[wp-design] Minor Tweak

[Joen Asmussen]

I really like how all the main content looks, with write, collapse, etc, 
but I have to be honest and state that I don't really like the whole new 
header. I'll be specific, it's only fair.

The blue colour is a good colour to brand Wordpress with, it has all the 
right qualities.

But i'm not seeing a strong brand in any of the other elements. 
Basically, we have several stylistic approaches in one. There's 
gradients, glass effects, inset shadows, rounded buttons, frames, square 
buttons, highlighted buttons.

The problem with this is: "which style is the identity", and "where do I 
click". If it's a blue hyperlink, or a gray push button, it's a no 
brainer. But with no less than 3 new visual click styles, I'm just not 
getting it.

*The Tabs*
It's not that we should go back to blue hyperlinks and push buttons. It 
is only this: When something is clickable, there should be NO doubt it's 
clickable. And THAT, is one of the main reasons why I've been voting for 
tabs all along.

Tabs have the magnificent ability to be instantly recognizable, yet able 
to hold several levels of information without taking up space. Heck, 
Adobe patented it, so it must be good.

*The Identity*
Visually, the problem is that several stylistic approaches to providing 
the Wordpress identity waters out the brand.

As it stands now, with the simple CURRENT wp logo (not the one on these 
mockups), and the mainly monochrome colours, Wordpress sort of 
communicates core values such as "simplicity". It doesn't do it as well 
as it could do, and it MIGHT lack some elegance.

And hey, my own previous glassy mockups are suffering from these same 
visual problems, so I'm guilty as charged, but that's why we do these 
mockups.

But this new direction, to me, communicates confusion and complexity. 
The elegance is lost in the confusion. Additionally, I must agree with 
Michael that it works well with the logo. To me, the logo communicates 
wicked worn rather than wicked elegant. The solution to having the logo 
work, to me, would be to show the entire logo, and perhaps in a 
different colour.

*Concrete feedback*
So the above was a rant because I felt it was necessary. Here are some 
bulletted items of advice (I might get some time to mock with it myself):

* The navigation.
Oh damn why won't you go with tabs. But seriously, there's got to be a 
better way. Maybe the first line of navigation is a line, while the 
second one is tabs, kinda like how Wordpress does now? (or like 
www.macromedia.com does)
Maybe make the navigation a vertical sidebar tab like the OSX one?

* The style
This is hard. I'm not really seeing a strong theme in the style. What 
could help could be to approach the "log out / view site" links 
differently. The glass from the wp logo doesn't seem like the glass on 
the main line of navigation... maybe if they were more the same ?

Well, we've come a long way. But as an old chinese saying goes:

"The moment where you are the closest to giving up, is when you are 
closest to succeeding."

So we're really getting there... but IMHO we have to really nail these 
last things!

J

Khaled Abou Alfa wrote:

> Ok just a minor tweak that I wanted to share with everyone. I've 
> played a bit with the top and effectively text in white denotes that 
> it's active. Text in blue is another link. I've also included the 
> boxes like Joen has done. I'm still playing around with the whole 
> boxes on the side. Not sure where this will go. Any ideas?
>
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