content types together
  • Decided on including a generic “embed” blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.
  • Explored different ideas for how you could move blocks around
  • Talked about using an “agile” development approach

For this week

  • Start wireframing out block scenarios (for example, what happens when I click a video block? What pops up? etc.) and then present them during chat
  • Explore text as “just another content block”
  • Continue developing the initial pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party functionality

Next meeting is tomorrow, 17:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui. Bring your wireframes. 🙂

#3-8, #ceux

CEUX, Aug 20 Chat Notes

We kicked off CEUX with our first meeting this past Tuesday, August 20th. Couldn’t make it? Check out the IRC logs.

Some meeting notes:

  • We elected a team lead (me)
  • We defined the objective of this project, which is improving the user experience around adding content to posts and pages.
  • Next, we chatted about scope, and determined the following items are in scope:
    1. Improved text formatting (aka making changes to the format bar and how users select things like bold or italic, make lists, add links, etc.)
    2. Content blocks
    3. Improved htmlHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. mode with syntax highlighting (later iterations)
    4. Autodetection of post formats based on post content (later iterations)
  • We also talked about what is not in scope:
    1. The publishing experience (saving a draft, scheduling, etc.)
    2. Creating advanced page layouts (like defining widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. areas on your page, etc.)
    3. Widgets, menus, appearance, etc. Anything that isn’t specifically about writing or editing posts and pages.

@wonderboymusic has set up a plugin for us here. Feel free to install it and start playing around. You can also check out our initial mockups here. Please remember both of these are very much early stage works-in-progress, and that nothing is final yet.

Additionally, @wonderboymusic will be acting as the team’s developer lead. This means that he will have the final say on all development matters moving forward.

For next week:

  • I’d like us to start putting together a list of all content blocks we should include by default. I’ll get us started thinking about these in the comments.
  • Once we start getting a list together, I want us to start sketching or wireframing what each of these blocks will look like — what fields do we need for each? How should they be displayed in the post? Etc. In addition to our starting mockups, @joen has some great mockups which we can liberally steal from. 🙂
  • @wonderboymusic will take a chunk of our meeting to go over how pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party development will be structured.

Our next meeting is Tuesday 17:00 UTC in #wordpress-ui. Hope to see you then!

#3-8, #ceux

I will be interim leading MP6 in a…

I will be interim-leading MP6 in a mostly-project management capacity while @iammattthomas is on sabbatical. We’ll resume weekly open meetings in #wordpress-ui next week, Monday, August 26 at 18:00 UTC.

#3-8, #mp6