The Top 5 Impediments to Flow on Touch Devices

Behold, a listicle.

1. The Media Modal

mobile-media-modal

The media modal has a number of issues on touch devices, particularly phones, including the use of tabs and sidebars. For details see The Media Modal and Sidebars on Phones.

#30154 – Improve Media Modal UI at small-screen sizes

2. The Editor

Update: #31247, Scrolling and zooming is frustrating on iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads., was fixed on July 1st of 2015.

Scroll up to add media. Scroll down to preview, save, publish. Up and down. Up and down. Press This addressed this with its redesign in 4.2. Lessons learned there could be applied to post-new.php.

The Location of Add Media on Phones

#29989 – Hide Media Buttons on small screens

Fixed: The editor has a very annoying scrolling problem on iOS. Fixing that would go a long way toward improving usability on iOS devices.

#31247 -Scrolling and zooming is frustrating on iOS

image40-576x1024

Update: This was fixed on July 3rd of 2015.

I like the toolbar on phones better than on desktop, except for the lingering desktop biasDesktop bias Patterns and interfaces that work in desktop interfaces don't always work on mobile. UI elements triggered by mouse hover, opening in new windows, dragging into bookmarks bars, drag-and-drop, and auto-focusing search input fields are examples of desktop bias.https://make.wordpress.org/test/tag/desktop-bias/ that defies touch expectations when tapping menu icons. In the image above, tapping the dashboard icon traverses a link to the dashboard instead of dismissing the menu.

#29906 – Submenus can’t be dismissed on mobile.

Submenus are awkward on touch devices. The expectation on touch is that tapping a menu item takes you to the tapped thing and closes the menu. With WP, tapping in the admin menu subtly opens a submenu. The menu remains open. I often don’t notice the submenu open because I’ve already shifted my gaze to look at the right side of the screen. Losing submenus would benefit touch navigation. Further, losing them on desktop (like 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/ does) reduces the overwhelming feeling new user experience when first confronting wp-admin. This is something I’d like to experiment with in a feature pluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins..

Site Switching on the Make Network

5. Column truncation

IMG_2919

 

Update: This was fixed on July 9th of 2015.

Our current strategy for dealing with list tables on narrow screens is to just chop off columns. Not good.

#32395 – Truncation is not a good strategy for responsive list tables

#29991 – Comment action links are quite cramped on small screens

#29995 – Username is cut off on the user list table on small screens

#editor, #media, #modal, #toolbar, #touch, #web

The media modal and sidebars on phones

Neither the iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. app nor the Android app support proper galleries, yet. They support uploading and publishing multiple individual files but not creating galleries. Our media modal is the only outlet for gallery creation on phones. Our image flow effort is redesigning the media modal. Meanwhile, I experience the following sight every day, over and over. I present it to promote continuous empathy and remind ourselves what we’re working to resolve.

mobile-media-modal

That sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. is lingering desktop bias.

#desktop-bias, #ios, #media, #modal, #phablet, #web

Site switching on the make network, iPhone 6+

Task: Starting on make/coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., navigate to the posts page in the admin of make/flowFlow Flow is the path of screens and interactions taken to accomplish a task. It’s an experience vector. Flow is also a feeling. It’s being unselfconscious and in the zone. Flow is what happens when difficulties are removed and you are freed to pursue an activity without forming intentions. You just do it.

Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
.

Setting aside the taps burned by the p2 bug, that’s 6 taps to reach the destination. Expanding submenus burns two taps. Submenus are awkward on touch devices. The expectation on touch is that tapping a menu item takes you to the tapped thing and closes the menu. With WP, tapping in the admin menu subtly opens a submenu. The menu remains open. I often don’t notice the submenu open because I’ve already shifted my gaze to look at the right side of the screen. Losing submenus would benefit touch navigation. Further, losing them on desktop (like 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/ does) reduces the overwhelming feeling new user experience when first confronting wp-admin. This is something I’d like to experiment with in a feature pluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins..

Our toolbar menus need attention across all devices. The lack of Posts means extra taps for an important flow. Our toolbar interactions also suffer from an expectation defying menu dismissal bug.

#admin-menus, #ios, #multisite, #phablet, #tooolbar, #web

Network Admin, Nexus 6

Upgrading 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, CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., and Upgrade Network

Adding a new site and editing the new site’s domain

Adding a completely new user and adding an existing user

Adding a theme, network activating. Adding a theme, then enabling and activating for a single site (ignore the php notice, unrelated. TODO: fresh screenshot of that step)

Add a new plugin

Bonus: Registering a new user and a new user/site from the front-end

Bonus: Various site maintenance tasks. Archiving, spamming, deleting, etc

Lastly, https network admin doesn’t create http sites. I can see this being okay/expected since having https://example.com doesn’t mean you’ll have a wildcard for the subdomains. Is there a filter/option/etc to indicate that you do?

