Massive changes to the WP interface
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The new Stats page keeps crashing my Firefox browser. I can’t work with this, the old pages was fine.
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@knightgrooves, this is the first time I’ve heard of the stats page crashing for anyone, may I ask whether you are using a Mac or a PC and what version of Firefox you are running so I can try testing it a bit more? I’ve been testing it pretty heavily on my Mac for the last few weeks, and I haven’t had it crash at all on that yet. I use both Chrome and Firefox as my main browsers and switch back and forth pretty frequently for testing.
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Some specific feedback on recent changes, with quotes from some of your earlier responses:
1. Top toolbar inconsistencies
Good feedback. The toolbars have had a lot of changes and it’s disorienting. What’s happening is that the dashboard at WordPress.com will have the blue toolbar and the WP Admin pages will keep the gray toolbar but both are being adjusted… I can’t change that there are two separate toolbars now (gray and blue)…
This is a core issue in my mind. As I mentioned in my fist post here, I teach WordPress as an adult education class. The constant jumping between “black bar” and “blue bar” WP is extremely confusing to new users. Right now the following actions take one from one’s own site over to WP.com:
- Top bar Reader link
- Top bar Stats link
- Top bar New post link
- Top bar Profile link
Once on WP.com (blue bar-land) there is no obvious way to return to the site dashboard. You click on the My Sites link and go, instead, to Stats (see next item) and, if you’re very observant, spot a minuscule link to Classic Dashboard. Trust me, this is incredibly confusing for a new user, totally frustrating for a seasoned used, and an absolute fail for usability.
2. Profile link inconsistency
Again, there is a disconnect between black-bar and blue-bar land. When I am on my site (my blog?) I can hover over my profile avatar and see a bunch of useful links, including a sign out link. In WP.com blue-bar land, there is no hover menu in the Profile link. Like issue 1 above, needlessly confusing, and the lack of sign-out is a big miss.3. Random, unannounced, and capricious UI changes
Not sure if this is related to the changes but when I go to sign into my blogs I’m taken to the Stats page instead of the My Sites page (which was improved/messed up a while back). Anybody know what if anything I’m doing wrong?
You aren’t doing anything wrong. That was part of the recent changes. I’m not sure if it will stay or if the sites view will come back. I think the reasoning was that a popular section like stats should show first and the site selector should be built in to the navigation on the left.
Back in October there was an announcement of a new My Sites layout. I’m fine with that, no big deal really— it was an incremental and largely useful change. But now, when I click on My Sites, the “new” view is totally gone, and instead I see Stats. Double You Tee Eff? You don’t, you really just don’t, roll out a new layout and then two months later completely change the content displayed on that page. Either the “new” design was well thought out, well-tested, or… Who’s in charge here? Hello?
This example shows is one of two things: either WP.com’s UX team is run by an incompetent, or no one is running the UX team. Either way… doesn’t look good, and it destroys the trust between user and organization.
4. Whither WordPress?
The change isn’t just for the sake of change. There are some back end changes that are going to be the foundation for updates in the future—things that can’t be done in the current WP Admin setup. For example, becoming API-driven.
What does this mean? And why should I care? Excusing arbitrary & buggy UX design by claiming arcane back-end requirements is often a sign of a third-rate design team.
I’m seeing a pattern here: sudden, major, & seemingly arbitrary changes are being made to what was until recently an extremely stable and user-friendly system. Understandably, users are upset; half-hearted attempts are made to mollify, putting junior staff on the firing line. The team plows on, full speed ahead, slashing away at the old, bringing in the new (but sometimes un-doing, re-doing, and otherwise mucking about in a seemly irresolute manner).
The above pattern point to an organization that is, if not in full-blown crisis, at the very least in a very unpredictable state of change.
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Thanks so much, Designsimply for reading and answering most of our concerns about many different issues with the “new” changes.
I found the “view” button on the “new” Stats page to go directly to the blog post. I use this very frequently throughout the day/night so glad it is indeed there. I must have missed it before.
About the Stats page with the countries listed, you call this the “classic” Stats page, it’s on a too-blue WP page. Will this be discontinued?
I use the real “classic” Stats page, the very old one that is accessible through the “classic” dashboard, on the left hand side, called Site Stats. This “very old” Stats page will be very missed. The main reason is the color scheme. It’s not “too-blue-to-use”. Also, it has all the administrative links on the left hand sidebar. That is missing from the “classic” Stats Page on the blue WP page.
The narrow width was an intentional part of the desktop design…
This is very hard to believe. The designers actually made a portrait layout for landscape layout users. It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Do the designers use desktops/laptops in landscape layout? I can’t imagine them designing using a mobile devise.
Would you mind reminding me what the categories/tags issue is that you are referring to specifically?
In the “new, too-blue-to-use, BBB” editor, there is no list of categories to scroll through. One must add each one individually. For tags, the same thing, one must add each one.
I have NEVER used the “BBB” editor because it’s too-blue-to-use and the list of categories is missing.
May I ask if you ever imported content from another source into your dandelionsalad.wordpress.com blog or did you always use WordPress.com from the start, beginning in 2007?
No, never imported anything to WP. I started fresh in June 2007.
And thank you for looking into the missing info on the “new” Stats page for the older years’ numbers.
In general, navigation has never been easy on WP. I have used bookmarks to do most things like check Stats, add a new post, moderate comments, etc.
With these new changes, navigation is worse. The logging in and logging out and finding the administrative pages are not intuitive. I feel for the new users and bloggers who haven’t been here for very long.
