The Test Team helps manage testing and triage across the WordPress ecosystem. They focus on user testing of the editing experience and WordPress dashboard, replicating and documenting bug reports, and supporting a culture of review and triage across the project.
If you’d like to help test Full Site Editing, please join the FSE Outreach Program. You can find current calls for testing for this program here and you can join the fun in #fse-outreach-experiment.
The team gathers in #core-test. Please drop by any time with questions or to help out.
On April 5th, I shared a 3 question survey to help improve the FSE Outreach Program by pausing to ask for feedback so that I can better understand current levels of participation, what you all want to see more of, and what can help folks contribute more. Thank you to the 16 people who took the time to share their feedback! If you are reading this and didn’t answer the survey, feel free to respond here with additional thoughts as I’m always looking to improve how this program works.
Full Results
If you want to read the full reports, I have included two options below. Keep in mind that I intentionally removed the final question that listed people who optionally included their WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ usernames for follow up.
What top 3 items would be most helpful to have covered in streams or zoom calls?
The top 3 items were as follows:
Deep dive into Issues/PRs/Designs of interest that relate to FSE (12 votes)
FSE open question & answer sessions (10 votes)
Debriefing the feedback summary posts from the calls for testing (8 votes)
There were very clear winners here!
What would help you be more active in the FSE Outreach Program?
“Office Hours” to troubleshoot testing issues (7 votes)
More time to test (6 votes)
Help setting up a test site (3 votes)
More detail in test instructions (3 votes)
More reminders (3 votes)
The “other option” (3 responses) mainly touched on predictability of testing calls and wanting more time/reminders/expertise. For now, I’m hesitant to set a strict timeline for the calls for testing because the testing needs are variable and partially depend on what’s ready in the pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party at various release points. In time, I do expect calls for testing to become more predictable as the experience stabilizes and there are less brand new things to test.
What best describes your current participation?
I want to participate in the calls for testing but have been blocked due to lack of time/capacity/etc (8 votes).
I find it easy to participate in the calls for testing and plan to do so in the future (2 votes).
I joined in order to pay attention to what’s happening with FSE but don’t have interest in responding to calls for testing (2 votes).
I tried to help with the calls for testing but got blocked (0 votes).
The “other option” (4 responses) are as follows:
I tested many things, discovered the same issues discovered. Didn’t have enough time to go deeper with my tests
New to FSE and coming up to speed so my time can be spent testing and not setting up to test.
I don’t quite follow the script when participating. I don’t just test with TT1 blocks.
I’d like to participate as much as possible as I see FSE as a huge part of WordPress future, and yet another opportunity to give back to the community.
While I was aiming to see more people in the categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of finding it easy to participate, I’m hoping that some upcoming changes can shift this, particularly in extending the current call for testing to a three week window rather than a two week one. On a whole though, it seems like people are keen to help out here but, as seen across the WordPress project, we’re all dealing with limited time/capacity.
Next Steps/Changes
In light of this feedback, I plan to do the following:
Continue to run hallway hangouts like this first one but, instead of just focusing on diving into issues/prs/designs, I’ll kick it off with a summary of the latest round of feedback and end with 5-10 min for people to ask questions.
Continue sharing reminders (2 week, 1 week, final days).
Reach out to those who left their usernames and wanted help with setting up a test site/troubleshooting testing issues. This may turn into doing true dedicated office hours but, for now, will likely turn into nudging people to share directly in the #fse-outreach-experiment or pingPingThe act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” me if they run into problems when I share reminders for the calls for testing.
Explore extending calls for testing periods to three weeks rather than two weeks. I already did this with the latest call for testing thanks to the feedback I had already received from this survey! Continuing this will depend on what the testing needs are and if the three week testing period does increase feedback.
Explore documenting some very simple ways to test FSE in the How to Test FSE page for those who might not have time to do a full call for testing but who still want to help.
