WordPress.org UX Research

Over the years, with a lot of resources being put into coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., the WordPress.org network of sites has been interated upon without much structural or art direction. As we take on efforts of documenting and creating more polished and art directed design foundations for the WordPress project as a whole, the .org sites need to get some love as well.

The first step is understanding what can be improved, what the real pain points are. So I conducted a survey a few months ago to better understand how contributors and other community members interact with 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/ sites. The survey was sent to a select group of people – project leads, team reps, highly active community members, etc. The sampling was small (32 participants) and so the survey had a lot of open-ended questions, allowing the participants to write their thoughts freely, revealing the biggest pain-points. The survey was divided into sections for better understanding of the usage of the several parts of the website.

This survey will help us get a better idea of the direction we need to go on a long-term plan to make improvements to WordPress.org, building a more solid and thought-out foundation so the community can grow and thrive for years to come.

The survey was anonymous (which I personally found important in order to encourage more honest feedback), so I’m including here some of the most constructive feedback provided.

This is quite a large post, with the survey results and relevant comments – 15 sections with a total of 55 questions. So brace yourself and continue at your own risk 😛

Continue reading

#design, #research, #ux

Get WordPress Mockups

With the desire to improve the path for how people “get WordPress”, I proposed some Information Architecture ideas. Today, I’ve got a mockup to communicate these concepts.

First, I wanted to bring the different ways in which someone can ‘get WordPress’ into one single page that would communicate their relationship with one another effectively and clearly. Second, any buttons that say “Download WordPress” should actually download the software, and not link to another page.

These two points are addressed with the following mockup. The mockup combines downloading WordPress, downloading the mobile apps, and hosting into one page, with sub-pages for each. Combining these options provides a well-rounded view of how someone might go about “getting” WordPress – whether by downloading the software and setting it up themselves, having a hosting provider take care of it, or obtaining the mobile apps. Each section links to sub-pages that delve into more detail.

The mockup also slims down the navigation of this section of 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/ and unifies related content.

/get page mockup

/get page mockup

View full size mockups

Design Decisions

The mockup above has some explicit designs that are worth noting:

  • Button styles are the same as the one in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress..
  • The title bar on this landing page has a new design, unlike others throughout WordPress.org (but somewhat similar to make.wordpress.org).
  • Dashicons have been used on the page, when relevant.
  • The typographic scale has been refined and Open Sans has been embraced.

This mockup is a view into the design direction for WordPress.org, so please chime in with your comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(With great help from @hugobaeta.)

#design, #get

With the time change in the US we…

With the time change in the US, we had to review the weekly 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. directory meeting time.
Starting next week we’ll meet Thursday, 01:00. Some of the contributors will be traveling in April, meeting times then will be announced on a week by week basis, but should end up being Thursday, 07:00.

[Edit]: Fixed the times.

#plugin-directory

Crosspost for Web Store Flows

Hi folks – this is a crosspost for Various Web Store Flow Explorations concerning 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. Directory.

Please comment over there.

Thinking about the Plugin Directory IA

Developing a new plugin directory gives us the opportunity to revisit its design and user experience. It’d be helpful here to start with the information architecture. To begin this process, it’s a good idea to look through the current IA. Here are some diagrams of the current IA.

Current Information Architecture

Current Overview IA

Current Overview IA (/plugins)

Current Plugin Detail IA (/plugins/[plugin-name])

Current 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. Detail IA (/plugins/[plugin-name])

Current Plugin Developers IA

Current Plugin Developers IA (/plugins/about)

Items for Consideration

Looking through the current information architecture, a few questions come up:

