Lack of quality UX development

I Have been using the paid version of ARmember for four years now across various client websites but to be honest I am considering changing to another plugin. ARmember is feature-rich in some respects in comparison to competitors but the ARmember styling really leaves a lot to be desired, its just messy. The admin access via WordPress does not use the native WordPress styling which I never understood as 1) it adds unnessary CSS bloat to the admin area 2) Cannot be styled via 3rd party WP admin plugins which are becoming more commonplace as clients want a white-labelled option. On top of this, the CSS is loaded with mistakes where it just hasn’t been considered properly by the designer and is inconsistent.

Secondly to this, the plugin has its own, very very limited styling available for the front end for profiles, forms, directories etc. This is to tie in with the plugin developers’ brand styling, with very limited options for their customers.It does not use any native functionality with Gutenberg, Elementor or any mainstream design tools/builders.

The ARmember developers just released an update that changed some of their existing templates that were already in use on my websites and no doubt many others. They ‘re-styled’ these pages and introduced CSS styling which is low quality that I now have to go back and replace via CSS as it does not tie with client’s design system/website design and barely looks presentable. It most definitely is not mobile responsive to modern standards.

Seriously guys, think through what you are doing here. ARmember has been around for quite some time now and it should be in the ‘maturity’ phase. Please re-consider the direction you are taking this. Think of where the WordPress community is going with other tools. There is a reason why other plugins such as Memberpress or Paid Membership pro use the native wordpress admin/block functionality as it lets designers build professional websites. If you want to be in that market I suggest you re-consider the direction you are going with this.

I have been a loyal customer for many years now and I was strongly considering rolling this plugin out across a WaaS which would potentially means dozens, if not hundreds, of license purchases but given the ARmember design constraints I’m probably going to have to go with another membership plugin provider.