If there are any changes/next steps you’d like me to explore, comment below and I’ll see how it fits into what I can manage. On the flip side, if you’d be interested in helping with various aspects of improving the program, let me know! I’d love to create a little team of people working to expand the capacity and reach of this outreach effort.
Not many blocks get an entire milestone dedicated to them but the Query Block did! As the name implies, this is a pretty powerful blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. allowing you to display posts/pages on your site and customize them as you see fit. For example, you could easily use this block to show off all of your favorite recipes by setting it up to show a specific categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of posts. In the long run, you can expect this to be more of a theme author tool used when building a block theme with block variations, like the Post List Block, being more of what users will interact with. For now though, let’s be adventurous and go on a Query Quest to explore what this block can do.
If you find yourself interested in the future of this block, check out this recent GitHub issue asking for new ideas for the bundled Query Block patterns that come with the current iteration of the block and get excited about Gutenberg 10.5 which will offer more patterns to choose from.
Testing Environment
While there’s more information below to ensure you get everything set up properly, here are the key aspects to have in place with your testing environment:
Use a test site. Do not use a production/live site. You can follow these instructions to set up a local installLocal InstallA local install of WordPress is a way to create a staging environment by installing a LAMP or LEMP stack on your local computer. or use a tool like this to set up a development site.
Use the latest version of WordPress (downloadable here).
Use the latest version of GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ (10.4 as of writing this).
Generally speaking, please use the latest versions of each part of the setup and keep in mind that versions might have changed since this post was shared.
Testing FlowFlowFlow is the path of screens and interactions taken to accomplish a task. It’s an experience vector. Flow is also a feeling. It’s being unselfconscious and in the zone. Flow is what happens when difficulties are removed and you are freed to pursue an activity without forming intentions. You just do it.
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
Important Note:
While this call for testing is focused on testing a specific feature, you’ll likely find other bugs in the process of testing with such a betaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. feature! Please know any bugs you find are welcome in your report for testing, even if they aren’t directly applicable to the tested feature.
Setup Instructions:
Have a test site using the latest version of WordPress. It’s important this is not a production/live site.
Install the TT1 Blocks theme by going to Appearances > Themes > Add New. Once installed, activate the theme.
Create eight posts with two different categories and featured images of your choosing. Alternatively, you can download and import the demo Gutenberg content created especially for this test via the WordPress importer under Tools > Import.
Go to the website’s admin.
Install and activate the Gutenberg pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party from Plugins > Add New. If you already have it installed, make sure you are using at least Gutenberg 10.4.
You should now see a navigation item titled “Site Editor (beta).” If you don’t see that in your sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme., you aren’t correctly using the Site Editing experiment. From there, make sure you are in the Index template (this should be the default upon opening).
General Testing Instructions:
Using the List View, select the parent Query Block and then remove this entire block. This will allow us to start fresh! Here’s a GIF that shows how to do this.
From there, where the Query Block used to be, add in a Columns Block and set up 2 columns with 50/50 spacing.
In the first column, add a Heading Block with the name of one of the Categories of posts. If you used the demo content, this will be either “Hikes” or “Travel”.
Add a Query Block just below the Heading Block. During the setup, select whichever option you want from the various sizing options.
Once inserted, open the Block Settings and under “Settings” turn off the “Inherit query from URLURLA specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org”.
From there, you should see options to customize what posts this Query Block includes. Under “Filters”, please select one of the categories to display. If you used the demo content, this will be either “Hikes” or “Travel”.
After the Query Block is showing the posts from just one category, proceed to customize the Query Block as you’d like! For example, you can add in additional blocks like Post Author and customize it using the Block Settings option. If you get stuck here, please jump down to the “Customization Instructions/Ideas” for help.
Follow the same process with the second column and customize the additional Query Block. Make sure to select the second category of posts to display so you see new posts there!
View your site and see if what you created matches the Site Editor view.
