This topic was presented at WordCamp Europe 2015 in Seville, Spain. Synopsis: Once you’ve installed WordPress, what now? For new users, that’s just one of a multitude of inevitable questions. What’s a post? A page? A theme? Where should I start first? In a short attention-span world, first impressions are everything, and WordPress is making it harder than it needs to be for new users. There’s a case to be made for helping to guide users through the process of post-install set up. In fact, there’s user testing data that makes the case for us. The goal of this talk is to examine that test data – taken against existing and potential wp-admin flows – and form conclusions about how WordPress can get out of its own way to improve the new user experience. We’ll talk about solutions that exist in the community right now, and opportunities to get involved in reshaping WordPress’ first impressions.

1. Setting Up WordPress:
A NUX Case Study
Drew Jaynes | #wceu

2. User Experience
UX

3. User ExperienceNew
UXN

4. “A person’s perceptions and responses
that result from the use or anticipated
use of a product, system, or service.”
UX

5. Ease of setup drives adoption.

6. First impressions
are everything.

7. Problem #1:
Thinking like a new user is hard.

8. User TestsNew

9. “Set it up”

10. Problem #2:
“Done” is subjective.

11. “What was your first
impression of the Customizer?”

12. “How important do you think X, Y,
or Z setting is to the setup process?”

13. • Set title & tagline
• Install theme(s)
• Install plugins
• Change colors
• Header image
• Background image
• Create menus
• Configure widgets
• Setup front page
• Write a first blog post
• Create an About page
• Configure time/date
• Turn on/off comments
• Create new users
• Configure media

14. • Set title & tagline
• Install theme(s)
• Install plugins
• Change colors
• Header image
• Background image
• Create menus
• Configure widgets
• Setup front page
• Write a first blog post
• Create an About page
• Configure time/date
• Turn on/off comments
• Create new users
• Configure media

15. Set title & tagline:
8/10 users

16. Installing theme(s):
7/10 users

17. Installing plugins:
6/10 users

18. Creating your first blog post:
4/10 users

19. Adjusting time/date settings:
2/10 users

20. Setting home/front page:
5/10 users

21. Welcome Panel

22. Experiments

24. Problem #3:
Knowing where to start is hard.

26. Jetpack “Start”

27. Install + Setup

29. These are ideas,
not solutions.

30. Usage
June 2015
24.1%

31. 2011
13.1%
2012
15.8
2013
17.4
2014
21
2015
23.3
Usage

32. Usage
June 2015
24.1%

33. Let’s solve this together.

34. Thank You.
@DrewAPicture