(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”.
Two thoughts:
1. Users win. Lesson to WordPress – trust your users.
2. Thank you WordPress for finally seeing the light
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Do you have any Ad blockers installed in your browser? or anything else blocker ? it may be something to do with that. Have a look at the web-page source code and see if there are any external urls that may be slowing things down. Looking at Disconnect fro Firefox I am getting the following disconects;
1 Advertising – Let through
2 Analytics
15 Content
2 Facebook
2 Google+ and
2 Twitter
And this upgrade breaks the use of the “code” shortcode. The code has characters such as < (less than) replaced by HTML entities. Fortunately reverting to "Classic mode" is offered, and fixes this problem.
This is another example of programmers & developers who are legends in their own minds. As a result, they think they can do no wrong and become obsessed with making changes (often just to make changes). They have yet to learn the humility that comes from failure and understanding the truth of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
RCM on August 17, 2014 at 9:15 am
As an easy example, MS Word and Excel were probably at their optimal efficiency and ease of use around the year 2000.
Dang right. And dang right that most change was ‘change for the sake of change’ … And encouraged by management wanting an ‘upgrade’ to charge for.
This version of WordPress has a “toolbar” at the top with no way to remove it. I hate it, hate it..
Reblogged this on Breise! Breise! Extra! Extra! and commented:
I switched back to my old editor mode because this new one was not easy to use and hard to navigate.
Would it be possible to have a counter showing in real time how many people are currently viewing a thread. (Or does this already exist? )
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Just ‘cuz.
If the WP tech says it does stick (in Classic Editor) unless you clear cookies, the check your Win Internet Explorer. It has a toggle to clear your cookies everytime you get out of IE, or not. Of course you may “want to” clear cookies each time – then this won’t help.
Not in Chrome. Cookies or not.
Well stated. There are many of us who have been posting our complaints. One response received was essentially ‘too bad’, eventually the Classic version will be gone and you will have to accept the new one. When that day comes I will move my blog and I will migrate my content.
In today’s world, a business either grows or it eventually dies. It is possible that moving to an I.E. 8 style interface for use with tablets and mobile devices is seen by corporate management as being essential to WordPress’ long term survival.
On the other hand, if a majority of current WordPress users prefer the more traditional interfaces, and will prefer those legacy interfaces for some time into the future, then WordPress has now jumped the shark and is inevitably on a pathway towards extinction.
They can’t distinguish between “fad” and “future.” I don’t know a single writer or editor who works on a tablet or cell phone.You might respond to comments on one of these little devices, but you’re not going to create anything new. You can’t edit a photograph on a surface that small, not if you’re serious about it nor can you create something longer than a few sentence, especially if it includes illustrations. Unless writers, photographers, and other artists won’t exist in the future — or won’t be blogging (maybe because they declare us obsolete and make it impossible?) — they are getting way ahead of themselves. Just because something is selling well doesn’t mean it’s replacing something else.
More of the same: maps.google.com did the same thing. I find the new and disimproved Google Maps does less far less well than the “classic”, but it is wrapped in a pretty new package. And Pamela is completely right – for us dinosaurs who still use a mouse and a real full sized screen, the simpleware is frustrating. The reality is, sales of what we would call real computers, even laptops, are falling and tablets are apparently the wave of the future. I predict what’s old will be new again when the resolution of the smart-crapola nears something reasonable again. I’m amazed people are happy poking at something with any detail at all using a tool with the resolution of a finger. One day, we will have either eyeball pointing, or a neural control interface (like the Borg). Hey Apple, steal this: use your facetime camera to detect where my eyes are looking. That’s my mouse, and button push with blink is a click, and double blink is double click. Oh, rats, it doesn’t work in the car because of vibrations? Then just keep finger pushing too. A smart phone for me isn’t a phone, it’s a modem / backup internet search device. I have a dedicated cell phone and it is far superior for that purpose. And my final word of not-so-wisdom, if you have to call it “smart”, it isn’t. Smart grid? Smart growth? Smart tyranny?
A problem I run into occasionally with wordpress is that it will tell me I’m posting too quickly, even if I’m not. I then have to re-submit and hope that it doesn’t duplicate, and even then it will go through moderation first making more work for you.
When did Microsoft ever let you opt out of one of its gratuitous UI “upgrades”? I’m still using XP and Office 2007 because they’re better, darn it — and Windows 8 belongs on a toy, not a real computer.
Obviously a poorly designed Java implementation.
I find win 8 a good operating system, the best MS has made and I find it fine for a non touch screen. The problem with it is that it’s too much of a departure from win 7 but once you learn it …….
so far there’s been three invests out in the Atlantic that they’ve hyped as developing….
…every time I’ve gone back to check on them
they’re gone………….LOL
A year ago my hard drive crashed and instead of reinstalling windows I changed to Linux Ubuntu. I do not want to use windows any more. In windows every time I wanted to try out a new application, a toolbar was installed in my browser, even if I ticked on the “no thanks, I don’t want any toolbar” option. And uninstalling the application and the toolbar was a pain, And something remains inside the registry, which only gets bigger over time.
With linux I don’t have any toolbar installed in my browser, I have openoffice as a productivity suite, which is free and it is enough for my needs. Less viruses and more control over your archives are other advantages, provided you know some unix scripting.
“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.”
Yeah but the models showed it to work flawlessly.
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”.
===
My guess is they are running this option using cookies. Your probably, like any sensible persion set Firefox to clear cookies on closing. Hence it does not stick.
If my guess is correct, this should be done within the WP database
I worked in IT for many years, as an outsider: Telecom Manager. I didn’t have much to do with the daily ins and outs of the IT development. My stuff was cut and dry. Calls in, calls out. We did almost all of our development for ourselves only. The number one bottom line was functionality. It’s funny. We were able to develop many “modern” software conveniences all on our own, often years before the mainstream software companies were able to provide. We created our own pollers, our own scripts, even had our very own database administrator who created our very own platforms. One single dit and the whole staff worked towards resolution, johnny on the spot. We were able to sell many of our software evolutions on the open market. It is the beauty of self-development. We ran our very own specialized environment, tailor made for our business. It was a genesis brought about by self-ownership and small business. Out there in the real world, you get what you get.
WP annoyed me long before this. The only use I have for it is to be able to post in these threads.
You will not escape the powers of Beeb Beeb Boob.
Strongly note that the one demographic that should have already converted to climate alarm skepticism based on intelligent reason but hasn’t is the urban tech crowd, heads full of buzzwords and hipsterism. Thank anti-intellectual college indoctrination for that, outside of most of the hard sciences, but fully at hold in the professions…as the temperature now conspires to collapse their new religion. Without a Steve Jobs character to literally scream at anti-social programmers and now ladder climbing “brogrammer” sociopathic jerks, a sort of law of nature kicks in that egomaniacs will screw things up, like that story of the scorpion stinging the frog to its own river crossing demise. But the trained litigious and politically correct activist nature of educated professionals they are forced to hire now also makes a lot of bosses into wimps.
Blogspot has a similar floating tool bar and it loads quickly.
I like Forth. No C stack thrashes.
http://spacetimepro.blogspot.com/2014/04/lpc812-devl-20-march-2014.html