I must admit I’ve only been following the latest round of updates to WordPress from a distance, but when I received the official 3.3 release notice this morning from Matt Mullenweg I upgraded immediately. I’m really loving the UI enhancements, and little dialogues as I go through the upgraded interface.
First off the welcome message, and pointer tips, though not needed for my experience of WordPress would most definitely enhance the newbie’s experience. And the ability for developers to hook into this feature with their own tips and helpguides takes the ease of use of WordPress to another level.
The reductions of clicks in using the interface which include instant flyout menus and drag & drop uploader for media, as well as media detection during upload shows that the developers at WordPress are pushing further and further to make it the ultimate user experience.
Quoting Matt Mullenweg at one of his state of the Word addresses.
“So easy even a caveman can do it”
They’ve really put their actions behind this statement, integrating a number of help features including an enhanced help slideout menu with contextual tips and guides to make the user’s experience pleasurable.
You need look no further than the WordPress.org homepage to know that ease of use, and minimal distraction free content creation is a fundamental part of the direction they’re moving in.
WordPress does certainly keep us WP professionals on our toes though, especially so those developing training materials and guides, their regular UI updates means we need to re-create our materials regularly to reflect the changes.
[box type=”alert” size=”large” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Before you upgrade though, make sure you’re fully backed up and that any themes or plugins which power your site are compatible with the latest release. [/box]
I’m generally more trusting of the upgrades so I wildy go about upgrading this site specifically as soon as upgrades appear.