There are some bold new changes in the works for the WordPress dashboard: a responsive design, a font icon set, and a new darker + flatter look. There’s also workflow changes on a number of admin screens, including the themes page and dashboard home.
For folks interested in following along with the progress, check out the make.wordpress.org/ui blog. MP6 and Dashboard can also be installed on a development site to preview all the updates.
New Design ideas
It’s been neat to watch UI team experiment with MP6 (design changes), and over the last few months it’s gotten a lot of polish. I believe the new design is fairly set at this point- but I’d still love to keep seeing fresh ideas for how the dashboard could evolve in later versions. Alternate font sets, different icons, entirely new layouts, etc. Tung Do of DevPress is one who’s posted a number of thoughts.
I’ve also been watching Dribbble for dashboard designs as it’s interesting to see how designers are approaching similar interfaces from a design perspective:
Music Interface design by Vivek Venkatraman.
To-Do Dashboard design by by Tiberiu Neamu.
Story book design by Cosmin Capitanu.
Mail Application by Megan Fox.
Gaming dashboard design by NxAlessandro on Forrst.
Still Evolving
There’s a lot to like in this latest WordPress dashboard design, but some of the smaller details still need some attention. One issue for me is how the top navigation menu bleeds into the left sidebar navigation.
In the current (non-MP6) design, those menus have a huge amount of contrast so that they don’t feel like they need to be on the same grid- but when they are the same color, the misalignment catches my eye.
I mocked out a few ideas to address that, including moving the left sidebar up and changing the top bar menu to white in order to maintain contrast:
But I think that the design in a spot where I can nitpick small items like this is a great sign.
Cheers to the UI Team
Rethinking the entire UI is a gigantic projects, so props to the UI team for taking it on. A huge amount of thought and effort has gone into all the development so far and I’m excited to see how the release turns out when it’s finished.
If you’re interested in getting involved or seeing the latest, head over to make.wordpress.org/ui.
There was something about the current MP6 design I just didn’t like, but wasn’t sure what it was. After seeing the small adjustments you’ve made, I think you may have nailed it. I really like what you’ve done; I don’t feel “boxed” in.
Some great designs here. So exciting to read about these changes and if the WP admin redesign does evolve, I think this along with a revised media library for better media management/filtering would be a big game changer for WordPress.