If you’re looking for more ways to customize the experience, try changing the width of the columns, adding in additional relevant blocks, changing colors, and more.
Customization Instructions/Ideas:
Because this is a more advanced block, here are some additional instructions to help clarify how customization of this block works in case you’re getting stuck. To start, keep in mind that part of the beauty of the Query Block system is that any change you make to one of the posts/pages being queried will be made to the entire set being displayed. This might be confusing at first but it allows for consistency across each post. With that in mind, here are some additional ways to customize your Query Block:
Here’s a quick video showing how you can change the width of the column that the Featured ImageFeatured imageA featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts. block is in to make the image larger or smaller.
Of note, each of these videos are done using the Small size option but you can choose whatever size option you’d like!
What to notice:
Remember to share a screenshot of what you created if you’re up for it!
Did the experience crash at any point?
Did the saving experience work properly?
Did you find any features missing?
What did you find particularly confusing or frustrating about the experience?
What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience?
Did you find that what you created in the Site Editor matched what you saw on your site?
Did it work using Keyboard only?
Did it work using a screen reader?
Leave Feedback by May 5th, 2021
While other calls for testing have been open for two weeks, this is open for three weeks in order to see if it causes more feedback to come in. If you can help test, please amplify by sharing this post!
Please leave feedback in the comments of this post. If you’d prefer, you’re always welcome to create issues in this GitHub repo directly for Gutenberg and in this GitHub repo for TT1 Blocks. If you leave feedback in GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, please do still comment below with the link. If you see that someone else has already reported a problem, please still note your experience with it below, as it’ll help give those working on this experience more well-rounded insight into what to improve.
This is a summary of a Hallway Hangout that was wrangled in the #fse-outreach-experiment channel as part of the FSE Outreach Program. Thank you to everyone who joined in! If you’re keen to join an effort like this in the future, please join the slackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel.
We started off with a neat issue from Paal around adding the post/page title to the post editor‘s top bar to create a more consistent experience between the site editor and post editor for users.
We talked about the saving flowFlowFlow is the path of screens and interactions taken to accomplish a task. It’s an experience vector. Flow is also a feeling. It’s being unselfconscious and in the zone. Flow is what happens when difficulties are removed and you are freed to pursue an activity without forming intentions. You just do it.
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
and how it’s a key part to build trust with users exploring a new feature for the first time. Currently, it’s a bit confusing and not yet robust enough to be fully intuitive to use.
We discussed how consistency across saving experiences will go a long way including having similar flows for saving individual blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. changes, a reusable block, a template, and more.
We talked about how it would be neat for there to be a “builder mode” where certain tool could be more visible when you’re in the process of active building vs maintaining. This is likely a role for a pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party to play in the future.
While chatting about dismissing changes, Marcus brought up an interesting point around dismissing changes wondering aloud how often do people unselect changes? It would be neat to find comparison points.
Paal shared a neat design he worked on where if someone unchecks/unselects changes, the save button changes to discard changes. This could be a neat way to act as a confirmation message for the user and a neat contextual nudge.
We went through template editing and the recently merged PR allowing classic themes access to a blank template. Carolina shared that this is currently setup as being opt out for themers and that one can’t choose from an existing template yet (can only edit the current template or create a new one).
As we were going through template editing, we paused to talk about how valuable a welcome guide will be at this stage. There is one in progress for the site editor that should cover this as it mentions if a user accesses site editing via editing a post.
We chatted about the dynamic between editing one piece of your site vs the entire thing and how to add necessary friction to the experience. This included talking about the designs shared around clicking in to edit template parts.