One of the reasons I post in the Forums is because I know many bloggers don’t even know it exists, or how to find it. Also, since May of this year I deliberately publish less posts because of the hassles involved in making a new post with the so-called “new” changes to the classic editor, etc. so I have more time to do this forced beta-testing.
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I started this thread, and I am now closing it due to non responsiveness on the part of WP. If this thread is again reopened against my wishes then I will consider WP to be an untrusted CMS provider. I pay for my blog, and allow WP ads to help defray the overall cost. But my URL and the content of my blog belongs to me, as does, by extension, any comments I make, and whether I wish to keep a thread I started open or not. Going forward, be advised that will not tolerate any heavy handed suppression or interference or gross breaches of protocol on the part of WP, as well as ill-advised and unwanted UI changes without the user base being consulted, and will move this blog to another vendor if that becomes necessary. Thank you for your time.
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@designsimply:
“WordPress.com will be updating the notifications design very soon, and I would like to see if the loading problem goes away after that update happens.”Ok, so I’ll be patient, and if the new version also has this problem, I’ll report it.
The link: https://wordpress.com/notifications/ will help as a solution for the meantime. Thanks a lot!
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. . . A Summary Autumn
Just to try and put it all together.
It was foisted on us without consulting.
There is too much scrolling.
There are too many clicks required to get from place to place.
It’s too narrow, with not enough on one screen.
There is data missing.
There are functions missing.
The appearance is horrible.I think that just about covers everything that could go wrong, and did.
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“These changes are just dreadful – designed to appeal to the tablet user at the expense of the desk top blogger. (…) Why not leave the platform structure as it is for serious desktop use and develop an App for tablet users to download.
This new statistics page delivers absolutely no improvement.”
I agree with apetcher 100% ! -
When will we start seeing information from the survey ?
The survey results will probably be reviewed internally and used as one part of the decision making process there.
Thank you very much if you took the time to fill it out!
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@designsimplay
“The survey results will probably be reviewed internally and used as one part of the decision making process there.”
That bad are they. This is not at all transparent. Not at all the open, democratic and community orientated organisation that we have all been lead to believe in. Backward steps all round.
Perhaps we need a WP Users Association.
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@designsimply
I tried to read through all the posts but gave up! So maybe this is redundant:I tried the new stats briefly, hated only seeing 10 days displayed on the graph. Then, in Posts&Pages, clicked on “show all” and noted that there was no total at the bottom any more showing total # of clicks on posts!
Also, I noted there was no icon next to each listed post where you could click and see the HISTORY of views for that post.
I use that feature a lot in stats, as my posts are not time-sensitive. Most are informative (tutorials etc) the old ones get a lot of views and don’t “wear out”, so I often check their history to see the trends in traffic for particular posts. If there are certain tutorials that are getting ignored, I’ll add links to them etc…
The new format also seemed too stretched-out vertically, involving a lot of scrolling down and down and down.
I switched back to the old stats right away, without checking any further to see what other features were missing, as it seemed clear that whatever “speed” gained (which I couldn’t perceive) was due to cutting out functionality.
I do use stats on my little mini-tablet, mostly when I’m traveling (which is fairly frequent). I never thought they were too slow to load, either my computer or when I used the tablet. I want the same functionality on both, do not want to lose the ability to see a longer stretch of days on the graph, or see totals, or click to see the history of stats for a particular post whether on my computer OR on my mini-tablet… And whatever else is missing that I was too impatient to find out about!
I filled out 2 surveys, the one I mentioned the lack of the individual posts’ history icon, and in “why did you switch back to the old stats” question, I answered that the new stats had less info (or the old stats had more)…
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I am wondering how much negative response to the changes would actually make a difference. I refer to this in a factual sense. If the survey shows ( or will we even see it?) that most people hate the new stats page, will it actually change? If we all did a post about it to bring in more opinions, would that help? I did and so far, no one is impressed. Would they take those opinions into account, since not all bloggers are familiar with the forums or have time to look for them. We all have blogs, however which could certainly encourage some response.
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A serious question …
On the “upgraded” stats page, how can I see yesterday’s country stats? I can see today — which is by definition incomplete. I can see last week. How can I see yesterday? Which is what I want to see.
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@ingridcc, no worries.
I tried the new stats briefly, hated only seeing 10 days displayed on the graph.
That is good feedback. Thank you.
Then, in Posts&Pages, clicked on “show all” and noted that there was no total at the bottom any more showing total # of clicks on posts!
The total is in the bottom part of the graph, next to the word Views.
Also, I noted there was no icon next to each listed post where you could click and see the HISTORY of views for that post.
Click the post title to see the history of views for that post.
The new format also seemed too stretched-out vertically, involving a lot of scrolling down and down and down.
Good note.
Thank you for your feedback and for filling out the survey.
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@designsimply, I looked at the new stats on a tablet. Here’s my quick take, for whatever it is worth.
There is too much text cluttered everywhere. The data itself, the stats, are getting overshadowed by the explanatory text in the form of sentences.
In its current shape and form, I would not use it, nor recommend.
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On the “upgraded” stats page, how can I see yesterday’s country stats? I can see today — which is by definition incomplete. I can see last week. How can I see yesterday? Which is what I want to see.
Look in the graph, find the day you’d like to view country stats for, click on that bar in the graph, you should then find the stats for that day in the Countries box below. In that panel, click on the heading “Countries” at the top of the box or the words “View All” at the bottom and you will see the country stats for that day, including a map view.
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@ismailimail, hi! :) If you still have the welcome message at the top of the page, click the link inside it that says “hide all info panels now” to close them all at once. Or click the “i” icon in each box to close those panels and they should stay closed for a while.
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