What happens to the about page with major auto-updates?

[helen]

We love our about pages and put a lot of work into them, but moving forward fewer and fewer sites will be seeing the about page as they move to major auto-updates and won't be redirected to it after hitting the update button. It's still there under the W menu, but not as much of a push to check out what's new.

Some possibilities:

• A prompt saying "hey you've updated to the latest and greatest WordPress! Check out what's new!" (or similar, noting that notice fatigue is real, and also that this is a reasonably common pattern in constantly updating apps)
• Get rid of the about page but prompt to check out the .org announcement post
• Get rid of the about page (a little sad)
• Leave as-is and just accept that fewer people will see it (also sad)

[johnbillion]

There was some brainstorming about this in Slack during one of the weekly chats, but nothing concrete came out of it. ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/CULBN711P/p1600795954044200 . Worth reading for ideas.

[hedgefield]

Good point! I think a natural way to surface it would be a notification after the site updates. It's a fair suggestion that that might as well link to the release post though. Maybe the post is then where we apply our creative output normally intended for the about page? But some kind of admin notice feels good to signal.

There were some good points raised in the Slack discussion, mostly about where and when to show that notice - we don't want to interrupt a user's flow too agressively with it. While we wait for the WP Notify feature project, which feels like a natural home for such a notification, maybe we start off with a notice on the Updates screen, indicated by a red badge similar to what a pending update would signal? There could be some potential for cool design in that one still; maybe something the size of the Welcome widget, giving a quick overview of what's new?

[karmatosed]

I am very keen that the about page process has a refresh. Whilst, yes getting rid of the about page is losing a little history, perhaps this is a great opportunity to really create incredible 'landing' product type pages for each release. As noted this could be where the creative energy goes and I think then the editor power could be used, which really opens up some incredible art direction. Currently the about page can confine creativity.

[audrasjb]

Moving this to 5.8 as today is 5.7 beta 3 and it still needs design and decision :-)

[francina]

Personally, I think that adding a notification in the dashboard or any other form of notification (email) will negate one of the benefits of auto-updates: lowering updated fatigue amongst users.

I would very much like to see a proper landing page, as mentioned by @karmatosed. This would allow the project to showcase how blocks are a great ally for creativity and not a constraint.

How do we get people there? I started listing how people get WordPress.

So far I have got:

1. Auto-update within Core
2. Manual update via WP-CLI
3. Auto-update from managed hosting
4. Update via dashboard
5. Update via upload
6. New website: via hosting installation software
7. New website: via WP-CLI
8. New website: via upload

I am sure there are more.

All these people probably interact with WordPress in a different way and have a different knowledge of it + various degrees of tech-savviness.

So, as far as I am concerned:
Start - rethink and landing pages
Stop - About page as is. A disproportionate amount of effort goes into it.
Continue - exploring how do we get people "there"

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to francina:

I would very much like to see a proper landing page, as mentioned by @karmatosed. This would allow the project to showcase how blocks are a great ally for creativity and not a constraint.

Just noting that these landing pages would need to be created in advance and made available for translations, same as the current About pages (as opposed to the current release posts, which are only published on the day of the release and can only be translated after that).

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: #52762

[francina]

I am assigning this ticket to myself and I will get the discovery rolling during 5.8
Thanks!

[francina]

I was confident I could provide a proof of concept for 5.8, but alas, it won't happen.
Discovery is crucial and the ticket needs proof of concept and a lot of feedback.
Moving to future release.

[desrosj]

#53708 was marked as a duplicate.

[JosVelasco]

I think that "At a Glance" would be a good and easy place to add a link to the About page and bring attention in an elegant, non intrusive way.

Examples:

• WordPress X.X updated a few hours ago running X theme.
• WordPress X.X updated yesterday running X theme.
• WordPress X.X updated 3 days ago running X theme.
• WordPress X.X What's New running X theme.
• WordPress X.X running X theme.

This link would disappear after X days or manually be dismissed.

I also like the idea of having a text banner at the bottom of "At a Glance" the way Akismet Does:

Akismet has protected your site from 4,060 spam comments already.
There are 49 comments in your spam queue right now.

Maybe something like:
WordPress 5.8: The next stop on the road to full site editing.
Manage Widgets with Blocks, Display Posts with New Blocks and Patterns, Edit the Templates Around Posts and much more on this release. See What's New

[oglekler]

About page brings to WordPress versions more color and individuality, and it can be even more useful than it is now. I believe that I found the fifth solution to this issue: #57877