Next Steps:
@annezazu reported a few bugs found and left a comment on an issue to pass along feedback from the group:
This post is a summary of the third call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others. It all helps! Special thanks to the following people:
The following is a screenshot of the very fun, custom 404 page that @critterverse made solely using the FSE experience and her amazing design skills. While not all of us have the knack for design that she does, it’s exciting to see what’s possible without touching code:
High-Level Feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that’s important to keep in mind as you read the rest of this post:
I didn’t encounter anything that was broken, though several aspects of it could be significantly improved. Everything outlined in the testing flowFlowFlow is the path of screens and interactions taken to accomplish a task. It’s an experience vector. Flow is also a feeling. It’s being unselfconscious and in the zone. Flow is what happens when difficulties are removed and you are freed to pursue an activity without forming intentions. You just do it.
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
seems to work as it should, if users can ever find it. It is going to be a real challenge to make the interface spectacularly simple enough for ordinary users to feel comfortable knowing when and how to create their own template parts.
In my head, I know that we are inserting blocks to things other than the contents that goes into the blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. editor, but in reality, my instinct still tells me to look for something specific to do things, rather than inserting a block. Mainly I think because you need a time to get used to. But starting to feel that there are no visual feedbacks (e.g. different border colour, diffrent panel colour, different look on the sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. panel) within the editor to distinguish which are the content blocks, and which are FSE specific blocks (like template part block).
To sum it up, most of the difficulties I had during the test are the same ones I still experience when using GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ pretty much daily. First and foremost, getting often lost without any visual reference over layout structure, hierarchy, or block boundaries. These range from “it’s all white, where am I?” to “what block am I really editing now?”. Also, I still find it rather annoying that when I want to add a new block below an existing one I have to do a bit of treasure hunting to find the exact point where the magic [+] will appear, opening a new world of possibilities, or just the next block.
The things that were most confusing in early tests are becoming more comfortable. The thing that remains still a little confusing is the plus icons for adding elements. There seems to be a pattern to which types are used and where they are placed, but I have trouble seeing what that pattern is.
These last two comments underscore a high-level usability item that, if improved in either the block editor or site editor, would make a big difference across the collective experience. For now, I encourage those interested in confusion around the + button to follow or chime in on this relevant and comprehensive GitHub issue.
Repeated Feedback: Improving saving & enable the option to preview
These are two big themes that have been carried over from every single test that’s been done with the Outreach Program resulting in a feature on the High Level Feedback post. To better highlight how they’ve been repeated, they have been merged into this section with only new issues or enhancement requests shared below:
Once the design is saved, there is no confirmation but the button is no longer operable. The interface could communicate this better…Unfortunately, the preview looked nothing like the display on the frontend, but I assume that is still in progress. After trying multiple sources, I found that embeds didn’t work and some of the block styles were off.
It was a little confusing when it asked if I wanted to save individual parts of my work. I think at that point, I did a little thinking through the experience and landed on “oh this is like changing the slide vs slide template in Keynote”. It’s hard to know how many people will get to that conclusion.
Because this call for testing required one to remove and then create a new Template Part, this became a focal point for a variety of feedback items. For example, the current experience doesn’t make it clear how to set a name for a new Template Part after one is created causing some testers to create multiple template parts without realizing what was happening. Tied to this, the new Template Part name doesn’t propagate across the rest of the interface after being named making it a particularly confusing experience to know if a part has actually been created. The following issues capture this collective feedback into distinct areas:
Improve template part creation flow to nudge a user to set the name of a new Template Part and to make it easier to preview existing Template Parts.
Finally, there was general feedback around how it’s necessarily clear that one entering a true context shift as the current experience editing and creating Template Parts is almost too seamless. Making this context switch clear has been flagged during other calls for testing and is being explored in this previously opened issue.
The experience of editing a Template Part really does feel a bit like popping the hood, which is something a dramatic context shift could help emphasize even further. The concept of a context shift could eventually be applied to the experience of switching between editing regular content and a Template as well.
When adding and naming the Template part, I can’t tell if the part has been saved and has the new name as there is no visual sign that a part of the template is there at all. That can be very confusing. I ended up with four Parts of template blocks, all stacked up and pretty much overlapping.
