[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #27403: Improve UI for linking areas of Customizer preview to corresponding controls (desktop and mobile)

[WordPress Trac]

#27403: Improve UI for linking areas of Customizer preview to corresponding
controls (desktop and mobile)
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 Reporter:  westonruter  |       Owner:  sirbrillig
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  reopened
 Priority:  high         |   Milestone:  4.7
Component:  Customize    |     Version:  3.9
 Severity:  normal       |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  ux-feedback  |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility, javascript
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Comment (by celloexpressions):

 The most important role of the customizer is to provide the ability to
 live-preview changes to a site as their made. There are two critical
 components of this:
 - The preview must be an accurate representation of the site as it will
 appear when the changes are published, including the ability to navigate
 around the site
 - The preview is live - changes are shown immediately as an interaction
 happens with a control

 The collapsed mode isn't intended to be the only way to preview the site
 exactly as it'll appear; it's a secondary and rarely-used option that has
 proven to not be discoverable. Behind the scenes, the separate preview
 button on mobile triggers the same thing that the collapse button does.
 There have been some experimentations around improving the collapsed mode
 in the past (see #29949), but those were ultimately dropped.

 With the current UI, there is no established mechanism for toggling a mode
 where UI ''within'' the preview is toggled, since in-preview UI is a new
 concept. As part of the goal of the customizer, though, it must be
 possible to view changes to the site exactly as they'll appear, live as
 you edit them (this is not currently possible on mobile). As part of that,
 we can't show icons over the preview without a mechanism to turn them off
 that doesn't hide any out-of-preview controls. Realistically, we should
 probably wait to explore alternatives until the customizer UI is generally
 redesigned from the ground up, with a native concept of in-preview
 controls.

 In short, I'd rather preserve the primary functionality of the customizer
 at the expense of the discoverability of this feature for now. I'm pretty
 confident that users will eventually discover the toggle mechanism (which
 is also explained in the customizer help text), and when they do, I expect
 the behavior to be learned without excessive difficulty. Visible edit
 shortcuts are an enhancement of the existing, more hidden feature (shift-
 click to edit, which existed for everything that now has visible shortcuts
 via the same internal mechanism), and having a visible approach at all is
 a good first step toward further improvements in a future release. The
 last thing that we should do with this change is to hamper the ability for
 the customizer to perform its central objective as a live preview of the
 site.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/27403#comment:107>
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