[wp-hackers] Idea: Drag-and-Drop WordPress Admin Design (with a functional example)

[Ryan Boren]

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 1:16 PM, Kaspars Dambis
<kaspars at konstruktors.com> wrote:
> Ryan,
>
> Yea, I did have a look at every page of the dashboard (trunk, 2 days
> ago), and I really like the way Write page looks and functions. However,
> my complain is over the vertical left side navigation bar (more at
> http://konstruktors.com/blog/wordpress/505-first-impressions-of-wordpress-27/).
>
> There are many reasons for that -- mainly the scrolling and the extra
> clicks for expanding and collapsing the menu items before actually
> getting to the necessary link, when compared to a drop-down menu.
>
> Do you know the reasoning behind this UI move (to a vertical nav bar)? I
> know about the user testing in ny and the collaboration with HappyCog,
> but having more information would definitely help to understand the
> thought process that went into it.

I think some of that info will be released soon.  A presentation on it
was done at WordCamp SF, but I don't know when the raw data and
evaluation will be released.  We don't have the rights to release
certain things.

The gist I got was that the left-hand nav tested much better than the
top nav.  Left-hand nav brings more info above the fold, which was one
of the main complaints with 2.5 -- if not the main complaint.  With
the nav moved to the left and less stuff up top, you have less
vertical scrolling to do in areas where it really matters, such as the
edit forms.  For my usage, 2.7 has eliminated all vertical scrolling.
Of course, I don't install a bunch of plugins that add menus (cursed
things), open all menus at once, and go rooting around in the plugin
menus. :-)

Coupled with the left-hand nav was the elimination of the Write/Manage
menu split.  The Write/Manage split that has been with WP for so long
proved to be one of the most confusing things for users.

Getting to a submenu does require an extra click versus your menus,
but we can experiment with expanding on hover or something like that.

The organization of the menus is still undecided, especially the Utilities menu.

Anyhow, I'll try to get someone who knows the data better to chime in.
 I just implement the wireframes. :-)