One aspect of it that could be improved is that new Template Parts don’t save until you click “Update Design.” If you move away from the block and continue other parts of the design, it appears that it hasn’t saved and you may be tempted to create it again, as I was.
Thus far, the List View is proving to be a helpful navigation tool for making one’s way around the editor. It’s also proving to be a point of confusion mainly due to missing expected functionality, including the ability to drag & drop and remove items directly from the view. Thankfully, expanding the capabilities of the List view is being explored in this issue already including the ability to drag & drop.
The List View was confusing to me, there were Template Parts I thought hadn’t saved properly that suddenly appeared there, they look like duplicates and it didn’t seem possible to delete them.
Quick sidenote about the list view: it would be great if this view had the 3 dots menu for quick actions on items, and if it would allow you to reorder or drag blocks.
Thanks to this test calling for deeper usage of the Navigation Block, there was lots of great feedback gathered around both current pain points and feature requests to make it an even more robust block:
[Bug] Creating a draft page with “&” results in HTMLHTMLHTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. Entities.
Some of what was brought up also relates to overall work around improving the Link UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., which is currently in the process of going through a lovely design iteration.
Navigation Block – the two placeholder options don’t look like call to action buttons elsewhere in the UI. I understand they need to be in keeping with the Nav items style but it wasn’t clear they were options without actually reading the text. Could we improve this?
Now that there are starting to be many possible configurations of toggled sidebar states with the addition of Full Site Editing, I can imagine wanting to revisit some keyboard shortcuts to make the open/closing behavior of all the sidebars possible through similar, easy-to-remember shortcuts.
I lost track of the Settings sidebar a couple of times when I had been editing Global Styles because the advanced block controls that usually appear in the sidebar weren’t automatically shown when a block was selected.
The “Navigation Toggle” refers to the WordPress icon in the top left corner of the page, but as a new user I would expect that to take me back to the dashboard. The naming doesn’t seem clear and I had to look up what was meant by Navigation Toggle.
As with every call for testing, it’s not just for finding bugs! It’s also important to hear about features that people reach for and find are missing. This section is a “catch-all” to cover all additional features that were reported that didn’t nicely correspond with a particular block or categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging..
Allow the ability to resize embeds to create a more consistent WYSIWYGWhat You See Is What You GetWhat You See Is What You Get. Most commonly used in relation to editors, where changes made in edit mode reflect exactly as they will translate to the published page. experience.
Include block type on hover to make it easier to see at a glance while creating what blocks you are working with.
Add an option for fixed positionHeaderHeaderThe header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. and Footer Template Parts
While trying to build something for the test (but also when I currently use Gutenberg ) I often find myself hovering on the block icon several times, in order to double-check what kind of block I’m interacting with. In this case, the tooltip says “change block type or style”, which makes sense, but doesn’t help in immediately identifying a block type. Has there ever been an option for a visible label near blocks?
I would have expected to be able to save a Template Part independently of the Update Design button (top right). I’ve been conditioned by Gutenberg to see this as the main “update” / “save” button and I’d expect that to save my whole page (including changes to Template Parts). But I’d expect the Template Part to have it’s own “Save” UI.
Creating an intuitive headerHeaderThe header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. is a key piece to get right when building a site. It helps orient visitors to what your site is about and, ideally, should help them take the actions you want them to. With the Site Editor, there are now brand new opportunities to customize this to your liking! This test will explore doing exactly that by creating a slightly more complex and layered header using various FSE blocks. To better focus this test, we’re going to pretend we’re restaurant owners and try to create an experience that nudges someone to order online while still showing them the information they need.
Like the last test, if you choose to get super creative, please share a screenshot in your comment so we can celebrate what you’ve made. For inspiration, here’s my example:
Testing Environment
While there’s more information below to ensure you get everything set up properly, here are the key aspects to have in place with your testing environment:
Use a test site. Do not use a production/live site. You can follow these instructions to set up a local installLocal InstallA local install of WordPress is a way to create a staging environment by installing a LAMP or LEMP stack on your local computer. or use a tool like this to set up a development site.
