Post Editor: Revert "Save" button to "Update," at least temporarily

[james-tyner]

What problem does this address?

I noticed while testing out 6.6 RC3 that, once a post has been published, the Publish button changes to say "Save." On WP 6.5, the button says "Update" when the post is in this state.

In WP 6.6:

In WP 6.5:

I think the word "Save" will be confusing for some users and may lead to confusion over whether a post is actually published, particularly because of its similarity to the "Save Draft" option for draft posts.

Because that button is placed high on the page in a bold color, I expect many users rely on it as an indicator of the post's current status. Seeing "Save" doesn't give a clear indication of whether the post is already live, which may cause them to publish changes that they only intended to save as a draft. In a past life working with a different CMS, we had a similar issue that occasionally caused unfinished copy to be published live on our news website unexpectedly.

My best guess from looking through the records I can find is that this change happened as part of this PR (#60456) while trying to align the post editor UI with the site editor. I think that goal makes sense, but the Save wording may be confusing for users who aren't used to it.

Some of the designs proposed on that PR include other mechanisms to indicate the status of the post more clearly, such as a colorful "Published" badge. I think those would be helpful in reducing the confusion introduced by the word "Save."

What is your proposed solution?

I suggest that we change that button back to "Update" for now, until some of those additional UI elements are available to help provide situational awareness for users.

[SantosGuillamot]

I think you're right and that change was introduced in this pull request. We can see the difference here:

• Before: The label is "Update".
• After: The label is "Save".

Pinging @ntsekouras as he might have more context.

[ntsekouras]

Thanks for the issue! I think you're mostly referring to a possible accidental publishing of a draft. In that case the button doesn't render Save instead of Update, but it renders Publish, which was also the case before the saving/publishing flow updates. Did I get that wrong here?

Additionally, all these changes have made the current status value of the editing post more prominent, in the post summary(inspector controls), which IMO it also reduce the risk of not knowing the post status.

[james-tyner]

Pasting in my comment from the linked PR:

I understand the argument that Save is generic enough to apply in all situations, but I think the key issue here isn't what the button is doing, but what the state of the button is representing to the user. Users have likely grown accustomed to seeing an "Update" button and recognizing that to mean that the post is published.

At a publication where multiple writers and editors may jump in and out of posts and reach them directly from outside the context of the Posts list in WordPress (which shows the post status), it's important for people to have an easy way to know what the status is from the post editor screen.

If we are opposed to moving away from the generic "Save" wording, it would be valuable to devote some effort to other ways of keeping users aware of the status of the post. I saw on #60456 that there was some design effort going into creating a color-coded post status label that would appear at the top of the settings sidebar, and I think that would help a lot.

My proposal is that we could try to preserve the Update button for now until those other status indicators are ready.

I find that the status of the post is actually less prominent than it was before because of the relocation of the featured image options to the top of the sidebar. What I'm seeing on our site running 6.6 RC3 is that the entire featured image menu is inserted above the read time and last edit time, and then the summary fields appear below that. We have some additional fields attached to the featured image menu for our particular use case, which means that users must scroll to see the status, at least on our site.

The WIP designs I saw on #60456 placed the featured image menu below a color-coded status indicator, the read time, and last edit time. If that kind of solution were implemented for posts, then I think the wording of the Publish/Save button doesn't need to change.

[ntsekouras]

Let's --cc @jameskoster for some design input about the plans for color coded status indicator. We had that at first, but after some discussions it seems it prevailed to keep consistency with the other controls..

[jameskoster]

In the context of full site editing, 'Save' feels more explicit to me. I'm not convinced that the button label should change based on whether you're editing a post, template, pattern, etc; that would likely lead to more confusion. I appreciate that which label feels correct ('Save' versus 'Update') is somewhat subjective though.

Elevating the status is a separate consideration, and I tend to agree: Status is important and warrants greater prominence in the UI. One thing we might try is to include the new icon(s) that were recently added to the field display in data views:

Colorization is something to explore too. E.g. Green for Published/Scheduled, Yellow for Draft, etc.

[james-tyner]

Thanks, @jameskoster. Icons, colors, anything to make it stand out more would help! But I think as long as the status appears below the featured image menu, it may not be prominent enough.