#android, #multisite, #network-admin, #nexus-6, #web

Press This a YouTube video, iPhone 6+

Issues:

  • Tapping Preview often results in the editor focusing and the keyboard flying up rather than preview. Pressing a youtube video and tapping into the editor before previewing is the most reliable way I’ve found to reproduce this.
  • Preview opens in a new window. This is really bad mobile usability that is shared by post-new.php.
  • The publish bar does not persistently remain on the screen. Sometimes it ends up at the end of the big chunk of whitespace that iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. puts below the editor. A lot of scrolling is required to reach it. This seems to happen in association with the preview bug mentioned above.

#forked-flow, #ios, #new-tab-window, #open-in-new-window, #phablet, #press-this, #preview, #safari, #vizrec, #web

Install the beta tester plugin and upgrade to the latest nightly build, iPhone 6+

#beta-testing-flow, #captions-needed, #ios, #phablet, #plugins, #update, #updates, #upgrade, #upgrade-install, #web

Advancing the cursor through input fields on iOS

On iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. devices, I can’t advance the cursor through text that lies beyond the bounds of the Title input. The cursor stops advancing through text once it hits the left or right border of the input field. This causes me to abandon my mobile session and pick up editing when I get to a laptop. Mobile abandonmentMobile abandonment Bugs that terminally block flow on mobile cause mobile abandonment. Users must do a huge context switch from mobile to desktop to resume flow, which usually means postponing an action until the next time a laptop is available.https://make.wordpress.org/test/glossary/#mobile-abandonment of edit flowFlow Flow is the path of screens and interactions taken to accomplish a task. It’s an experience vector. Flow is also a feeling. It’s being unselfconscious and in the zone. Flow is what happens when difficulties are removed and you are freed to pursue an activity without forming intentions. You just do it.

Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
is not good.

This happens on all my iOS devices. Android looks good. We could use an audit of all input fields for iOS.

 

cursor sometimes breaks out of the box

 

I can’t cursor left

 

Can’t cursor right

 

#boxed-input-scrolling, #editor, #input-scrolling, #ios, #mobile-abandonment, #phone, #safari, #web

Publish a captioned gallery, iPhone 6+, Portrait

WP 4.2-RC3-32249 and iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. 8.3.

Bulleted flow:

  • Start on logged in front page.
  • Tap + in the toolbar.
  • Tap Post.
  • Tap title input.
  • Type title in fly up keyboard.
  • Tap Done to dismiss the keyboard. Page updates with permalink info. [7]
  • Tap Add Media
  • Opens in Media lib [2]. The dismiss button is missing [1]. Tap Upload Files.
  • The dismiss button is back. Tap Select Files.
  • Tap Irie Plank Image Feed.
  • Tap images to select.
  • Tap Done.
  • After a pause where nothing seems to be happening, upload progress is shown. The resulting screen is a known mess [4].
  • Tap Insert Media to show the flow selector dropdown. [8]
  • Tap Create Gallery.
  • Tap Create a new gallery.
  • Tap a caption field.
  • Type in caption text.
  • Tap another caption field.
  • Type in caption text.
  • Repeat for each image. Curse at bad scrolling, keyboard juggling, and focus panning that burn a lot of taps. [3]
  • Tap Insert Gallery.
  • Arrive back at the editor with the keyboard up and obscuring the content. At a glance, I can’t confirm the gallery was added correctly. Tap Done to dismiss the keyboard.
  • The inserted gallery is now evident. A big cursor blinks along the left side of the gallery.
  • Scroll down to spot check the captions.
  • Scroll down some more to find Preview [5].
  • Tap Preview.
  • A new browser window opens to the post page.
  • Post looks good. Tap the browser page switcher thingy in the bottom right.
  • Find the edit post page from the list of pages. This can be daunting if you have a lot of things open, particularly with multiple WP pages [6].
  • Tap the edit post page once you find it. Don’t dismiss the preview window.
  • You’re back in the edit window. Make some edits. Tap Preview. Nothing happens. Apparently nothing anyway. If you left the preview window open it is being reloaded out of site whenever you click Preview [6]. Sometimes clicking Preview in this state causes a cursor glitch in the region of the publish box disclosure triangle.
  • If the keyboard is in your way after all of that, tap Done to dismiss.
  • Here goes. Tap Publish.
  • Misaligned loading indicator spins. Editor reloads with a post published notification at the top.
  • Tap View post in the notification.
  • Post looks good. Tap the site title to get back to the front page.

