WordPress/usability
Purpose
A collection of usability observations about IndieWeb functionality in WordPress. The scope here is the entire experience, not just individual plugins.
We can use it like a Wikipedia "Talk" page, where people can annotate each other's text, and remove content once individual issues have been "disposed" e.g. because it has become an open issue on GitHub, or solved somehow.
Related to layout
Location of Kind pane
When creating a New Post, the "Kinds" pane is really hard to find. Unless I know it exists, and where it is, at least I (
Johannes Ernst) will never find it. It's also not "in the flow". The flow, I think, goes like this:
- Oh, I'd like to put something on my site
- I click "New Post"
- This is going to be a Note/Article/Photo/ ... so the Kinds selection need to be here
- Now I'm going to write my text, or upload my photo
Bridgy Publish pane
Is there a way to get that panel moved up higher closer to "Publish"? It seems like once I'm done writing, my next step is to decide "publish immediately or publish later" and at the same time, I also want to decide where to publish to. So these two sets of decisions should be closer together.
Is there some way of hacking into the pulldown menu where to create a New Post/Media/Page/User, and select a "Post kind" right from there?
Related to terminology
"Kinds"
The term "Kinds" that shows up in the New Post window does not really tell non-geeks anything. I know it comes from "Post Kinds", but a non-geek user is not going to know what that is either. Also, the plural is confusing, because a post can only be of one Kind, not several. (Unlike "Tags" and "Categories" where there can be several)
Related to conveying the value of why to fill out a particular field
"Kind"
The purpose of specifying a Kind is not clear at all unless you know about IndieWeb protocols and formats. The purpose of Wordpress "Categories" and "Tags" are known to the user, because of endless webinars on SEO -- somebody invested lots of time in user education. The benefit of Kinds is to help machines comprehend your content better -- so somehow we should find a way to convey that on the page in three words or less :-)
Related to relationships between elements
RSVP
The popup "RSVP" is very hard to find in tab "Other". I would expect that it would send an RSVP when I select a Post Kind of "RSVP", and so I won't even look for it unless I know it is there.
"Post kind". If I deactivate RSVP as one of the available post kinds (and leave only, say, Article, and Photo), the RSVP popup is still in "Other". How does this relate?
Kinds and Post Properties
There is a relationship (many?) between the value of "Kinds" in one pane, and the various fields below "Post Properties", but it is unclear.
Bridgy and Syndication Links
How does the content of the field "Syndication Links" section relate to "Bridgy Publish To" selections? It seems that the Bridgy Publish selections effectively add to the list of Syndication Links? If so, can that be shown? Otherwise the user will be confused and will enter the info effectively twice.
Also, if the same URL showed up twice, does the plugin remove duplicates or point that out to the user?