[jameskoster]

@ntsekouras how do you feel about trying the icon as a first step?

[afercia]

While I'd agree the Status setting benefits from some more prominence, I'm not sure the icon added in #63658 is the best solution.

To me, the icon is curing the symptom and not the disease.

The recent refactoring of the 'post summary' made all settings within it have the same visual prominence. Status, Publish, Link, Author, Template, etc. they all have the same visual 'weight'. Also, they are all grouped together while they represent settings that are very different from a logical perspective.

To me, the root cause is that the redesign of the post summary made all these settings have the same weight in the first place. If making the Status more prominent is desired, I'd argue that the original design should be changed in the first place and this setting should be separated from the other ones. I'm not sure adding icons (with pretty obscure meaning) really helps solving the root issue.

[jameskoster]

I think the icon helps increase familiarity given they're also present in data views. It also helps give a little additional prominence to the Status.

In terms of the position, I don't have a strong feeling about it personally. In fact in the original designs I suggested placing Status above the featured image, and I still think that could be worth trying, but we need to come up with a design that works.

[afercia]

In fact in the original designs I suggested placing Status above the featured image, and I still think that could be worth trying,

I'd support a new design that places Status in a more prominent place 👍🏽 but then I'd say also the Publish date should be prominent as I'd think thesee two settings are the most important and used ones, while the other ones are, in a way, less important.

[BowFarmer]

I do find the current "Save" button confusing. I can't tell if I am saving edits or if I am publishing the edits. Especially now that there is no "save draft" or similar option. So how do I make an edit and save the draft without publishing it? There are cases when I revise a post/page that I will make the edits over a number of sessions. So I need a clear way to save the edits as I go and when I am ready to publish them. The way editing published posts works now is a step backward and confusing.

[krokodok]

I've had a lot of customers complain about this. The change did not seem to be communicated in any release notes, or did I just not find it?

[BowFarmer]

I'm complaining again about how this "Save" button works. It is horrible. If you have a post that needs editing, there is no easy way to edit it and if you need to do something and come back to it, to save the changes but not publish them yet. I don't want to click the "Save" button as that will publish the changes. And I'm not ready to do that. I want to be able to save the changes and come back to them.
What I can do is close the window and ignore the "Are you sure you want to leave this page?" alert. And come back to the post and restore the last saved changes. But talk about a convoluted way to work on published posts.
The previous version of having a "Save changes" and "Publish" buttons was so much better. This new "Save" only button option is so confusing. There is a clear distinction between "Save changes but don't publish them yet" and "Save changes and publish them". Post editors often need to do both. When I am editing a post I much prefer to have those two options and not have to work around this single "Save" option.
Wordpress does save changes every 60 seconds so now if I want the changes to save, after I make my last edit, I need to wait at least a minute before closing the window if I need to go on and do something else. Please bring back the "Save changes" button that saves the changes but does not publish them yet.

[afercia]

@WordPress/gutenberg-design
@annezazu

This issue reports direct feedback from users and their customers who are confused by this change.
I would kindly ask everyone to not underestimate direct feedback from users and consider to address this issue for the next incoming release.

Personally, I'm not sure such important, though self-contained, design changes can be made so lightly and with no user testing at all in such a large project like WordPress. WordPress powers millions of websites. In a such large project I would expect important design changes that touch important user flows to not be based exclusively on designers personal opinions or 'vision', whatever that means. I would have expected at least a simple A/B testing to validate the change.

While I do understand the unification of the editors has a big value, saving changes and publishing posts is perceived differently from saving changes and publishing templates or other objects. Providing a reassuring, error safe, experience when publishing content is a fundamental part of many editorial flows. I agree the current experience isn't better than the one it used to be and I'd strongly recommend to reconsider the change to the Update button. Thanks

[annezazu]

Thanks so much for tagging me in this! Rest assured there have been changes to this new experience before and since it's landed, like bringing back prominence to the trash button and doing the same with revisions. I know part of the complexity with this is that the post and site editor are sharing flows to set the foundation for a unified future. This isn't easy to get right and feedback like this helps to see where we need to shift. I'll let designers chime in around the naming here and appreciate the feedback folks are sharing for now.