The most recent version of WordPress has arrived with quite a heavy update to its backend. Regular users will now notice it has adopted a sleek black interface. Staying in line with the latest ‘flat’ design trends and standards, it has set an interesting example for other content management systems to follow.
The administration system of WordPress has always been fairly pleasant and well-designed, although it has lagged behind many of the latest trends. It would be no small feat to redesign an entire admin system on a whim of the latest web trend, and the platform’s users would no doubt be left confused.
With this redesign, though, WordPress has kept the core feel of the interface and nothing seems out of place or confusing. There is also an obvious influence from Google Plus and Apple’s flat iOS design. It could certainly be seen as a bold move to push this redesign out now instead of waiting for a grand announcement of WordPress 4.0.
Those who were lucky enough to have a WordPress plugin in the repository had a small heads up regarding the update and had access to nightly builds so they could test and verify that the changes wouldn’t be at all detrimental to their plugin’s style or function.
On the subject of the plugins page, there have been some changes to the way they are displayed and listed, with small coloured tags to the left to indicate the status.
The plugin list now seems busier, and it is slightly harder to distinguish which plugins need updating and which are deactivated, but this is a minor gripe in an otherwise impressively smooth redesign.
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