  1. We currently show a ton of information on the plugin detail page. What information is necessary when viewing a plugin detail page?
  2. “Developers” is used in two ways throughout the plugin directory: one provides developer information on the plugin detail page, the other links to plugins/about which gives information on how to develop/submit plugins to the directory. Is there a better way to phrase/display this information? Most of the latter content has moved to the Plugin Handbook. Is this page even necessary?
  3. We currently show a version history in two places: under “Developers” on the plugin detail page, but also when you click the “Changelog” tab. Can these be combined? Maybe show a version history that can expand (like an accordion) on click to show the fixes included in that version?
  4. “Installation” doesn’t contain useful information, for the most part, probably because “installation” is standard for all plugins. Should we remove this tab/information from the plugin detail page? How are plugin authors using this tab now? Should we rename it?
  5. There are several tabs that could be combined into the Description tab, including “FAQ”, “Other Notes”, and “Screenshots.” Is it worth combining these into one? If so, are there other changes we should make to allow a better flow of the information?
  6. Rating a plugin requires writing a review. Can we make this clearer by standardizing on a name? “Reviews” or “Rate and Review”, perhaps?
  7. Given the changes being discussed for tags, should we drop the Popular Tags page altogether in favor of a better homepage?

Feedback

We’re looking for feedback on the current IA as well as the questions above. If you have any opinions or ideas, comment below.

#design, #information-architecture, #plugin-directory

Get WordPress: Improving the Path to WordPress

For quite a while now, the metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team has been interested in improving the download and mobile pages on 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/. Unofficially, we’ve been referring to this as the “Get WordPress” project. Here’s an overview of the thinking thus far.

Note: The overview and proposal below are just exploratory to gather feedback.

Overview

Currently on WordPress.org, there’s are three related navigation items in use: “Mobile,” “Hosting,” and “Download WordPress.” Visitors to WordPress.org must select which “path” they want to follow.

There are a couple of issues with situation:

  1. When a visitor clicks on “Download WordPress,” they may be expecting an immediate download of the software. Typical software websites don’t use the “Download” terminology if that package will not be immediately downloaded.
  2. Much of the content in the three navigation items is related. We currently duplicate content from the mobile page across the site when a user is on mobile, for example. Each of these pages is a different way someone can “get WordPress,” either direct to their computer, on their mobile device, or through a recommended host.

Proposal

There are a couple of approaches we can use to fix this.

  1. The easiest approach is to keep the three navigation items and update the “Download WordPress” button to immediately download WordPress.
  2. Conversely, we could rename “Download WordPress” to “Get WordPress” and keep everything in place.
  3. A third option is to rename “Download WordPress” to “Get WordPress,” and create a new landing page (/get/), removing the other two navigation items. Get WordPress would provide an overview of the WordPress mobile applications, a download button for the WordPress zip, and links to preferred hosts, as well as WordPress.comWordPress.com An online implementation of WordPress code that lets you immediately access a new WordPress environment to publish your content. WordPress.com is a private company owned by Automattic that hosts the largest multisite in the world. This is arguably the best place to start blogging if you have never touched WordPress before. https://wordpress.com/ (this currently exists).

I think the preferred option is #3 in the above list. For one, creating a page that is context-aware (mobile vs desktop) is a win-win for users on all platforms. Additionally, merging these pages gives visitors a full overview of how to get started with WordPress. By displaying these items on one single page, we can help communicate the purpose of each section and how they would relate to the visitors and each other more fluidly.

Merging these pages also reduces the number of items in the main navigation and clarifies the main call-to-action button that exists across WordPress.org. We’d also want to ensure that we provide this merged page to all Rosetta sites.

Information Architecture

Here are both the current and proposed IA.

 

download-current-IA

Current IA

get-revised-IA

Proposed IA

Feedback

What do you think? We’d love feedback on the proposal above and this possible direction. Leave your comments below!

#download, #get, #mobile

Plugin Directory v3

A year after relaunching the Theme Directory on WordPress, 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. Directory will finally get the same make over. With the entire process being open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. from the start, please feel free to follow along and contribute on Meta Trac and in the #meta Slack channel.

