A perfect example of UI destruction

Hi there,

Our metrics show incredible adoption and feedback from customers has been incredibly positive. Wordfence is more popular than ever and our rate of growth has increased.

You should understand that our team is a combination of engineering/QA/UX and security experts who are leaders in their field with an incredible depth of experience. Our focus is on securing your site, preventing a hack and detecting any issues you might have. If we don’t do that, we’re not doing our job.

Much of the feedback you’re seeing, and perhaps what you’ve experienced, is that we changed Live Traffic. With Wordfence 7, we removed the menu option and we also made the default view more compact. Both can be changed back. Post in the forums to find out how.

We removed the emphasis on live traffic because it does not improve security fundamentals. I suspect many users are unhappy because it created a kind of gamification of security: Block the bad guys as they arrive. No enterprise grade security product expects users to behave that way. So we deemphasized it so that that is no longer the default mode of use.

We are aware of the need for a global options page and that was an oversight. Product design is an evolutionary thing. We have received feedback on this and are responding, fast!

Our emphasis is now on securing your website and doing the things that are most important to prevent a hack. This includes giving you a quick and easy way to see what your security posture is and whether you have the blacklist, firewall and malware scan enabled and if you have any current issues.

WordPress security is all we do and we do that extremely well. If you are looking for a way to prevent a hack and detect if you have any security issues, Wordfence is by far the industry leader and with this release, we move the product emphasis firmly into that space.

Regards,

Mark Maunder
Wordfence Founder/CEO.

Thanks for your reply to my review.
I have changed my review to 3 stars instead, in consideration to that.

Clients like to see charts… a lot of people grab jobs, because they do nice charts that say absolutely nothing. While the live view may not focus on security, non tech savvy people like the feeling of “it’s doing something, great!”…

The growth rate doesn’t necessarily mean it’s due to the new design. New users, obviously don’t know the previous design, so that just means your marketing team is doing a better job.

If feedback from existing clients is great, then perhaps my clients are different.
I got complaints from over 90% of my clients about it or questions about how to use it… and all I can say is that the plugin have been updated and teach them again.

I don’t understand how your feedback is so different, but I will not discuss about it, since your sample is obviously much better than mine, with 1+ million installs (congrats on your success by the way).

I don’t doubt your UX team capabilities, but this reminds of something like this:
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-major-differences-between-Western-and-Asian-UX-design

I may be completely wrong, but based on the new colors alone, I would say someone from south america or India must have decided on those. European and US users will probably dislike it (in my opinion), but I guess it’s up to you to decide on that.

I agree that Wordfence is the leading plugin for security, but dear me, the design is just unbearable. And no, it’s not about “resistance to change” (which can be a big problem for many people), it’s about common sense.

New users will have nothing to say, but people that have been using your plugin for months or years, will suddenly find a completely unfamiliar interface, with some missing options (not 100% sure about that yet, but looks like).

Either way, thank you for your reply and keep up the good work.
In my opinion you should really look into a minimalist design that integrates better with wordpress look and feel.
Different colors look like “something” that is not part of wordpress, has been added to the sites, rather than a part of it.

You may have data that says otherwise, but this is simply my honest opinion after 10+ years as a programmer and sysadmin, dealing with clients from around the world.

Hi all!
There will be more releases of Wordfence, and if you think it’s never going to change again you’d be wrong. ?? I can’t go in to detail just yet but we are parsing all feedback we’ve gotten and will be making adjustments as we see fit.

In the meantime, if you need help navigating through Wordfence 7, this article might help.

Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to our forum staff here at www.ads-software.com if you have any specific questions about new features.

Thanks for the feedback, always appreciated. Hope you all have a good week!

@lorddimwitflathead, We don’t tolerate name calling. If you wish to continue the discussion please be civil.