Plugins Marketplace: No back navigation when clicking on "Browse All"

[taipeicoder]

Description

The Plugins Marketplace defaults to showing many sections where users can click on "Browse All" to see the full list.

However, once they enter the subsection, there is no back button to go back to the previous state.

[davemart-in]

Let's just add one, pulling the same style from other pages with a back button.

[dsas]

pulling the same style from other pages with a back button.

Can anyone quickly name one? We don't have one on /themes, /read, /sites. Outside of Onboarding the only one I can think of is purchases:

I'm not even sure where to put a back button, I had assumed next to the header, but the header is always "Plugins marketplace" so "Back" there makes it feel like you're leaving the marketplace.

My quick and dirty attempt is this, I'm not certain it looks right

CC @lucasmendes-design / @javierarce

[dsas]

Maybe we just need to make "Plugins marketplace" be a link back to "Discover"

[javierarce]

Why don't we make the "Discover" option sticky like the search field on the left? It's not really a category and it could act as the back button.

[dsas]

I wondered about that too, in the theme showcase we have "All" which serves that purpose. I'm not sure if "Discover" is discoverable enough, but maybe it'd work if it had the right ui affordances.

[javierarce]

I'm not sure if "Discover" is discoverable enough, but maybe it'd work if it had the right ui affordances.

True. Maybe with a light shade of gray?

And here's also alternative idea for a back link (the copy is just an idea, perhaps "See all" is not the best solution)

[javierarce]

I didn't realize there is a sticky header (p1724150233850569-slack-C029GN3KD also prevented it from displaying for me)

This makes me think my previous proposal for a "See all" link makes less sense.

[javierarce]

And thinking a bit more broadly, what if, instead of working on this issue, we unified the Theme and Plugin navigations?

[davemart-in]

Feels like we might be overcomplicating this particular issue. We can of course look at a larger project to align theme and plugin directories, but for this particular issue that was raised, I propose that we just add a simple back link.

Can anyone quickly name one?

Sure. Sorry, I should have been more specific in my original proposal. The reader has a simple option. See https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/188407/posts/5351811751 for an example.

Here's what I propose:

[Addison-Stavlo]

Can anyone quickly name one?

The individual plugins page show one on tablet view:

While on desktop it is replaced by "Pugins -> {current plugin name}" and clicking "plugins" serves as going back:

Individual post pages in the reader have one as well:

[mmtr]

Here's what I propose:

@davemart-in @javierarce Would it be possible to reconsider this? When experiencing it in real time, it looks a bit janky with the search and the categories list suddenly jumping to the bottom:

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/7ce6f614-f3d7-4fbd-8a6e-e8ad52d8ee35

[nuriapenya]

Heya 👋🏽

I think the < Back button is not the correct answer here. These sections work as filter, so the users do not "go back" to another level or page. It's a very confusing interaction.

If you don't want to change the mechanism of this page, then we need to make sure that the "Discover" tab is always visible and sticky, as Javier suggested above.

[lucasmendes-design]

+1

[davemart-in]

I think the < Back button is not the correct answer here. These sections work as filter, so the users do not "go back" to another level or page. It's a very confusing interaction.

That's my bad. I was obviously in too much of a rush and didn't notice this. I'm sorry @javierarce! Thanks of moving this back to "Needs design".

@javierarce mind clarifying what your proposal would be?

[Addison-Stavlo]

My other thought: maybe this isn't an issue and we could just close this. The user can go back to the initial state by selecting "marketplace" in the sidebar again. The marketplace sidebar item is clear that it goes to a certain level of the marketplace, and it has already been used to get there if the user is in this state. This feels better to me than adding more back buttons or extra links.

If this really is an issue to fix, the following probably makes sense:

what your proposal would be?

Adding a link in the same place as "browse all" (where it becomes "60 plugins") makes sense. This seems to be what @javierarce laid out above.

Note when I click "browse all" the entire interface remains the same except that link and what is shown below it. If we wanted a link to go back to the last state, it could make sense right here as this feels to work like an expand/collapse toggle in a way:

Again, I almost feel leaving this as-is is better than adding links or buttons. 🤷‍♀️

[davemart-in]

Going to close this one out. Happy to re-open it if anyone feels strongly about a particular solution that is better than leaving it as it is now.