On 28 Mar 2008, at 15:01, Matt Mullenweg wrote:
Les Bessant wrote:
It's been argued by several people that having to scroll down where
they didn't before is a reduction in usability. These points, when
made clearly and politely, have been largely ignored. I'm not
really surprised that people are now becoming frustrated and
describing the new write page layout as "terrible".
Okay, let me not ignore it, and state as I have in half a dozen
other emails that I do not think having to scroll to enter a
category is a reduction is the overall usability of the page.
I think Andrew's email describes well what the (apparently) silent
majority of people have expressed in their feedback, that the
primary thing they want to do on the write page is *write*.
Categories, tags, etc are things that are generally written after
the post (and we'll even be able to auto-suggest them based on the
post content in the future, removing even more friction), as it's
difficult to know how to tag something before it exists.
All design is a series of tradeoffs. The tradeoff here is that an
assumed larger set of both power and novice users look at the new
admin screen and say "ooh, less clutter, fewer distractions, easier
uploading" while a smaller set says "where are my categories?" and
then scrolls down two clicks and sees them. The second group either
learns to scroll down a bit after writing a post, or installs a
plugin to tailor their experience to their suiting.
I haven't mentioned categories specifically in any post - my main
disagreement with the new layout is the loss of the ability to
customise it for the way *I* work. I've no wish to force my own
particular requirements on anyone else, and WP has previously allowed
me the flexibility to set things up in a way that suits me. I like
being able to make more use of the width of my screen, but I can
understand that not everyone wants that.
I know you have a personal antipathy to "options", and I can
understand that an excess of options can lead to confusion, weeping,
wailing and gnashing of teeth (the Day Job involves technical
support...).
What I'm getting round to is that I do appreciate the efforts being
made to make WP better. And yes, I will persevere with using 2.5.
Can't guarantee I'm ever going to like it, though.
Les
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