[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #37661: A New Experience for Discovering, Installing, and Previewing Themes in the Customizer

[WordPress Trac]

#37661: A New Experience for Discovering, Installing, and Previewing Themes in the
Customizer
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 Reporter:  celloexpressions         |       Owner:  westonruter
     Type:  feature request          |      Status:  reviewing
 Priority:  high                     |   Milestone:  4.9
Component:  Customize                |     Version:  4.2
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch has-           |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility,
  screenshots has-user-testing has-  |  javascript
  ux-feedback                        |
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Comment (by melchoyce):

 @celloexpressions Hey, wanted to reply to your comment in the thread so we
 can keep everything in one place. I have some suggestions for next steps
 at the end, but first I have some general feedback.

 > It seems like we all agree that the actual process of browsing themes on
 .org is where the most improvement is still needed; our hesitation is with
 duplicating the broken experience that wp-admin and WordPress.org provide
 for actually finding a theme.

 +1

 I've had a chance to review your patch again (thanks @westonruter!) and
 have some general feedback:
 - The hierarchy feels a little confusing. For example, the number of
 themes being shown at the top of the screen, when that number is directly
 controlled by the particular filter you're current on. What if we worked
 that number either into the filter in the sidebar, or as part of the
 preview?
 -  Alternately, does that number even matter, especially when browsing
 featured, popular, or recent themes? I personally never pay attention to
 it unless I'm trying to filter down the themes I'm searching.
 - The fact that each tab is a separate filter, and there's no way to drill
 down within any of those, feels exacerbated in this design. This is
 another area where the hierarchy is confusing. This design really exposes
 what's so confusing and weird about the current way to search themes in
 WordPress.
 - The search styled within a box feels weirdly shaped and misaligned. (I
 know it's in a box because of our previous API assumption — which ties
 back to the filters themselves being confusing.)
 - The feature filters are broken — they don't seem to open anything. The
 styling also feels weird.
 - I agree that for now, we can simplify and ditch Favorites.
 - Some of the animation coming into and out of the theme picker feels
 weird; the panel itself shifts left and right, but the save button comes
 in from the top. This feels a little distracting and unnatural to me.
 - The theme list on the right kind of feels like it's floating. Maybe
 instead of adding a blue checkmark to the selected filter,
 - Maybe we could introduce an "all" tab, and then within that view on the
 right, add the search bar, feature filter, and theme count.

 With that in mind, I have some questions and suggestions:
 - What if you tried lo-fi sketching (paper and pencil, etc.) out a couple
 different browsing and filtering flows, and then posting them up here on
 the ticket to review? Seems like it could potentially be faster than
 coding up some different ideas, though of course that's up to you and
 whatever process you find easier.
 - Are there any other products that let you live preview hundreds of
 available skins, templates, or themes? What do they do well? Where do they
 fall short? Auditing a couple could be a good way to draw some inspiration
 for this feature.
 - Can the performance improvements you mentioned be implemented before
 merging the UI?

 When it comes down to it, the current design isn't ready for merge and it
 isn't an improved experience. Feature merge is Wednesday, and if we want
 to make any improvements, we need to keep them small. What's the minimum
 we can do to let people discover or upload new themes to their site to
 live preview, while still providing a clean and clear experience? Let's
 aim for that MVP for Wednesday's merge, and then iterate our way up to
 something larger in scope in a future release.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37661#comment:175>
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