Increase Support Visibility with Orange

[macmanx]

The Support link at WordPress.org is kind of hiding in the middle of things, and the number of "WordPress has no support" posts we see around leave us wondering if they're even finding it.

As discussed at WCSF, perhaps we should try making it a bit more visible by swapping out white on the Support link for the WordPress orange #d54e21 if this is the visitor's first time to WordPress.org or maybe even if the visitor is logged out.

[samuelsidler]

This needs a tenable UI for us to implement, but I'm not sure we need to call out support more. For one, we're hoping to reduce some of the items in the header (like removing Mobile), which should help with visibility. Looking through other projects, most don't call out support/help in any special way.

Is there data to support the idea that people can't find the Support tab?

[macmanx]

Sadly, I do not recall.

The idea came up during one of our weekly meetings: ​https://wordpress.slack.com/archives/forums/p1415295752001858

But, I don't remember exactly what inspired us to mention it.

[danieltj]

Example of new colour for 'Support' link

[danieltj]

A very quick and dirty example, but changing the colour to #ffc000 is much better than the #d54e21 colour. Much more visible and stands out more. What do people think?

[samuelsidler]

@mapk has been thinking about this recently.

[danieltj]

Replying to samuelsidler:

@mapk has been thinking about this recently.

To be fair, changing the colour to highlight it is only one option.

There are other options which could include markup changes. Changing the colour is the least drastic change anyway.

[samuelsidler]

Replying to danieltj:

To be fair, changing the colour to highlight it is only one option.

There are other options which could include markup changes. Changing the colour is the least drastic change anyway.

Yeah, I'm still not sure if this is worth doing at all, versus reducing items in the header.

[danieltj]

Replying to samuelsidler:

Replying to danieltj:

To be fair, changing the colour to highlight it is only one option.

There are other options which could include markup changes. Changing the colour is the least drastic change anyway.

Yeah, I'm still not sure if this is worth doing at all, versus reducing items in the header.

True, in my personal opinion; removing Showcase, Mobile and Hosting would be the best thing to do if no code changes were made.

[mapk]

Replying to danieltj:

Replying to samuelsidler:

Replying to danieltj:

To be fair, changing the colour to highlight it is only one option.

There are other options which could include markup changes. Changing the colour is the least drastic change anyway.

Yeah, I'm still not sure if this is worth doing at all, versus reducing items in the header.

True, in my personal opinion; removing Showcase, Mobile and Hosting would be the best thing to do if no code changes were made.

I don't think changing the color of the Support link is the way to go. Reducing the number of menu items is a move in the right direction. Ultimately, I think repositioning the Support link to the end of the menu items would be the best. The problem right now is that "Support" gets lost in the middle of this long list of menu items. Having it at the end would help visibility.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Any changes to the order of header menu items should be mirrored on Rosetta sites as well: #1201.

[karmatosed]

If there is data that we are causing people to get lost then +1 for making this more obvious. If thats not the case the I think not doing anything works well. @macmanx are you still finding this issue with the site changes?

[macmanx]

It's hard to say on that front @karmatosed

As you noted, we don't really have any data. Anecdotally, the prior observation was made based on the amount of folks reaching out on IRC and even WordPress.com forums because they couldn't find the WordPress.org forums, as well as a number of "WordPress has no Support" blog posts and such that were going around.

Since the re-design, incoming support topics seem to have decreased some, but the misdirection and statements of no support appear to have stopped. There's no data, so it's really impossible to say if that's related in any way.

Leaving it as-is would probably be fine at this point.

[karmatosed]

@macmanx ok, lets close this then.