(WUWT readers, please excuse this distraction while I holler at WUWT’s hosting provider, wordpress.com. As Willis would say, “my blood is mightily angrified”.)
I have generally been supportive of most wordpress.com upgrades, for example the recent upgrade to allow the top editor bar to float with scrolling is a HUGE time saver.
Unfortunately, the new Beep Beep Boop “upgrade” is a crash-and-burn moment in user interface design.
Top 10 reasons the new WordPress Beep Boop Boob editor is a stunning failure.
1. It turns a process that used to take 1-2 seconds into something that takes several seconds, sometimes as long as 30 seconds. My timing this morning was 17 seconds to get the create a new post dialog. A second attempt took 32 seconds after I cleared the crash dialog (see below).
2. It is visually annoying. It makes me want to scream at the screen while it takes all those extra seconds to load, seen below.
The reason for the “beep beep boop” is that whoever programed it, realized it takes longer, and they needed something to let the end user know the program was doing something. Classic bloatware failure.
3. It makes wordpress.com seem juvenilized.
4. It is inconsistent with the rest of the wp.com user experience. For example, no “beep boop” appears when you try to create a new page.
5. It presents a smaller editor than we used to get, which isn’t fully representative of the CSS settings for width of your theme.
6. It was foisted on us with no warning. And this is the thing I hate the most, many of these “upgrades” just appear overnight. Microsoft learned this lesson of just foisting unwanted upgrades on end users without notice and allows you to opt-out. You should learn this lesson too. New is not always better.
7. It crashes:
8. The “Welcome to an easier way to create on WordPress.com! Missing the old editor? No worries, just switch to classic mode. “ feature doesn’t seem to “stick”.
9. It comes up in text editor mode, more work, more wait to switch to visual editor mode.
10. Whenever I accidentally stumble on it now, I realize my mistake and back out of it, and find the correct link to bring up the real editor. When users actively work to avoid using a new piece of software, because it wastes time, annoys them, and crashes, you know you have a MEGAFAIL on your hands.
Whoever came up with this idea, along with the person who approved implementing it deserves a virtual 2×4 upside the head to knock some sense into them.
For me, it may be the tipping point to abandon wordpress.com and go to a paid service where I at least can control my own user experience by choosing not to install inane upgrades.
UPDATE 8/27/14 :
WordPress seemed oblivious, but I and many others continued to bombard them with emails, posts, phone calls, and anything we could do to tell them how bad this change was.
Today, all of the sudden, things were back to normal, and this appeared above the editor page:
That “new and improved posting experience” aka the “beep boop” editor, is corp-speak for “we took this turkey out back and shot it in the head”.
1. Users win. Lesson to WordPress – trust your users.
2. Thank you WordPress for finally seeing the light