Post Formats, Schedules, and Philosophy
## Metadata
- Author: [[Make WordPress Core]]
- Full Title: Post Formats, Schedules, and Philosophy
- Category: #articles
- Document Note: ```markdown
---
tags: [WordPress, Post Formats, UX]
author: [MISSING]
source: Make WordPress Core
reference: [https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/]
date created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}}
---
# 🏷️ Title: Post Formats, Schedules, and Philosophy
## 🧰 Action Inbox
- [H1] Draft UX note on icon affordances — context/https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/ #articleseed
- [H2] Propose radio-style Post Format selector — context/https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/ #xref
- [H3] Map “deadlines not arbitrary” to release rituals — context/https://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/ #xref
- [H4] Create contributor brief on scope vs. ship — context/https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/ #share
- [H5] Add onboarding module: Post Formats history — context/https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/post-formats/ #articleseed
- [H6] Evaluate schedule risk communication template — context/https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/ #addendum
- [H7] Align The WPCC microgrants to UX sprints — context/https://make.wordpress.org/core/ #share
- [H8] FAIR.pm example: scope gates and sunset rules — context/https://fair.pm #articleseed
## 🧭 Table of Contents
- [📝 Summary](#-summary)
- [📖 Main Content](#-main-content)
- [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes)
- [📚 References](#-references)
- [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase)
- [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter)
- [✅ Action Items](#-action-items)
- [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses)
- [📊 Methodology](#-methodology)
- [❓ Questions](#-questions)
- [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research)
- [💡 Implications](#-implications)
- [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment)
- [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment)
- [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment)
- [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity)
- [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis)
- [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion)
### 🔗 References
- Include links cited in or relevant to the article.
## 📝 Summary
- The post critiques the Post Formats UI and schedule handling.
- It argues icons imply insertion, not selection, confusing users.
- Stakeholders include core contributors, designers, and site owners.
- Risks include shipping confusion or slipping schedules and morale hits.
- Bottom line: fix the UI affordance and respect principles-driven shipping.
## 📖 Main Content
- The current UI uses icons that suggest adding media.
- The control actually selects a post format type.
- The mismatch risks user error and support burden.
- A simpler selector could reduce confusion and cost.
- The piece ties decisions to WordPress philosophy.
- Shipping matters, but clarity and cohesion matter more.
- Schedules should align with product quality and user outcomes.
### 🗒️ Notes
- The UI looks like an insertion toolbar, not a mode switch.
- Icons prime users to expect media actions.
- Radio buttons or labeled options would signal selection.
- Clarity beats cleverness in high-frequency workflows.
- The post frames deadlines as meaningful, not arbitrary.
- It suggests scope control to protect release cadence.
- It encourages product thinking over feature accumulation.
## 📚 References
- Post Formats, Schedules, and Philosophy (original) — https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/
- WordPress Philosophy — https://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/
- Post Formats documentation — https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/post-formats/
- WordPress 3.6 “Oscar” release overview — https://wordpress.org/news/2013/08/oscar/
## 🗣️ Paraphrase
- The UI looks like it inserts media but actually switches modes.
- We should ship when the UI communicates intent clearly.
## 📰 Newsletter
- Post Formats stirred debate again, but for good reason.
- Icons misled users by signaling media insertion, not selection.
- The fix seems simple: choose clearer affordances before shipping.
- Revisit WordPress’s principles on decisions and deadlines.
- Read more on the Make/Core post and the philosophy page.
## ✅ Action Items
#### DevRel
- Publish a UX teardown of Post Formats selection. Measure task error rates.
- Run an office hours on affordances and status vs. action controls.
- Produce examples showing clear selection patterns in WP.
- Share a short video walkthrough and task checklist.
- Survey plugin authors on format-related UX pain points.
#### OSPO
- Add UI affordance checks to contribution guidelines.
- Require UX review gates for user-facing changes.
- Standardize schedule risk logs and mitigation steps.
- Maintain a pattern library reference for selectors.
- Offer weekly consults on UX changes pre-merge.
- Draft upstream funding proposals for UX research sprints.
- Report OKRs: usability improvements tied to release health.
#### Community
- Host roadmap clinics on scope and schedule balance.
- Pair new contributors with UX mentors for reviews.
- Publish budget templates for small UX iterations.
- Run incident drills on last-minute scope trims.
#### WordPress
- Core: Define acceptance criteria for selection controls.
- Core Performance: Track regression from added UI weight.
- Core AI: Evaluate copy suggestions that clarify state.
- Core Program Team: Add UX signoff to release playbook.
- Mobile: Align format selectors with platform conventions.
- Playground: Create labs comparing selector patterns.
- Community: Include UX affordances in meetup kits.
- Training: Build lessons on UI patterns and pitfalls.
- Marketing: Clarify features with precise language.
- Support: Prepare KB on Post Formats behaviors.
- Design: Add labeled radio or segmented controls.
- Documentation: Update screenshots and pattern guidance.
- Accessibility: Test icon-only controls for clarity.
- Meta: Ensure .org patterns highlight clear selection.
- CLI: Document format implications on templates.
- Hosting: Surface defaults that reduce confusion.
#### The WPCC
- Programs: Fund microgrants for targeted UX audits.
- Projects: Convene governance clinics on scope gating.
- Funding experiments: Pilot milestone-based payouts for UX fixes.
### FAIR
- Technical independence: Require artifacted UX rationale with changes.
- Policies and covenants: Add sunset clauses for confusing patterns.
