This is the first updates post for the mobile team, and it’s a recap post for improvements made in the last 6 months. We will start posting standard weekly recap posts next week.
2017 Goals
- Login: Just 1/3 of iOSiOS The operating system used on iPhones and iPads. users manage to authenticate after opening the app (2/3 on Android). This is a huge problem – causing 50% of support volume and various negative reviews.
- Media: Media is a differentiator for the app – it should be better as a native experience, but currently we’re not taking advantage of that.
- General app improvements: Improving some of the low hanging fruit – fixing some of the more glaring 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. issues.
Teams Update
Visual Editor Team – Aztec
In the last 6 Months the team worked hard on creating an all-new editing experience for both iOS and Android. Previously we used a hybrid (webview) approach, that meant we had some intractable problems around spell checking, performance 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). This approach is all-native. It’s a much faster, better experience, and will allow us to better support our visually impaired users (as well as making 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. editing much more possible down the road).
The new editor is almost ready for betaBeta A pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. releases, it has been in the Alpha releases since mid-Feb, and the team is currently gathering feedback and fixing bugs for an open-beta in April.
CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team – FluxC
The team worked on a full rewrite of the entire Android networking and persistence stack.
The new library is available here, and it helps to connect and sync data from a WordPress site (self hosted, or 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/ site) There are various other less noticeable improvements, including improved performance (faster network calls = faster blogging on the go) and error messaging.
The new networking library was included in the 7.0 release candidateRelease Candidate A beta version of software with the potential to be a final product, which is ready to release unless significant bugs emerge. one.
The mobile core team is now working on fixing bugs found in 7.0 release candidates.
Login Team
The team is defining the scope of the project, and performing user tests and evaluate the results. The scope of this project is increasing successful logins in the mobile apps.
Just 1/3 of iOS users manage to authenticate after opening the app (2/3 on Android). This is a huge problem – causing 50% of support volume and various negative reviews.
Media Team
There are a lot of exciting things we can do on media. However to kick off, we’ve decided to tightly constrain the scope:
Android: Improve the UX.
iOS: Feature parity with Android.
Both: Improved error messaging and handling, and analytics.
The Android squad is working on hard on re-working the Media Library section of the app. A lot of code cleanup has been done, and we expect to see a lot of under the hood improvements in this week. The squad is also working on building the foundation for making the publishing experience async.
The iOS squad is adding a top level Media Library section to the app, to bring it in line with Android and the web. They’ve also been cleaning up some analytics and error handling code, as well as cleaning up and refactoring the existing media service layer of the app to prepare for async publishing.