8 things I hate about WordPress…

Just to make it clear right away – I still think WordPress is brilliant and won’t be switching to any other platform. But WordPress (like Shopify and others) could do a lot better …

1. users are unclear what “WordPress” is

Non-technical users in particular often hear “WordPress”, but don’t really know what it is. WordPress.org is then confused with WordPress.com and it’s not really clear why a page builder is also necessary.

The difference between plugins, themes and the premium versions of these is also not easy to understand.

Possible solution

WordPress.com (the service) should rename itself – JetPack would be my (obvious) suggestion here.

WordPress (.org, the software) needs better marketing and should communicate more clearly what WordPress is and what makes it so special.

2. customers don’t know what WordPress costs

This is also a marketing problem. Many customers believe that the entire website is free. Because WordPress is free.

And then fall from all clouds when plugins (have to) cost something. And that every year!

Yes, WordPress Core is free of charge. And you can also build attractive websites with free plugins. Unfortunately, this is often not professional, nor is it safe.

Possible solution

Here too – better marketing and better communication. It must be made clear to users that free software and free support are not long-term, secure options . The value of a paid membership (support! updates! bug fixes! longevity!) should be communicated more clearly.

3. the admin menu is confusing

The menu in the WordPress backend is a disaster. Each plugin can do whatever it wants here and creates folders at the highest level. Other plugins are hidden under Tools or Settings.

Content (pages, posts, comments …) are wildly mixed with settings, configurations and so on. Themes often create several top-level menu items instead of registering in the design subfolder …

Proposed solution

There should be clear guidelines on where a plugin or theme should be integrated. The top-level menus should be better structured, so all content-related entries should be grouped together.

So that it is clear when the user edits content, when the page is administered or the design is changed.

Plugins and themes should be given a rating so that it is clear whether they adhere to the specifications (more on this below).

4. it is too easy to program a plugin or theme

The entry threshold for creating a WordPress plugin is very low. Too low.

Because even without knowledge of security vulnerabilities, user experience (UX), databases and website performance, you can quickly cobble together a WordPress plugin with the help of Google and Stackoverflow.

The result?

Plugins that

• do not adhere to the WordPress standards,
• are not visually appealing,
• place a heavy load on the database and the web server,
• load unnecessary files and
• make the website slow.

Which plugins are these exactly? Here you can find a list of WordPress plugins that you should avoid.

My radical solution

Users as well as (beginner) programmers need protection from themselves. The standard for creating a plugin for WordPress should therefore be raised.

• With clear rules on how to program a secure & high-performance plugin.
• Through a review process – even paid for (Apple does it wonderfully!).
• Through professional ratings for plugins in terms of security, performance and user experience.

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5. updates destroy the WordPress website

Plugins and themes from programming beginners in particular have a tendency to destroy the website with a simple update.

Mistakes happen, of course. But if the programmers do not consider the effects of their changes, then conflicts with the stylesheets, JavaScripts or PHP code are the order of the day.

Even Elementor had to learn this the hard way – the (necessary and sensible) DOM changes are therefore only optional.

Because of this problem, I’m also not a fan of automatic updates – I don’t want to have to check every day in the morning whether the websites I manage are still working properly …

Possible solutions

Firstly, awareness must be created among developers. The programmers of Elementor have said so beautifully that they have realized that they are responsible for very very very many websites.

Unfortunately, not every developer has come to this realization. This is where educational work is needed.

And secondly, WordPress should finally offer the possibility to easily and quickly switch individual plugins, themes and WordPress Core back to the last version.

Some themes offer this option.

However, it should be standard for all plugins. Including automatic database rollback.

6. there are no meaningful logs in WordPress

In my opinion, this shows that WordPress does not come from the business corner, but from the consumer area (and from there has taken over the business corner).

WordPress does not offer a meaningful and standardized way to write logs or see what the system is doing.

What do I mean?

• Coarse granularity: Information about whether a user has logged in, who has deleted a page or a post, which e-mails have been sent or which user has installed a plugin.
• Fine granularity: debugging logs of plugins to find an error. This means database queries, called functions, written data, error logs, etc.

Some plugins such as WooCommerce have programmed this functionality themselves, but these are the exceptions with large, well-known plugins.

My wish

A central logging system for WordPress that collects the data centrally in a coarse and fine way and is easy to use for developers. Directly in WordPress core.

Yes, there is SimpleHistory, but it does not support everything and especially no debug logs. There should be an option to activate “technical” logs to make it easier to find errors in the code.

7. the premium plugin support is mostly pointless

I am a fan of paid premium plugins. Because of the updates. Because of fairness. But also because of the support.

Unfortunately, the quality here varies greatly.

On the one hand, there are the programmers who see customer requests as valuable feedback and release a new plugin version within a few days. Admittedly, Real Big Plugins is certainly the positive exception here. WooCommerce is also technically very up to date and highly professional.

On the other hand, I can see that the quality of support for the currently popular page builders or form plugins is on the level of “Have you restarted your computer yet?”. Direct communication with the developers is not possible anyway, which is often due to the sheer volume of requests.

My proposed solution

It is more of a wish than a proposed solution. But sometimes I want a flag from the manufacturer so that I don’t have to put up with first level support every time. And to land directly with the developer. Shibboleet, anyone?

More concrete and beyond dreams – the centralized possibility to give plugin support easy and secure access to your own WordPress. Currently, some themes are cooking their own soup, installing must-use plugins and using other nasty things. I doubt whether these are always safe.

8. plugins clutter up the admin dashboard

Some plugins and themes see the admin dashboardpurely as an advertising space. And clutter them up with messages, notices about chargeable upgrades, requests for reviews and much more.

The messages all look different and some of them can’t even be clicked away.

And even worse – the same messages are displayed on every single page in the backend. Great. Thank you dear plugin developers.

My wish to the universe

That messages are displayed collectively, sorted by importance and not on every page. How about a “Notification Center” for all messages?

There is already a feature proposal called “WP Notifiy” – but unfortunately not much has changed since November 2019.

Then please have a rating system for plugins so that you can at least distinguish the good ones from the bad ones.

What don’t you like about WordPress?

These were the 8 points that still bother me after years of working professionally with WordPress.

And to make it clear once again – I love WordPress, I love the “crazy freedom”, the relaxed and helpful community, the ability to change every line of code myself.

This is a big advantage (at least for me) compared to the closed-source systems I used to work with.

I would choose WordPress over Shopify, Wix or Squarespace again in a heartbeat.

But how are you doing with WordPress? What bothers you most about this system? I look forward to your comment!

Michael

Questions about WordPress