
Evolution of the WordPress interface from 2003-2008 - mqt
http://planetozh.com/blog/2008/12/a-journey-through-five-years-of-wordpress-interface/
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evdawg
Personally, I dislike the new design. It has good intentions but it misses the
mark. This would have been a good example of when not to listen to your
users-- of _course_ the majority of them is going to prefer gradients and
flashy dropdowns.

It feels to me as if it was built like a crappy powerpoint presentation:
sliding and fading just for the sake of sliding and fading. Everyone thinks
"Ooh, ahh!" but there really isn't any added usability to the effects.

In some parts of the interface, you have to click multiple times to get to
something you shouldn't have to click on to see _at all_. Once again, you
click _just for a dropdown_. Then you have to click again to get to where you
want to go. Eye candy for the sake of eye candy.

In my opinion, the 2.5 Happy Cog design was the best of the bunch. It improved
drastically, usability-wise, on top of the previous release, and it did so by
re-aligning, no re-designing. You may argue that Happy Cog was limited by the
fact that they had to base their work on a previous structure, but I really
believe this is the best way to improve UI: incremental updates, each
improving upon the last, instead of one quick release that wasn't too well
thought out.

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blasdel
The pont of animations is to slow down the interface so that changes are more
obvious and flowing.

"Shiny" animations almost always make a user interface dramatically slower to
use, as you have to wait for them to finish!

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evdawg
Also, I know it's an informal blog, but I think it's really unprofessional to
call something the "DO NOT WANT" release. I'm really sick and tired of half-
baked "memes" being included in writing as weak attempts at humor. It just
comes across badly to me.

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Do you also notice that you frequently need to shake your cane to get the kids
off your lawn? :P

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
He doesn't have a cane; he's got a walker, you insensitive clod!

