Actually, it’s just a hate relationship really. I hate the way it works, I hate the scrappy, crappy codebase and most of all I hate myself for not finding something better, or in lieu of that, making something better.

Phew.

WordPress 2.7 is currently in development and the wireframes show some improvements in the admin interface. That’s to be welcomed. However, as an encouragement to take usability further here are a few pointers for other improvements.

1. Generally when I log in its because I want to write. I care little for the Dashboard. Take me straight to the new post editor or at the very least give me the option of configuring the admin so that it does it. A cramped “QuickPress” box isn’t a substitute for the real thing.
2. Stop telling me about how much spam you’ve caught. The purpose of a spam catcher is to make it disappear, not to bother me further with reports on how successful the spam catching is.
3. Matt Mullenweg’s thoughts on his breakfast, USian politics, the Amazon Kindle or indeed WordPress itself form no part of my workflow. If I want to subscribe to any WordPress development blogs I’ll do that in my feed reader. This functionality doesn’t belong in WordPress anywhere.
4. You’ve just bought a brand new Moleskine notebook. Unwrapping it and opening it up, you discover that someone has already scrawled on the first page, “This is an example of a handwritten page in your new Moleskine notebook. You can write pages just like this yourself. Try it!” You then have to rip out the example page to actually get started. WordPress should employ effective blank slate techniques, not stuff the database with example content on a new installation that users have to delete before they can use it. Ditto, bookmarks in the links section.
5. The default theme should be as minimal as possible both to encourage users to switch to something else and also to provide the simplest possible starting point for theme development.
6. Uncategorized isn’t a category, it’s information architecture leftovers. Make the app work with no categories and start like that by default.
7. I’m not your pardner. Please don’t address me with “Howdy”.
8. Is it a blog? Is it a CMS? No, it’s a “state-of-the-art publishing platform“. This means nothing whatsoever. WordPress rapidly needs to work out what it is and who it’s for before it goes even further down the route of being jack of all trades and master of none. If this is the state of the art then the art is in a pretty poor state altogether.