Rushed out with a poor UI and too many bugs

  • Gary Allman

    (@gsallman)


    7 years ago

    I’ve now spent something like 40+ hours producing/converting posts in Gutenberg post its official release. It has been a very fraught experience, and I’ve had to compromise post layouts to be able to meet publishing deadlines.

    I like the overall concept and think it has potential. However, it is obvious that it has been rushed out with insufficient testing and not enough thought to the UI design. What is most concerning is that I reported some of the basic UI design issues to the development team a long time ago.

    A lot of the issues could have been headed off had there been end-user documentation (if there is some I’ve not found it). Whoever thought it was a good idea to release 5.0.0 without end-user documentation for Gutenberg should be thrown off of the team.

    Here are some of the key problems I’ve found.

    1. UI – Working out where to hover the mouse to get options to appear/disappear is appalling. After 40+ hours using the editor, I still can’t work it out.
    2. UI – Deleting column blocks is almost impossible
    3. UI – The classic editor remembers last chosen setting for images such as size, page position, and linking. Gutenberg does not do this, requiring several extra clicks for every image inserted.
    4. UI – Deleting a block requires a STUPID key press combination.
    5. UI – You can’t delete a block unless it has content.
    6. Implementation – Changes to the HTML Tags used for delivering images broke child themes
    7. Implementation – Some Blocks CSS appears to be applied *after* the child CSS sheet is loaded making overriding the blocks CSS impossible.
    8. Implementation – Unable to enter post times in 24 hour clock format (we are not all American).
    9. Implementation/bug – ‘Uploaded to this post’ missing from the Media Insert search function.
    10. Implementation – List of Most Used Tags has been removed.
    11. Bug – Dragging and dropping a block a long way fails. It drops it somewhere in the middle
    12. Bug – Issues changing post title — new post title not showing in preview
    13. Bug – Media Library not correctly populating when inserting images
    14. Bug – Code editor wrapping <scripts> in <p></p> and adding <br> to the end of script lines.
    15. Bug – Shortcodes containing HTML tags get flagged as invalid — even after they’ve been “resolved” by Gutenberg
    16. Bug – Could not use Restore to restore a classic version of a post converted to blocks the ‘restore’ option was greyed out on the compare versions page. Had to recreate the entire page.
    17. Bug – Cannot revert Gutenberg pages back to Classic — wrecks the page layout and loses content.
    18. Bug – Wrapping Sortcodes in <p></p> when converting from Classic to blocks.
    19. Bug – Dragging and dropping a block a long way fails. It drops it somewhere in the middle

    The design of Gutenberg is an excellent example of everything that is wrong with user interface design at the moment. “Simplicity” (or more accurately dumbing down) at the cost of usability and functionality.

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by Gary Allman. Reason: Update to include the issues I've encountered after spending a lot of time using Gutenberg
    • This topic was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by Gary Allman.
Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author Tammie Lister

    (@karmatosed)

    Thanks for leaving a review, no matter what type of feedback, it all matters. I wanted to thank you for giving such in-depth feedback, this is really important for us as a project.

    Thread Starter Gary Allman

    (@gsallman)

    Thanks for responding. I don’t have a simple solution to the usability and over-simplification problems I highlighted, but this link is to an image which shows a suggestion as to how a huge increase in ergonomic usability could be achieved.

    Screen mock-up

    (By the way, I realize I could reduce the size of the window for a similar effect, but to minimize distractions I prefer to use my Apps full-screen).

    Thread Starter Gary Allman

    (@gsallman)

    Here’s another suggestion. Adjusting the width of blocks – using a %age slider would allow for repeatability, rather than the current drag at random on the handles.

    Of course being able to set guidelines and snap to them would be even better, and again allow repeatable results.

    Thread Starter Gary Allman

    (@gsallman)

    And another suggestion. Color, font, and font size ‘swatches’ would also aid repeatability/consistency. Almost CSS without the CSS.

    Plugin Author Tammie Lister

    (@karmatosed)

    @gsallman: adjusting width is actually something will come in the next phase, so you’ll be pleased to hear that is very much planned.

    When you say swatches, do you mean for the layout? Again, that’s something will probably come when we move from the editing into the Customization experience.

    Thread Starter Gary Allman

    (@gsallman)

    Swatches: for colors, so that the user can create a repeatable palette of colors. With the current interface the user has to either remember or look up the color codes they’ve already used, or (much more likely, they’ll) just pick something that looks close. Being able to create a color swatch with the palette of colors used on a site would minimize such inconsistencies.

    Likewise having a list of Font sizes and fonts already used would also encourage consistency.

    I firmly believe that giving people flexibility is good. However, we also need to provide tools that assist them in achieving a consistent look and feel. If that doesn’t happen then people with no design experience will use dozens of colors and fonts, and WordPress will be devalued by the lower standards of the websites produced.

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