Milestones are scheduled every two weeks to have short time spans to plan out, with weekly chats in between to keep each other up to date. All chats will happen in the #meta SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ channel, Tuesdays, 17:30 PT. The first milestone is slated for March 1, with the goal to get a minimal viable product off the ground. Namely creating a custom post typeCustom Post Type WordPress can hold and display many different types of content. A single item of such a content is generally called a post, although post is also a specific post type. Custom Post Types gives your site the ability to have templated posts, to simplify the concept. to save plugins in, getting readme.txt parsing right (and save the results in the plugin’s post content), as well as displaying plugins in a basic way on the front-end.

For more in-depth information, please consult the project overview page.

#plugin-directory

Meta Team in 2015

Just a week into 2016, it’s time to take a look at what the metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team did in 2015. As a reminder, here’s a version of this post from last year.

Sure, I could give you a long list of tracTrac Trac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. tickets, but instead here’s a general overview of the bigger things we accomplished:

  • Theme Directory: Launched an all-new theme directory, completely open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. and powered by WordPress instead of bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org 1.x. Lists are now sorted by active installs instead of downloads and you can “favorite” your favorite themes.
  • 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. Directory: Crossed 1 billion cumulative downloads. Redesigned the plugin directory. Lists are now sorted by active installs instead of downloads.
  • Translate: Launched the ability to translate 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/ themes and plugins directly on translate.wordpress.org, language packs for said themes and plugins, added a stats overview, and refreshed the GlotPress interface to improve usability.
  • Rosetta: Introduced internationalized theme and plugin directories for all locales, automated Rosetta deploys, and fixed a number of issues throughout the sites. On the forums side, we launched two new internationalized forums, powered by bbPress 2.x.
  • WordCamp.org: Version 1 of the JSONJSON JSON, or JavaScript Object Notation, is a minimal, readable format for structuring data. It is used primarily to transmit data between a server and web application, as an alternative to XML. 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. was added to WordCamp.org, which involved customizing it so only whitelisted data was exposed. Additionally, WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Payments, WordCamp Site Cloner, and WordCamp Remote CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. were launched, to say nothing of the dozens of contributions reviewed and committed. Part of WordCamp Central received a refresh as well.
  • Trac: Mentions were added throughout all of the WordPress.org trac instances so you can @-mention someone. Additionally, the entire design was refreshed, among other improvements.
  • Meta Environment: A number of sites were added to the WordPress Meta Environment including: BuddyPress.org, bbPress.org, wordpress.org/themes, global.wordpress.org/themes, and translate.wordpress.org.
  • Open Source: The changes in this list were mostly open source as the meta team is committed to open sourcing as much of WordPress.org as possible. In 2015, we also open sourced the Showcase theme and reviewed/committed numerous patches from contributors (see below).
  • Feature Plugins: Added the ability to sync feature plugins on 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 by the repository owner. https://github.com/ with the plugin directory.
  • SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/: Worked on further integrations including /announce for team leads and better warning/error reporting for Translate and Meta services.
  • Devhub: Added user contributed notes to the developer reference, migrated hundreds of examples from the Codex, and added Used By and Uses section to show direct relationships.
  • Profiles: A number of teams received badges for the first time, including the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., polyglots, and training teams. Favorites was expanded to include themes and updated with plugin icons and new ratings data.
  • Centralized Logins: We started the process of centralizing logins on WordPress.org, which will lead to other improvements.

There’s a ton more that we did throughout the year. You can keep up with changes using the meta trac timeline.