Use GutenbergGutenbergThe Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ 10.2.1 (latest version).
Testing FlowFlowFlow is the path of screens and interactions taken to accomplish a task. It’s an experience vector. Flow is also a feeling. It’s being unselfconscious and in the zone. Flow is what happens when difficulties are removed and you are freed to pursue an activity without forming intentions. You just do it.
Flow is the actual user experience, in many ways. If you like, you can think of flow as a really comprehensive set of user stories. When you think about user flow, you’re thinking about exactly how a user will perform the tasks allowed by your product.Flow and Context
: Creating a restaurant header
Here’s a basic flow to follow when testing this specific feature. If anything doesn’t make sense, comment below! If you want to take the test further, know that you’re welcome to do so as the instructions are meant to help guide you, not constrain you.
Important Note:
While this call for testing is focused on testing a specific feature, you’ll likely find other bugs in the process of testing with such a betaBetaA pre-release of software that is given out to a large group of users to trial under real conditions. Beta versions have gone through alpha testing in-house and are generally fairly close in look, feel and function to the final product; however, design changes often occur as part of the process. feature! Please know any bugs you find are welcome in your report for testing, even if they aren’t directly applicable to the tested feature.
Known Issues:
While creating this call for testing, a few issues popped up that you too might experience as you go through this. Rest assured they have been reported. Here’s a non exhaustive list of the most serious items:
If you try to drag & drop the Navigation Block from one column to another, it will crash the Site Editing experience. There is a fix in place and it’s slated for the next Gutenberg release.
Have a test site using WordPress 5.7. It’s important this is not a production/live site.
Install the TT1 Blocks theme by going to Appearances > Themes > Add New. Once installed, activate the theme.
Go to the website’s admin.
Install and activate the Gutenberg pluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party from Plugins > Add New. If you already have it installed, make sure you are using at least Gutenberg 10.2.1.
You should now see a navigation item titled “Site Editor (beta).” If you don’t see that in your sidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme., you aren’t correctly using the Site Editing experiment.
Testing Instructions:
Helpful Hint: As you go through this test, you might find the List View helpful while navigating between content.
Setting up your columns:
Navigate to the “Site Editor (beta)” view. This will automatically open the site editor to the template powering your homepage.
Upon opening your homepage, remove the Navigation BlockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. found inside the Header Template Part. This is to help reset the header to add more to it later on.
Select the parent Columns Block and, using the Block Settings in the sidebar, change the columns from 2 to 3 columns.
Return to the Columns Block and using the Block Toolbar settings make sure it’s set to Full Width.
In the first column, customize your Site Title and tagline as you wish! This could mean changing the text, font size, font family, and more.
In the second column, use a Paragraph Block to add in the hours of operation for your pretend restaurant and edit to your liking once more.
In the third column, add a Navigation Block and select the “Start Empty” option.
From there, use the Link Block to add a few links, even if they are to pages that don’t exist yet. To do this, just start typing a title that doesn’t currently exist on your site. For example, “Menu”. You’ll then see an option to create a draft page. Do this for at least one menu item. Remember to have fun with this and make it restaurant-themed!
At this point, select “Update Design” to save the changes you made.
Creating a nudge to order online:
Once your three columns have the content in place, add another Columns Block above it and select two columns to show using the 70/30 option. You can do this by selecting the Columns Block using List View and using the three-dot menu to select “Insert Before.”
Using the Block Toolbar, make the columns full width, so it stretches across the entire site.
In the larger column, add a Paragraph Block with text encouraging users to order online.
In the smaller column, add a Button Block that says “Order Online”. If you want to, feel free to quickly create a page to link to, but it’s okay for this test not to have a link for the purposes of this test.
At this point, select “Update Design” to save the changes you made.
