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.
The meeting on 10/16 went well, thanks so much to everyone who attended. We identified some long term goals & discussed the existing issues from an 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) point of view. @_Redd gave some good insight from watching her students interact with WordPress. You can find a copy of some brief meeting notes I took here.
I mentioned user testing as a place to start. @anthonydpaul generously offered to help with accessibility user testing during the DC accessibility meetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area..
You can find the initial draft of the project goals here. If you weren’t able to be at the meeting you can read the logs here.
I had a good talk with @designsimply about when and how to do user testing. We’ll meet again on 10/23 at 8:00pm UTC and I’ll share her ideas. From there we I’d like to come up with a game plan for moving forward.
If someone wants to attend but this isn’t a good time feel free to suggest another. There is definitely some flexibility about when we meet 🙂
There are several tickets open that relate directly to 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) in the content editing experience on the posts/pages screen (see this post by Joe Dolson for details). Since Avryl is currently working on the editor this is a good time to discuss combining efforts to work on accessibility/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. for the posts/pages screen as well. With combined efforts we could create a revised/improved UI for the posts/pages screen while taking accessibility into account during the entire process.
Some of the things that can be addressed are:
This was discussed some in the Accessibility meeting on 10/8 (link). Avryl mentioned she could use some feedback on the inline tools 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 when it’s ready (link).
The kick-off meeting is currently scheduled for UTC Thursday, October 16, 2014 at 8:00 PM. If anyone would like to be involved in this project, please join us. I scheduled the meeting time based on best times for UTC to Central US time zone. Please feel free to comment if you would like to attend but are unable due to the time.
We have the potential to make some very impactful and beneficial changes both in terms of usability and accessibility.
We’ve had a quiet few weeks as I was busy building a resume, interviewing and rounding up code. But yay for new jobs and time to move forward!
Thanks to @clorith and @jazzs3quence for picking up the 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/.! I’ve talked to @designsimply and we are going to start user testing asap. In the meantime we can continue to watch the older usertesting.com videos and I would love to see some write ups like @jazzs3quence recommended. 🙂
Thanks for the patience everyone, back to weekly updates from here.
Thanks so much to everyone who attended this week. If you were unable to make it to the meeting feel free to read the logs. This weeks meeting was quite a bit more low-key. We had fewer in attendance possibly due to the holiday and/or the time change.
The first few minutes we discussed meeting times and have decided to keep the meeting at 18:30 UTC until Europe changes time April 1. We will meet at 17:30 UTC beginning with our April 7th meeting.
I would like to reiterate that this is almost a completely new direction from where this group started. Our original goal was to make the existing Admin Help content more visible to users. The goal now is to create a user experience that is more intuitive by discovering what problems users are currently having and addressing those with appropriate solutions.
Sheri Bigelow (@designsimply) has agreed to help with user testing ♥. We are going to start with a few simple tests and see what that reveals. We can use the information from that testing to move forward with additional tests.
@kpdesign created a Project Page for us, we’ll use that to link to external resources as well as any additional project pages that we need. You can find that page here https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/projects/admin-help/
What we need: People who love 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./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. and want to see new users succeed with WordPress. Practical needs are people to help identify tasks, create storyboards, personas, user testing evaluation and any other tasks that might be relevant at this early stage.
We also need tasks added to our ‘User Task List’. You can find the list here and read more about it here.
We will send out a call for developers when we know what kind of developing we need 😉
Join us on Mondays at 18:30 UTC in the WordPress-sfd IRC channel.
There are some big changes and a new direction for the team, new co-leads are myself and @Clorith. @Jazzs3quence will still be involved in a supportive role.
The first part of the meeting was used to discuss the Feature PluginFeature Plugin A plugin that was created with the intention of eventually being proposed for inclusion in WordPress Core. See Features as Plugins. Meeting and the helpful comments @jazzs3quence received regarding the current implementation of 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. The key takeaways are:
We agreed as a group that we need to not think about solutions at this stage but rather, to figure out what the problem(s) are. It was also mentioned that a singular solution will not be enough, we need to identify personas and do user testing as well as story boards. (Not necessarily in that order.)
@Clorith Mentioned that the idea of guided tour had been mentioned before and @Sams reminded us that @Nacin recommended we look at the user testing again.
Our previous user tests can be found here:
https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2013/09/04/admin-help-user-testing-videos/
https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2013/09/16/admin-help-videos-round-two/
@Sams suggested that “it’s better to have user tests of different user types and, if you’d like, build personas off of those” so that will be the initial direction we take along with storyboards.
We would like to expand on the user testing by identifying any and all tasks with WordPress so that we can identify as many ‘pain points’ as possible. There have also been some significant changes in the theme screen and the widgets since our last tests so we would like to essentially start fresh with user testing.
The initial plan is to start a P2P2 P2 or O2 is the term people use to refer to the Make WordPress blog. It can be found at https://make.wordpress.org/. post to gather task ideas for user testing. We would like to get input from as many of you as possible so that we generate a thorough list of all of the tasks within WordPress (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. included!)
As always, we welcome more input and participation. The meeting is on Mondays — 18:30 UTC