Credits

The following 79 people‡ received 149 props over the course of 2015 to the meta repository and its related project: @adrian2k7, @akirk, @amylaneio, @ankit-k-gupta, @atimmer, @bandonrandon, @bansod_deven, @boonebgorges, @bordoni, @bowlhat, @brashrebel, @chaselivingston, @clorith, @coffee2code, @colorful-tones, @dd32, @deconf, @djpaul, @drewapicture, @dzver, @empireoflight, @erikguimaraes, @folletto, @francescolaffi, @garyj, @helen, @hideokamoto, @hugobaeta, @iandunn, @isaackeyet, @jasonm4563, @jeffgolenski, @jeherve, @jeremyfelt, @joefletcher, @johnbillion, @johnjamesjacoby, @johnnypea, @kovshenin, @kraftbj, @liljimmi, @markoheijnen, @matheusfd @mcguive7, @mdawaffe, @melchoyce, @mercime, @mj12982, @morganestes, @nacin, @nao, @nataliemac, @nathanshubert, @nbachiyski, @netweb, @nickmomrik, @nvwd, @obenland, @obrienlab, @ocean90, @otto42, @pauldewouters, @pento, @pixolin, @rachelbaker, @ramiy, @rclilly, @ryelle, @sa3idho, @samuelsidler, @sergeybiryukov, @siobhan, @stephdau, @tfrommen, @tyxla, @valeriosouza, @yoavf, @zodiac1978, and @_dorsvenabili.

A HUGE thank you to all of the contributors above. I’d especially like to call out @sergeybiryukov and @ramiy, who both made large contributions (21 and 15 props, respectively) to the meta team last year.

As a basis for comparison, here’s a table of our stats in 2014 versus 2015.

2014 2015
Contributors 45 79
Props 113 149
Committers 14 18
Commits 875 1163

(The table above only includes props, committers, and commits for the meta repository, not related projects.)

‡ Note that this total includes contributors to the Meta Environment, Camptix, and Tagregator repositories.

#meta

2015 Contributor Survey

Hi metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. folks! Thanks for all your hard work and contributions in 2015. Could you contribute few more minutes to fill in the 2015 contributor survey? It will help us establish some baselines around the contributor experience so that we can see how things change over time.

**This is being posted to all the Make teams, so if you subscribe to a bunch of p2s and keep seeing this post, know that you only need to fill the survey in once, not once per team.**

The survey is anonymous (so you can be extra honest), all questions are optional (so you can skip any that you don’t want to answer), and we’ll post some aggregate results by the end of January. It took testers 5-10 minutes to complete on average (depends how much you have to say), so I bet you could knock it out right after you read this post! 🙂

There are two sections of the survey. The first has questions about team involvement, recognition, and event involvement, and is pretty much what you’d expect from an annual survey (which teams did you contribute to, how happy are you as a contributor, etc).

The second section is about demographics so we can take a stab at assessing how diverse our contributor base is. All questions are optional, but the more information we have the better we can figure out what we need to improve. If there’s some information you’d rather not identify, that’s okay, but please do not provide false information or use the form to make jokes — just skip those questions.

The survey will be open until January 15, 2016. Whether you have 5 minutes now, or 10 over lunch (or whenever), please take the 2015 contributor survey. Thanks!

#annual-survey, #contributors

Howdy everyone I think it’s time for Marketing…

Howdy everyone! I think it’s time for Marketing to have its own Make section on .org – as I posted a few months ago on this p2 with lots of ideas moving forward, we’ve had several Marketing contributor dayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/ groups (3 at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. EU, and one at WCUS a week ago), the Security whitepaper was released mainly for marketing reasons (and now has been translated into Japanese, Romanian, Indonesian, and Spanish, with several other languages in progress), and the WCUS Contributor Day group actually shipped a WP Flyer/Sales Sheet we’re proud to share with the WP world and get people using it and translating it.

There’s a lot of work to do, and there are a lot of people who are interested in contributing. We need some space!

Just a note of clarification: the marketing team would focus on materials which help people/individuals sell/market WordPress the software – i.e., the security whitepaper and other whitepapers, the sales sheet, the open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. presentation, etc.

I am more than happy to help moderate / staff / populate the p2, and set up monthly or biweekly meetings while we staff up.

Update: the new Marketing p2 is here: https://make.wordpress.org/marketing/ We’ll start populating it and getting it moving now!

#make, #marketing, #p2s