WordPress is planning a major overhaul of its admin UI, with the goal of making it more modern, accessible, and user-friendly. The new design will be based on a set of extensible design components, which will make it easier for developers to create custom plugins and themes that integrate seamlessly with the admin dashboard.
Although contributors have not yet officially produced any designs for the project, Ventura shared a light version of an admin concept.
One of the key goals of the redesign is to reduce the number of page refreshes required to navigate the admin. This will make the experience more fluid and responsive, and it will also help to improve performance.
Another goal of the redesign is to create a more consistent user experience across all of the different plugins and themes that are available for WordPress. This will make it easier for users to learn how to use the admin, and it will also help to reduce the number of bugs and compatibility issues.
The redesign is still in the early stages, but it has already received a lot of positive feedback from the WordPress community. Developers are particularly excited about the prospect of having a standard set of UI components to work with, which will make it easier to create custom plugins and themes.
A crucial aspect is to ensure WordPress itself is built with the same pieces and APIs that plugin authors can use. Aside from color themes, our set of primitive components also need to work in dense environments like the editor, as well as environments that need more breathing room and focus like admin sections. Density, clarity, usability, and accessibility are paramount.
Gutenberg lead architect Matías Ventura
The new admin UI is expected to be released in the coming months. In the meantime, you can follow the progress of the project on the WordPress development blog.
This gives me great optimism about securing the next 20 years of WordPress’s success, the fact that you can do anything with WordPress is incredible, it’s probably our biggest strength.
WordPress developer Mike McAlister
Here are some of the key features of the new admin UI:
- A more modern and accessible design
- A set of extensible design components
- Reduced page refreshes
- A more consistent user experience