Customize your colors & publish any page drafts:
From here, customize your colors and anything else with your design! You can do this by selecting the entire Header Template and adjusting the color settings in the sidebar. As you do this, keep note of anything you wish you could do but can’t.
When things are satisfactory, select “Update Design” to save the changes you made.
Finally, open the Navigation Toggle > Dashboard to view your wp-admin dashboard. Head to Page > All Pages and publish any that need to be.
View your site and check to make sure that what you created matches what you see there.
Share your experience in the comments below or in GitHub directly. You’re welcome to run through the experience multiple times to capture any additional feedback!
Testing Video:
This video doesn’t go into great detail in terms of customizing the colors but does walk through each step to get a sense of the major actions to take. Feel free to take the test further as you see fit!
What to notice:
Remember to share a screenshot of what you created if you’re up for it!
Did the experience crash at any point?
Did the saving experience work properly?
Did you find any features missing while creating the header?
What did you find particularly confusing or frustrating about the experience?
What did you especially enjoy or appreciate about the experience?
Did you find that what you created in the Site Editor matched what you saw on your site?
Did it work using Keyboard only?
Did it work using a screen reader?
Leave Feedback by April 12th, 2021 (previously April 8th)
Please leave feedback in the comments of this post. If you’d prefer, you’re always welcome to create issues in this GitHub repo directly for Gutenberg and in this GitHub repo for TT1 Blocks. If you leave feedback in GitHubGitHubGitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, please do still comment below with the link. If you see that someone else has already reported a problem, please still note your experience with it below, as it’ll help give those working on this experience more well-rounded insight into what to improve.
This post is a summary of the second call for testing for the experimental FSE outreach program. Thank you to everyone who participated, whether through testing directly or sharing the call for testing with others. It all helps! Special thanks to the following people:
@courane01 for running the call for testing with a group of students.
Related feedback is grouped under high-level headings. As you read through it, please remember that feedback is welcome on the format of this post too.
High-level feedback
Here’s what a few folks had to say about the overall experience that’s important to keep in mind as you read the rest of this post:
Everything seemed intuitive for me (long time WordPress dev for whatever it’s worth). I recently did a site for a client in Squarespace, and I appreciated that everything was drag-and-drop and had blocks for all website sections. This full site editor gives that same experience. I think this will be great for empowering non-dev users.
I did a demo of using FSE in December 2019 at meetupMeetupAll local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. Tokyo. It did “work” then, but felt more of a prototype — kind of alpha or even pre-alpha stage of development. But this latest version is much more smooth, less buggy, and get overall feeling that it has come a long way and shaping up to be a feature.
My main problem with this as a designer is that if we are building structure, don’t try to look like wysiwygWhat You See Is What You GetWhat You See Is What You Get. Most commonly used in relation to editors, where changes made in edit mode reflect exactly as they will translate to the published page.. If we are building design, then show it exactly. Current GB UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. isn’t an overlay, so it is pushing the layout completely out of shape. So you get a kind of Picasso view of your website. You have to take a big imagination leap to trust that you are designing this website well. –
As you can tell, there’s a diverse set of reactions to this call for testing, which shows how far Full Site Editing has come and how much further it needs to go.
Adjusting column widths
Adjusting column widths was one of the most mentioned issues that came up as people tried to customize their homepage to their liking! This coincided nicely with an important PR that started as a draft at the beginning of this call for testing and has moved into an open PR with numerous iterations since. As @youknowriad mentions in the PR, alignment in Full Site Editing currently works in a way that’s optimized for traditional themes that provide their own alignment styles. Still, this approach needs to be reconsidered moving forward as it doesn’t allow for a true WYSWYG experience. This leads to the problems described below in comments from some of those who tested:
I inserted a 70/30 pattern for the Columns blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience., then changed the alignment to “Wide”. The Columns block didn’t expand proportionally to fill the available space. When viewed on the front-end, the columns did display as expected.
