[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #1828: Improve Screenshots section

[Making WordPress.org]

#1828: Improve Screenshots section
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 Reporter:  samuelsidler      |       Owner:  mapk
     Type:  task              |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  high              |   Milestone:  Plugin Directory v3 - M7
Component:  Plugin Directory  |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                    |
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Comment (by jb510):

 Replying to [comment:41 samuelsidler]:
 > This goes a bit beyond the topic here (and this discussion should move
 elsewhere), but it's important to keep in mind a few things as we continue
 to work on the plugin directory.
 >
 > First, we're building the site for users, not developers. Certainly some
 of our users are developers, but ''not the vast majority''. One of the
 [https://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/ WordPress core philosophies] is
 building first for the 80%, not the 20%, and that applies in this case as
 well.
 >
 > Second, almost all of the "overwhelming community feedback" we've
 received so far is from plugin authors who are (typically) developers.
 It's all great feedback and we're obviously listening closely. But it's
 not ''necessarily'' representative of the users who visit the plugin
 directory regularly. We'll certainly run user tests before launching, and
 we can probably run a more obvious beta, with a link from the current
 directory to the new one. But the directory isn't yet ready for that.

 I've heard this tired horse get trotted out a lot over the years.
 Sometimes it's valid, often not, but here it seems more like a red herring
 than usual, especially considering the people advocating for these changes
 are also _all developers_.  However, none of the developers giving
 feedback here (or advocating) are doing so from the standpoint of being
 developers.

 The comments being made here not by authors about how their plugins
 appear, it's about how they as users go about finding plugins. We (the
 collective users of the repo providing feedback here) have a lot of
 experience in finding plugins both for ourselves as well as helping our
 friends and clients find plugins for themselves. Certianly, the feedback
 is from a group of relatively advanced users, but none of it is
 "developer" feedback.

 Thank you for the reminder to look at the awesome compilation of web
 stores that mpak put together. I'm reminded though that most of those are
 marketplaces selling things (CodeCanyon, Steam, MacStore, etc.), which is
 rather different from the few that are giving away Free/Open Source
 resources (Sketch, Atom, NPM, Chrome). The stores that are selling things
 are universally bad examples IMHO.

 The plugin directory is not a marketplace and shouldn't aim to emulate one
 where plugins try to out market one another for downloads. The author's
 getting sales/downloads isn't the goal, the goal is USERS finding the
 right plugin for their need.

 The unifying thing about the non-marketplaces is that they _keep it
 simple_. They don't have huge flashy banners, they don't invite these
 monstrous sales pages like CodeCanyon: https://cloudup.com/iYl6YCCfdit/f
 God help use if the plugin directory starts to look like that.

 The free/open source directories don't have long verbose descriptions...
 if the items there need more info, they link off to their own site and
 documentation.

 On topic for this thread (it's a miracle) - The only one non-marketplace
 directory showing screenshots of how something installed actually looks is
 Atom, which puts them all on the same page without a slider:
 https://cloudup.com/iTFtiC5O4Y9/f Atom pretty much gives authors free
 reign to build there 1 page however they want, a more complicated example:
 https://atom.io/packages/atom-beautify

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1828#comment:42>
Making WordPress.org <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/>
Making WordPress.org