Want to get involved? See the handbook and optionally drop into #design to chat. Most active design work happens in the block editor project, consider dropping into Needs design or Needs design feedback.
There’s a WordPress Component Library in Figma. Duplicate to edit, direct access is reserved for the design team.
GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ needs to provide a way for users to discover and install new third-party blocks without ever leaving the editor. We are looking for a volunteer to lead the design part of this project.
Currently, new Gutenberg blocks can be provided by plugins, which often register many blocks, and which are managed from outside the editor. The Block Directory proposal outlines a new type of simple 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.-based 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 that is intended to be seamlessly installed from within Gutenberg itself. This is one of the 9 priorities in the 2019 roadmap.
The WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways. will provide an endpoint for searching for blocks by name and description, and return metadata similar to that of plugins. Gutenberg’s Inserter could use that endpoint to also show relevant block plugins that are available to install, with a button and process for seamless installation. Some early sketches of ideas have been made, such as these:
(Note that these are all merely explorations and visual ideas, not set in stone)
It will be important to give users enough information about available blocks in order to make an informed decision – which might include the author, review ratings, and so on – without overloading them with too much information.
One key feature that might help improve the user experience is to allow users to insert a preview of the block into their document first, before installing the plugin, and then use the preview to make their decision about whether or not to install it.
As of now, there are some ideas sketched out and some general requirements as outlined above. There is work already on the block management feature, which is tangentially related. But there are many decisions yet to be made. Work needs to begin soon if this is to be ready in time for the WordPress 5.3 release later this year.
Some of the main design issues that need to be resolved include:
We are looking for a volunteer designer who can manage this project and commit enough time to see it through to completion in time for the 5.3 release. Responsibilities would include:
Given the nature of the work and the time frame, we expect that this is a project that will need a minimum commitment of at least a day a week, and possibly considerably more at times.
If you think you might be the right person for the task, please make yourself known to the Design Team during the weekly meeting, Wednesday 18:00 UTC in #design. Or alternatively, leave a comment below.
Some of you may have heard of the Health Check plugin – It’s a very useful tool that shows people how their website is doing technically. It displays all the relevant technical information about a WordPress installation and offers tips on what to improve.
The intention is to evolve this 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 into something really awesome where (parts of) it can be merged into coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress.. The main issue is that it needs a 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. and UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. overhaul. Right now the plugin mostly consists of grey pages with lots of words and numbers on them, some of which are SO long that I had to crop the screenshot by half to get it to upload:
(Click to enlarge)
There are lots of good tools there, but we need to make sure people know how to use them, and why they should. So even before making any designs, we should think about the UX of the plugin as a whole. Questions like:
The improved Site Health Check is aiming to be ready for WordPress 5.2, which is roughly estimated to come out in Q2 of 2019. That’s not loads of time, and we are a very small team at the moment (@clorith, @miss_jwo and myself), so we’re looking for any input on the above questions.
I’ve started a central issue on the plugin’s GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ repo to discuss the UX, any contributions are welcome there: https://github.com/WordPress/health-check/issues/227
I’m hoping to work out new layouts and flows in the next few weeks, and then start designing the final look at the end of February at the latest. That’s around the same time 5.1 is slated to come out, and should give us enough time to implement everything.
Worth noting is that we want to try to apply the GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ style to this. It would be a nice test case of what WordPress’ intended new design direction will look like outside of the editor, and it matches nicely with previous design work done around this project.
Like I said, feel free to drop by the Github issue to help us come up with a great user flow. We have an opportunity to reshape the UX of this thing, so I want to get as many eyes on it as are willing and able. Sketches, thoughts, reference material to look at, it’s all good. I’ll be dropping more sketches there in the coming days, any feedback is welcomed.
You can download the current stable version of the plugin to try on your own WordPress site from here: https://wordpress.org/plugins/health-check. Note that that doesn’t include the new actionable traffic-light-based site status section you can see in the screenshots above. Of course, if you know what you’re doing you can compile a build from the develop branch on the repo to see the latest progress.
There is also a section in the Handbook that describes how to use the Site Health Check Plugin: https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/appendix/troubleshooting-using-the-health-check/
And at the link below you can find a comprehensive post about the research @miss_jwo did that led to this point, and the broader context of this plugin in the Site Health project:
I’ll try to keep you updated on our progress roughly every week here on the design blog.
Hello all! We’re here with the final regularly scheduled weekly installment of MP6, version 1.5. As we’re beginning to wrap up our visual redesign, we’ll continue to release updates to MP6 when necessary, but will no longer be announcing them every Friday. We’ll miss you guys. 🙂
New this week:
This week includes contributions from Michael Erlewine (mitcho), Till Krüss, and myself.
You can continue leaving comments here with feedback for us. And we’ll issue new posts when there’s something big new for you guys to take a look at (we’re already noodling on some larger core design issues we’re looking forward to sharing with you). As always, thanks for all your helpful feedback in advance.
Happy Friday, everybody. Here’s what’s new in MP6 this week. It was a short week for most of us, so we’ll keep the post similarly short.
This week’s iteration includes work by Joen Asmussen, Till Krüss, and myself.
If you missed it yesterday, be sure to check out our roundup of potential implementation recommendations for plugin authors who need to add a custom icon to the top-level menu. We appreciate any feedback you’ve got for us, so we can codify our recommendations for developers who’d like to add MP6-style icons to their plugins.
We’ll be back next Monday with office hours in #wordpress-ui on IRC, for anyone who would like to discuss their feedback with us. You’ll find us there 1800 UTC on June 3.
The MP6 team has been working on recommendations for plugin authors who add a top-level icon to the dashboard’s main menu. We’ve investigated a number of options, all of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. In this post, I’d like to share the options we’ve considered in the hopes of generating a larger discussion about what would be the best possible solution for WordPress and for plugin authors. An example of the two SVG methods is available at http://codepen.io/joen/pen/otdkK.
This method uses SVG (vector, infinitely scaleable) icons that are embedded inline in the 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.. Using this method, the icon is able to inherit the color of the admin and change depending on customizations chosen by the user (a high-contrast admin theme for vision-impaired users, for example).
This method also uses SVG icons for infinite scalability, but is applied via the CSS background-image property. Using this method, colors must be selected by 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 author, and a separate file must be created for each color.
Alternatively, plugin authors could specify new MP6-style icons in the PNG format, using the same technique they use currently.
Internet Explorer 8 and below have no native support for SVG files. Icons in the SVG format will not display in IE8 and below as a result.
Method A, inline SVG, is the best option from the designer’s viewpoint — plugin authors include a single icon and all styling is provided automatically. MP6 makes dashboard customizations like a high-contrast admin theme for visually impaired users much simpler than the current admin design — and method A makes styling plugin icons as easy as the core set of dashicons. However, the technical hurdles and possible security concerns could be significant and we need more input on whether this method is practical.
Method B would be the next-best option — it would provide the primary benefit of using SVG icons (infinite scalability) without requiring changes to core. It would be significantly more difficult (though not impossible) for plugin icons to reflect user customizations, but would still require less manual work than creating separate sets of 1x and 2x PNG (method C).
We’re interested in any thoughts that you may have, especially if you’ve worked with SVG before and can offer insight on how we could implement method A successfully. If you know of any reason why any of these absolutely won’t work, feel free to rain on our parade. 🙂
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