One of the core responsibilities of WordPress plugin developers is to keep their users in mind and not place graphical barriers in place that prevent users from fluidly going from one task to the next.

  1. Doug Smith

    Very true. And sometimes it doesn’t take a major UI awkwardness, as even not fitting in with the rest of the way WordPress looks can trip up a user.

    This recently came to my attention when I installed a very minor commercial plugin for WooCommerce. This little plugin installed a huge green button in the WordPress admin. It was as if it was shouting “Look at me, I’m the most important thing in the entire admin interface!”

    It was such a simple thing but it totally threw off the flow of the entire page. The careful attention that had been given to the WordPress admin and its visual cues of what was important were totally diminished by this one rogue disaster of a button.

    • Pippin

      There are a few plugins I can think of that do that, and most of them provide very minor pieces of functionality.

  2. Shaun Scovil

    Curious what triggered this thought. I’m sure you don’t want to call out the plugin author, but could you give us a little more context?

    Btw, I completely agree with keeping the WP-Admin appearance in tact. Jake Goldman from 10up gave a great talk about it a couple of years ago. In my mind, it really is the difference between a hobby project and a professional plugin.

    • Pippin

      It actually stemmed from an article I was writing, not any specific plugin.

      I saw Jake give his talk at WordCamp Miami. It was excellent.

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