Like any piece of software, Wordpress has gone through a number of different design iterations. The screen shots below show the changes that have been made to the Wordpress administration panel between versions 2.3 and the 2.6.
Legibility
The Wordpress designers used the legibility principle throughout the design of the application. In all cases, text is displayed in a manner that is clear and easy for users to read.
Mimicry
The Wordpress text editor very closely mimics the design of the Wordpad text editor in terms of both aesthetics and functionality. This is an example of both surface and functional mimicry that allows for increases in user-familiarity and usability.
Wordpress Text Editor:
Wordpad Text Editor:
Ockham's Razor
Looking back at images provided for the Iteration principle, it is clear that the first screen shot - the more recent version of Wordpress - has a simpler interface. This is an example of the Ockham's Razor principle. In later versions, the Wordpress designers chose to simplify the appearance of the administration panel while simultaneously, retaining the same functionality.
Rule of Thirds
As shown in the screen shot below, the primary elements of the Wordpress administration panel can be divided into thirds, a design feature that makes the interface more aesthetically pleasing for users.
Self-Similarity
By their nature, web applications like Wordpress are self-similar. Because of the way web designs are laid out and styled - using CSS style tags and classes - it is only practical that design elements appear similar to one another.
No comments:
Post a Comment