- Productized governance artifacts: Publish scope gates and scorecards.
## 🧪 Hypotheses
- Icon-only selectors increase misclicks versus labeled radios.
- Clear labels reduce time-to-publish for format use cases.
- Scope gates reduce schedule slips in major releases.
- Philosophy-aligned comms improve contributor satisfaction.
### 📊 Methodology
- Run A/B tests with icon vs. radio selectors.
- Measure task success, time, and error rates.
- Analyze release retros for scope gate impacts.
- Survey contributor sentiment pre/post policy updates.
### ❓ Questions
- Which selector pattern best signals “mode” selection?
- What minimum UX checklist should block merges?
- How should schedules adapt to UX risk levels?
### 🔮 Future Research
- Study icon semantics across locales and cultures.
- Model the cost of post-release UX confusion.
- Evaluate copy assistance for clarity in UI labels.
### 💡 Implications
- Clear affordances reduce support and training costs.
- Scope discipline strengthens trust in release cadence.
- Funding small UX work yields outsized returns.
### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment
- Reading level estimate: Flesch-Kincaid Grade ~9–10.
#### 👀 Visual learners
- Present: UI discussion and mental models.
- Improve: Before/after selector screenshots.
#### 🔊 Aural learners
- Present: None.
- Improve: 3-minute audio summary.
#### 🗣️ Verbal learners
- Present: Definitions of selection vs. insertion.
- Improve: Compare patterns with examples.
#### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners
- Present: None.
- Improve: Playground tasks with both UIs.
#### 🧠 Logical learners
- Present: Arguments on scope and schedules.
- Improve: Decision trees for release gating.
#### 🧑🤝🧑 Social learners
- Present: Community dialogue channels.
- Improve: Cohort reviews of UI proposals.
#### 🧘♀️ Solitary learners
- Present: Post to reflect on.
- Impro
- Summary: Post Formats UI is looking like this right now: This seems confusing, because it looks like they are icons to insert something (Image, Gallery, Link, Video, etc), but instead of launching a popup t…
- URL: https://make.wordpress.org/core/2013/04/23/post-formats-schedules-and-philosophy/
Post Formats UI is looking like this right now:
Screen shot 2013-04-23 at 9.05.04 AM
This seems confusing, because it looks like they are icons to insert something (Image, Gallery, Link, Video, etc), but instead of launching a popup to insert a link or an image, the screen changes and the navigation that was just used to choose disappears completely. (*Note: If Standard had some indication of being the default/current selection it wouldn’t be as confusing*)
Clicking on one — say Link — makes the UI change, the big icon row go away, and a format switcher link drops below the title rather than keeping its visual hierarchy above the post stuff, and it’s generally disorienting.
Screen shot 2013-04-23 at 9.09.35 AM
If the user thinks, “Whoa, what happened, I better change format again,” and they click on the “Change format’ link under the title field and next to the “Enter URL” instruction, the screens morphs again to this:
Screen shot 2013-04-23 at 9.12.41 AM
Where the icon strip is back, but the link field has disappeared and the icon next to Add New Post is still a link. This is super confusing. Does it still think it is a link bc they didn’t actively choose to return to standard, they just chose to see the options? If that’s so, why did the url field disappear?
Looking at [the release schedule](https://make.wordpress.org/core/version-3-6-project-schedule/):
Screen shot 2013-04-23 at 9.40.18 AM
We launched Beta 1 on April 4, and it’s been almost 3 weeks without a follow-up beta 2.
…I am wondering if the post formats ui is really prime time ready, or if it should be one of the very first thing sto land in a 3.7 branch so we can get the things that **are** completely ready into the hands of users sooner rather than later?
Since I’m outside the core dev group now, I’ve been on both sides of the deadline delay dance. I know how hard it is to let go of something that feels like it is **thisclose** to done. And I know that just about everyone on the core team will be thinking right about now that I should shut up (and I’m okay with that, because it used to be my first response to deadline questions to core, too). But we have this philosophy posted on wordpress.org:
> **Deadlines Are Not Arbitrary**
>
> Deadlines are not arbitrary, they’re a promise we make to ourselves and our users that helps us rein in the endless possibilities of things that could be a part of every release. We aspire to release three major versions a year because through trial and error we’ve found that to be a good balance between getting cool stuff in each release and not so much that we end up breaking more than we add.
>
> Good deadlines almost always make you trim something from a release. This is not a bad thing, it’s what they’re supposed to do.
>
> The route of delaying a release for that one-more-feature is, literally, a rabbit hole. We did that for over a year once, and it wasn’t pleasant for anybody.
>
> The more frequent and regular releases are, the less important it is for any particular feature to be in this release. If it doesn’t make it for this one, it’ll just be a few months before the next one. When releases become unpredictable or few and far between, there’s more pressure to try and squeeze in that one more thing because it’s going to be so long before the next one. Delay begets delay.
>
>
I’m not trying to be a troublemaker or imply that anyone isn’t doing everything they can — I know for a fact that people are working themselves into the ground on this release. Nor am looking to incite a debate about deadlines or all the explanations of how we fell behind this time (I’ve been following along, everything is really pretty normal). But would it be better to not try to squeeze it all in, get out what we can ship now (including the awesome 2013 theme that regular people still don’t have access to), and take a quick breath to relax before diving back in on a new cycle? Shipping is a feature, too. 😉, Post Formats, Schedules, and Philosophy, Make WordPress Core, 01k6n1p7a3shcq42sfcbmkwfr3.