{"id":117441,"date":"2013-06-18T16:15:11","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T20:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wpmu.org\/?p=117441"},"modified":"2013-06-18T17:12:14","modified_gmt":"2013-06-18T21:12:14","slug":"wordpress-com-dashboard-gets-a-beautiful-darker-look","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wordpress-com-dashboard-gets-a-beautiful-darker-look\/","title":{"rendered":"WordPress.com Dashboard Gets a Beautiful, Darker Look"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WordPress.com has been given a tall, dark and handsome makeover. Well, maybe not the tall bit.<\/p>\n<p>Automattic designer Matt Thomas yesterday <a title=\"The WordPress.com Dashboard Gets a Beautiful Makeover\" href=\"http:\/\/en.blog.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/17\/beautiful-makeover\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">announced the\u00a0dashboard&#8217;s redesign<\/a>, which features better contrast, the &#8220;oh-so-lovely&#8221; <a title=\"Open Sans typeface\" href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/fonts\/specimen\/Open+Sans\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Open Sans<\/a> as the default typeface&#8230; and is pretty much the (top secret!) MP6 plugin many of us were expecting would be part of WordPress 3.6.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_117447\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" data-caption=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-117447\" title=\"wordpress-dot-com-redesign\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/wordpress-dot-com-redesign.png\" alt=\"WordPress.com redesign\" width=\"332\" height=\"264\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The new design features the Open Sans typeface as the default font.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The revamp also includes redrawn icons and spacing in the dashboard has been opened up.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas said he had a handful of goals for the redesign, which included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A simply, uncluttered design; free of excessive decoration and focused on your content.<\/li>\n<li>It should use webfonts for beautiful, legible typography that&#8217;s consistent in every browser.<\/li>\n<li>A responsive design tailored to desktop computers, tablets and smartphones.<\/li>\n<li>It should be able to do all this while retaining the familiar user-tested dashboard interface that millions of users already understand.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He said work was still underway on a responsive design for users who used smartphones or tablets to post to their WordPress.com site.<\/p>\n\n<p>The new dashboard will be available later this year, but is available to preview now.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_117442\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" data-caption=\"true\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-ratio-4-1 wp-image-117442\" title=\"new-wordpress-dot-com-dashboard\" src=\"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/new-wordpress-dot-com-dashboard-583x366.png\" alt=\"New WordPress.com dashboard\" width=\"583\" height=\"366\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The WordPress.com dashboard has been given a darker, sleeker revamp.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>To enable the responsive dashboard, go to <strong>Users &gt; Personal Settings<\/strong> and click the checkbox next to &#8220;Enable experimental responsive design (MP6)&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas was quick to respond to comments in his announcement post about bugs in the design. He has encouraged users to send any screenshots to WordPress.com\u00a0<a title=\"WordPress.com Support\" href=\"http:\/\/wordpress.com\/admin-feedback\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">support<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The announcement comes after the <a title=\"Make WordPress UI\" href=\"http:\/\/make.wordpress.org\/ui\/2013\/06\/07\/hello-all-were-here-with-the-final-regularly\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">final weekly update for the MP6 plugin<\/a> at Make WordPress UI on June 8.<\/p>\n<p>In response to a question about whether MP6 will be the new WordPress 3.6 dashboard design, Thomas reassured users the plugin wouldn&#8217;t be part of the release. It&#8217;s possible we will see this dashboard design in a future release of WordPress.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s great to see the dashboard has been given a beautiful look. Hopefully the confusing navigation will be next to get a makeover because <a title=\"WordPress.com Makes Me Hulk Smash\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wptavern.com\/wordpress-com-makes-me-hulk-smash\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I&#8217;m not the only one who gets lost trying to use it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What do you think of the redesigned dashboard? Do you think it meets Thomas&#8217; goals? Tell us in the comments below.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Image credit: <a title=\"PIxabay\" href=\"http:\/\/pixabay.com\/en\/art-tool-background-painter-paint-69727\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WordPress.com has been given a tall, dark and handsome makeover. Well, maybe not the tall bit. Automattic designer Matt Thomas yesterday announced the dashboard&#8217;s redesign, which features better contrast, the &#8220;oh-so-lovely&#8221; Open Sans as the default typeface&#8230; and is pretty much the (top secret!) MP6 plugin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164650,"featured_media":117450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"blog_reading_time":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_tutorials_categories":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,235],"tags":[38,28],"tutorials_categories":[],"class_list":["post-117441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-community","category-misc","tag-design","tag-wordpresscom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164650"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216031,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117441\/revisions\/216031"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117441"},{"taxonomy":"tutorials_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpmudev.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tutorials_categories?post=117441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}