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 https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/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 https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/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.