We noticed with columns that we had to assign the width of the block in order for the height of the site logo to align with the site title. We want to expand the width of the body content without using a child themeChild themeA Child Theme is a customized theme based upon a Parent Theme. It’s considered best practice to create a child theme if you want to modify the CSS of your theme. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/. to get closer to edge to edge layouts.
I created an image in the SidebarSidebarA sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. that was wider than the column to see if there was any restriction on image width. When I went to view the page, the image had been resized to fit the column width.
Like adjusting width, previewing changes came up as a workflow people rely upon and deeply missed in this call for testing. This nicely echoes findings from the first call for testing, where people wanted to preview template changes and expands to previewing the entire site editing experience. Currently, a “Preview Site” option is under discussion here and this post is linked in a comment to ensure feedback makes it to those who explore this further.
I do not see how to preview the layout on the frontend.
Yes, but when I am done I don’t find a way to easily go and view my website. I turn off full screen mode and use the more classic view site link in the Dashboard.
There were so many inconsistencies between the site editor and the front end that there is little point in listing them all. Spacing was grossly off. I generally see that as a theme issue. I spent much of my time in trial-and-error mode, making an adjustment in the editor and refreshing to see the front-end result. Rinse. Repeat.
Saving Process: auto drafts, keyboard shortcuts, and more
In line with the last call for testing, the saving process came up as an area people were keen to see iterated. Whether it was mentioning desired features, finding bugs, or confusion around how to accomplish a task, this proved to be a robust area of feedback:
When editing, I expect CMD/CTRL + S to save my work. This works in a post/page editing experience. On OS X + Chrome, this prompts me to save the webpage.
I can understand why there is a 2-step process here, but every time I clicked “Update Design” it intuitively felt like I shouldn’t have to then click a “Save” button as well.
What if I want to save the template as a new template, Template Part as a new template part and not overwrite the existing templates? What if I decide not to save a template part? Can I revert changes by clicking an revert/undo changes checkbox?
Because this call for testing was more open-ended, this resulted in a wide range of general usability feedback that relate to the overall experience of building a homepage rather than a specific part of the experience. While these items can’t be easily organized and some were reported previously, they are extremely important to keep in mind:
I see that blocks for FSE are under “design” categoryCategoryThe 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. in the inserter, but I think it’s better to put them in their own category to avoid confusion with non FSE blocks.
I tried to insert a Post Tags block using the ‘/’ command but it didn’t appear as an option. I had to search and find the block via the block inserter panel. –
The problem with switching to this mode is that my toolbar-choice was not saved. Each time I returned to the site editor, I had to enable it once again.
I wish I could put a background image (also in the body of the page), but I haven’t found a way to do it, nor have I been able to set the headerHeaderThe header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes. color different from the rest of the body.
Since this test relied on exploring Site Editing blocks, great feedback was given about the experience of specific individual blocks. To make it easier to go through, these issues are gathered in this section:
[Featured ImageFeatured imageA featured image is the main image used on your blog archive page and is pulled when the post or page is shared on social media. The image can be used to display in widget areas on your site or in a summary list of posts.] Allow Post Featured Image blocks to have a consistent height to easily get a uniform size.
I was trying to size the logo I added using the what appeared to be resize handles. but it did nothing I expected. Eventually I found that the block had settings in the right panel, but I had to look quite hard for this.
“It wasn’t obvious to me that the Social Icons block then needed to have individual social media blocks added. I couldn’t figure out why they weren’t showing up and looked in the settings and in my user profile to figure out where to add my social media links. I saw social icons in the footer and then clicked on the blocks and saw that the individual icon blocks needed to be added.”
To me, I feel strange to be told to upload a featured image for each post here. I assume if each featured image are set, then this uploader won’t be shown. Still, I think it feels confusing.
There is no way to set the size of the image output by the Post Featured Image block. The only way to get a uniform size at the moment is to pre-crop the images before uploading them to WordPress.