Notes:

[1] The dismiss button is often missing from the media modal. This seems to be particular to the Media Library view. Dismiss never disappears if you stay on Upload Files. Bringing the modal up more than once may be needed to trigger this. Moving from the Media Library view to the Upload Files view restores the dismiss button, but tapping the dismiss button does nothing but hide the dismiss button again.

[2] Media modal scrolling in media lib view often gets stuck. The page beneath the modal seems to be hijacking swipes. I’ve developed the habit of giving a 15 second-ish cooldown when swiping gets stuck. The next swipe after the cooldown typical goes to the modal and normal scrolling is restored for awhile.

[3] Scrolling while editing captions is very awkward. The cursor often detaches from the caption field and seemingly joins the editor lying beneath the modal. The cursor isn’t always in the caption field. Especially with the last row of images, the cursor often shows below the caption field. Typing places the text in correctly in the caption field but the cursor is outside the field. The jittery focus pan that happens when a caption is tapped into is disconcerting. Overall, captioning is irksome and difficult.

[4] The image flow effort will eventually remove that awkward sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. from mobile. Should we pursue an interim solution that removes the sidebar from the production media modal since image flow is a couple release out?

[5] I often tap View Post just below the title when I want to preview. View Post shows the last published changes, however, not your in editor revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision.. Preview is the button I really want but it is farther from the editor than View Post and often gets forgotten.

[6] Mobile should never open things in new browser windows. This is a desktop biasDesktop bias Patterns and interfaces that work in desktop interfaces don't always work on mobile. UI elements triggered by mouse hover, opening in new windows, dragging into bookmarks bars, drag-and-drop, and auto-focusing search input fields are examples of desktop bias.https://make.wordpress.org/test/tag/desktop-bias/ that falls apart on mobile. Modal preview would be better on mobile.

[7] My permalink has the slug flow-loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop.-2 instead of flow-loop because I trashed an earlier draft due to interface frustrations. My frustrated bail out is later met with slug consequences. Ugh.

[8] The flow selector dropdown doesn’t dismiss with outside taps.

#captioned-galleries, #captions, #forked-flow, #galleries, #ios, #media, #mobile, #modal, #new-tab-window, #phablet, #post-flow, #preview, #publish, #vizrec, #web

Remove a widget with the customizer, iPhone 6+

The goal is to remove a 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. from the hamburger accessed sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. menu in Twenty Fifteen.

Notes:

When in preview mode, the stacked nav of widgets is pretty subtle. There is no transition other than < changing to X.

I accidentally move widgets when swiping to scroll all the time. I’ve taken to very carefully swiping along the edges to avoid the widget headers, similar to what I have to do in the post editor. I notice there’s a Reorder button at the bottom of the widgets panel. Should widget rearrangement be confined to it?

 

4.2-beta4-31998

#4-2, #customize, #customizer, #ios, #mobile, #phablet, #web, #widgets

Modal Scrolling on iOS

All of our modals have problems with scrolling on iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads.. The page behind the modal scrolls when you swipe. Bleed through of the page beneath and sometimes stacked scrolling make for a frustrating experience. A few months ago, we made a big improvement to modal scrolling with the fix for #29909.

Ticket 29909: Scrolling beneath modals bad experience on mobile

Changeset 30707: Prevent scrolling beneath modals on mobile devices by removing overflow from #wpwrap when a modal is open.

That was the end of the scroll issues on Android. iOS has not been so straightforward.  Recently, scrolling issues with the theme details modal were fixed by setting webkitoverflowscrolling to touch.

Ticket 31381: The theme details modal has scrolling and toolbar problems on iPhone 6 and 6+

The attachment details modal, link modal, session expired log in modal, and plugin details modal still have scrolling issues on iOS. Here’s a visual surveyVisual survey A visual survey is a collection of screenshots for a like set of screens or interfaces, such as all list table screens or all toolbar incarnations across various devices. These screens are not presented in the context of a particular flow.https://make.wordpress.org/test/tag/visual-survey/ of these modals on an iPhone 6+.

Screencast of the Link Modal on an iPhone 5 running iOS 8.2. The effect is even more disconcerting on the larger screen of an iPhone 6+ because more of the page behind the modal is exposed.

#ios, #modal, #scroll-bleed, #web