Admin dashboard pages — default for new users

  • Okay, I don’t think I’ve logged in with less-than-admin privileges before now on any of my blogs, ever.

    But, I just set up a test account on the RC1 build with “Subscriber” privileges. Looking at it from that point of view, there is WAY more information in the Dashboard than I’d care to expose to a new, naive user. (And by the way, this is not a criticism of the Dashboard in general–I think it’s beautifully done and enormously useful.)

    One could argue that the Screen Options tab at the top right can take care of that for a user, hiding stuff they don’t need to see. And WP itself hides options they can’t use in a more-restricted role, and that’s good.

    BUT–why expose all the modules in the Dashboard in the first place? I don’t want a new user to be faced with such distracting tidbits as the WP Development Blog, the Incoming Links, and especially Other WordPress News–it’s perhaps of use to users in higher roles, but absolutely confusing to some poor soul who just registered so they could add a comment or have their gravatar show up. (NO, not even that–the user I have in mind has no idea how to do a gravatar!)

    Here’s what I’d like to see in the core admin: a means to set defaults for the Dashboard for each role level. For example: I could decide that a Subscriber ONLY sees the “Right Now” and “Recent Quotes” blocks. The other blocks would remain available under the “Screen Options” tab, but I could choose to have them OFF by default for a newly-added Subscriber.

    If it’s too late to build this into 2.7 (and goodness knows it is! ?? ), this might be a good plug-in experiment.

    I’m proposing this because I think we don’t “drop down” often enough–or ever!–to the perspective of people who are just trying out their first blog, and I think it’s incumbent on the software to invite them in rather than intimidating them. Believe me, the Dashboard even in its simplified “Subscriber” state looks intimidating and even alien to a newcomer right now.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • Excellent points about what a subscriber sees in the dashboard. I have just spent several hours searching for a way to customize the modules for each level of user.

    No such plugin exists. Although there are numerous ones that customize some of the dashboard and even remove the screen options tab.

    Would love to see this in 2.8

    After too many hours looking into this , I found a couple options:

    Adminimize plugin – looks like it can do fair amount of dashboard customizing, although I couldn’t open the option menus from the collapsible modules.

    I got the menus to open in adminimize and unfortunately it doesn’t allow you to customize the screen options for all users.

    As a small business using WordPress to run our site, I have pretty much the same problem.

    https://www.stereotyperecords.co.za

    We have new users signing up and when they log in they’re presented with an unfamiliar screen and aren’t sure what they need to do.

    From my perspective, I would like to brand he Dashboard so that the user still knows they’re on my site. And right at the top of the wish list would be widgetizing the Dashbaord in order to display content of my choice. For example advertising posts or content right within the Dash. So a user could come in, see what’s new, maybe some product specials and the most active content by comments.

    oh well, wishful thinking.

    This is definitely something that I would pay for if someone were to build it.

    Moderator Ipstenu (Mika Epstein)

    (@ipstenu)

    ?????? Advisor and Activist

    IWG Hide Dashboard or WP Hide Dashboard might help the OP.

    As for customizing the dash to look like your site … sorry. Dunno about that.

    Thread Starter bikerbudmatt

    (@bikerbudmatt)

    It does seem like a user-friendly gesture to be able to “brand” the Dashboard. I would be happy with the following:

    • Overall the Dashboard looking clearly like it’s WordPress. I think that’s fair, and doesn’t get into the massive customization that a site like the New York Times does with the WP engine.
    • A “site brand bloc” in a prominent space at the top of the page. Allows the owner/developer of the site to place a graphic that lets the user know they are still on that site. The blog name is really not enough here.
    • The option to show particular parts of the Dashboard using the privileges hierarchy. Each module of the Dashboard (they are modules, aren’t they?) should be addressable by the database based on the userlevel and the privileges associated with that level.

    I’m not so sure about advertising content within the Dashboard for myself, but the generic concept of a custom module there would make good sense to me.

    Thanks all who have posted to this thread so far.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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