Thank you for the review. What would make this a 5-star plugin?
For me it’s a bit overkill so I’m not sure it would ever be five-star for my current requirements (I was close to giving 5 though). I know it sounds odd but I found the wealth of options and settings a little frustrating when all I wanted to do was display a single testimonial on a page.
Something that might be helpful is the inclusion of everything you have listed under “Shortcode and Widget Options” on this page http://wordpress.org/plugins/testimonials-widget/, maybe on the Example Shortcodes page within WP Admin. It’s a bit frustrating having to go the WordPress.org site to find that info. Including help etc. in the plugin would be useful, maybe links to the FAQ etc (I know you have a link right at the footer but make it more prominent).
Also, the Settings area could do with a facelift/rejig. I find that it’s a bit heavy on whitespace meaning there is lots of scrolling to find settings. You could maybe have a tab in settings that have the “eg shortcodes” and “Shortcode and Widget Options” rather than having it as a seperate link in the sidebar.
Anyway, those are just my thoughts. It’s really more about the usability rather than the functionality.
Have a good weekend!
The feedback is very much appreciated. I’m planning on usability refinements and such this fall. Hopefully, we’ll get these concerns knocked out then.
Thank you for being detailed about the why lacking that 5th star.
No problem – it’s the least I can do for all the work you’ve put in building the darn thing!
Alrighty then, I’ve created an enhancement request of the 3 items above. Could you please comment on them at the links below via GitHub with examples and specifics of what would make the system more usable.
Also, do you think a live results view shortcode builder with access to the various options would be helpful?
* Settings area facelift
* Include help in the plugin
* Example of every option (this is self explanitory, nothing further needed)
Hi Michael – I’ll try and find a bit of time later today to do that rather than simply going in and writing something quickly that is of no use!
Also, re. the Shortcode Builder, it’s one of those things that if I saw it I’d think “That’s neat” but I’m not sure of the benefit it would bring versus the time it would take to build.
For example of every option in the upcoming version 3.0, I’ve moved the examples to the settings area as recommended plus brought a summary of all options into that same location. It’s probably information overload now, but all the tweaks to work with are on one screen now.
For the settings area facelift, I really don’t have a firm idea on making it cleaner beyond the regrouping and removal of old of settings that I’ve done. I could implement expand and collapse on the general tab, but with the previous effort, it doesn’t make sense. Therefore, unless I’m given very specific examples, I’m going to let this request pass.
For help within the plugin, I feel that the examples revamping by content and location redoing the FAQ, linking to the FAQ in the help areas, cleaning up documentation, and producing a few new videos will suffice.
Any other recommendations?
