Make WordPress Core

Opened 7 years ago

Closed 7 years ago

#42130 closed enhancement (maybelater)

Customize Themes: Update "WordPress.org themes" label

Reported by: paaljoachim's profile paaljoachim Owned by: melchoyce's profile melchoyce
Milestone: Priority: normal
Severity: normal Version: 4.9
Component: Customize Keywords: 2nd-opinion close
Focuses: ui Cc:

Description

In regards to adding or changing a theme inside the customizer.

Using the word "WordPress.org themes" just does not feel right. For the importance is what happens when clicking the button. I believe most users who today click Appearance -> Themes -> Add New do not think about where the themes come from and likely do not care. They just want to add a new theme and many are probably not even aware that these themes are located at wordpress.org.
It would be better to give a hint to what happens when clicking the button then saying where the themes are located.

Attachments (1)

Screen Shot 2017-10-06 at 23.44.48.png (17.8 KB) - added by paaljoachim 7 years ago.

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Change History (17)

#1 follow-up: @melchoyce
7 years ago

  • Focuses ui added
  • Keywords 2nd-opinion added
  • Milestone changed from Awaiting Review to 4.9
  • Summary changed from Customize: Add/change theme. Change WordPress.org themes name to something else to Customize Themes: Add/change theme. Change WordPress.org themes name to something else
  • Version set to trunk

Conversation moved over from #37661.

From there:

Replying to melchoyce:

Replying to folletto:

My gut says it should be called "browse themes" or something similar, but that doesn't fit your criteria.

Maybe we can change both for symmetry:

  • "Browse local themes"
  • "Browse all themes"

Better? Worse?

Maybe:

  • "View installed themes" or "Manage installed themes"
  • "Browse all themes"

?

#2 @melchoyce
7 years ago

  • Summary changed from Customize Themes: Add/change theme. Change WordPress.org themes name to something else to Customize Themes: Update "WordPress.org themes" label

#3 @joyously
7 years ago

I think it exactly represents what is being browsed and does not need changing. Why obfuscate?

#4 in reply to: ↑ 1 @SergeyBiryukov
7 years ago

Replying to melchoyce:

Maybe:

  • "View installed themes" or "Manage installed themes"
  • "Browse all themes"

?

I'd suggest "Installed Themes" vs. "Available Themes".

The section title already says: "You are browsing Themes", I don't think we need another verb there.

#5 @SergeyBiryukov
7 years ago

The "Installed" vs. "Available" wording would also be consistent with the Site Language dropdown in General Settings.

#6 @celloexpressions
7 years ago

  • Keywords close added

"WordPress.org themes" is the most appropriate label here for several reasons.

The new theme experience de-emphasizes the distinction between installed themes and adding new themes, most visibly by bringing them into a single unified interface. Using an "installed" and "available" pair of binary labels is inappropriate. WordPress.org is not the only source that themes can be installed from, but it is the only source that themes are browsed from within the WordPress.org themes section. A binary label pair incorrectly implies that all installed themes are from WordPress.org (and that all of those themes could be re-installed from there). Plugins can add sections for browsing themes from additional sources outside of WordPress.org that disrupt a binary approach; for example, Jetpack could add a section for browsing and installing "WordPress.com themes". Core will even break past a binary approach to these sections when the distinct section to upload themes is implemented in #40278.

Additionally, WordPress should provide clarity in disclosing where third-party code comes from. Explicitly indicating that these themes com from WordPress.org accurately describes what you're installing.

I might propose iterating on the "installed themes" label over time, perhaps using "local themes," "your/my themes," "theme library," or something along those lines in the future. That would also involve rethinking the use of "install" when adding a theme, and would be a broader change to consider in the future.

#7 follow-up: @folletto
7 years ago

FWIW, on .com we iterated on these labels a lot, and we ended up finding that this pairing:

  • Uploaded themes
  • WordPress.com themes

The information architecture context is different, so take this comment with some healthy skepticism, yet "Uploaded" even if in the .com context is... a bit off... turned out to be clearer than "installed" (confusion between activating and installing), "local" (local to what?) and "my" (people don't think as "mine" apparently).


For reference, here's the criteria that were used to select the "Installed themes" - "WordPress.org themes" pairing in #37661:

  1. The pair in the sidebar should be semantically consistent: "Installed themes" and "WordPress.org themes" are both pairs of adjective+noun that identify the place where the themes are.
  2. The structure is symmetric too: "$place themes", which makes this control potentially extensible in the future.
  3. While not a priority, it's nice that "WordPress.org themes" reinforces the source of the themes and the trust of the site they come from, reminding the users where they can find them outside of Customizer. This is especially relevant when the installation wasn't manual but provided by the host.

To be clear: this is the list of criteria that were used in the design above, but they aren't cast in stone, and we can decide to not match them if we have a good reason to.

#8 in reply to: ↑ 7 @SergeyBiryukov
7 years ago

Replying to folletto:

  1. The pair in the sidebar should be semantically consistent: "Installed themes" and "WordPress.org themes" are both pairs of adjective+noun that identify the place where the themes are.
  2. The structure is symmetric too: "$place themes", which makes this control potentially extensible in the future.

FWIW, neither of these points works for i18n. In Russian and some (most?) other languages, "WordPress.org themes" would be translated as "Themes from WordPress.org", so neither the semantics nor the structure would be consistent.

I do like point 3 about reinforcing the trusted source though.

This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core by melchoyce. View the logs.


7 years ago

#10 @melchoyce
7 years ago

  • Owner set to melchoyce
  • Status changed from new to assigned

#11 @matt
7 years ago

What this really made me think of is that when you're looking at themes or plugins you have installed you really want to see a status: is this something custom, something from the directory and out of date or out of sync, or from the directory and tip-top with the latest and greatest. We want to extend the benefit of using .org-hosted things beyond just the discovery to giving you peace of mind throughout.

#12 @melchoyce
7 years ago

  • Milestone changed from 4.9 to 4.9.1

Let's keep this as-is for now, and continue to think about and iterate on these filters in upcoming point releases.

#13 @celloexpressions
7 years ago

It sounds like the "installed" term is really where improvements should be made. To change that we also need to change "install" on all of the buttons, and also update wp-admin. It may be better to discuss that in a fresh ticket that can address all instances of that in core together.

#14 @johnbillion
7 years ago

  • Milestone changed from 4.9.1 to 4.9.2

This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core-customize by westonruter. View the logs.


7 years ago

#16 @melchoyce
7 years ago

  • Milestone 4.9.2 deleted
  • Resolution set to maybelater
  • Status changed from assigned to closed

We haven't received any feedback on this since 4.9 launched. Going to close as maybelater, and we can play it by ear and re-open if some user feedback comes in saying we should change it.

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