WordPress Gutenburg editor primer
Introduction
It’s generally not a good thing to just let people “do stuff.” But at the same time, the average person things that having full control of pay layout is a good thing and a thing they need. We certainly disagree. But we can explore how this editor can be a useful tool.
Here are key quotes from Matt Mullenweg that highlight the challenges and frustrations he faced while using the WordPress block editor in this speed challenge.
On the learning curve and usability:
“This is going to be very interesting for me because I normally, honestly, I spend many hours a day inside of Gutenberg but as a writer… actually designing a whole site is something I haven’t done much of.”
On frustration with alignment and margins:
“Oh, now I feel stuck on this kind of like margin thing, like how do I get that to go over? It’s so weird. Do I take it out of the group? Now it’s all the way over there!”
“Why do I have this weird margin right now? Why is it not left aligned? Why is it way over here?”
On the complexity of blocks:
“It’s kind of annoying that you have to click to add these things all the time. Why not just show them, you know?”
“How should anyone know that [you need to use a Columns block instead of a Row block]? That is a great question.”
On unexpected discrepancies between the editor and the frontend:
“Looking at the site now, it looks a lot different than it did in the editor. That right there… yeah, is not great.”
“See how in the editor it was lined up, and now on the front end, this is off? That would drive anyone crazy.”
On the discoverability of features:
“I would have never found that in a million years.”
(In response to discovering how to vertically align columns.)
On the overall process:
“This is frustrating… I could see this being pretty frustrating to a user.”
Reflection on improvements:
“Although we got kind of the rough outlines, when I’ve worked with people on designing sites, they’re often like, ‘Hey, can I get this just to move a little bit?’ It’s those tweaking, small details that are the hardest.”