Plugins: Add "Community" and "Commercial" descriptions to search archives

[ndiego]

Since the most recent refresh, there has been some discussion around the "Community" and "Commercial" categories. While these categories have been in place for quite some time, what stood out to me is that while there are descriptions on the category archives, there is no description on the search archive when you filter by either term.

I think adding the descriptions to the search archives when either term is selected would be helpful.

Category archives	Search archive + selecting a term	Proposed (needs design help)

[ndiego]

My proposed mockup needs some design help, but what do you think of this approach @WordPress/meta-design?

[jasmussen]

Could it be Community results for "blocks"? It's notably this double heading that looks awkward:

The gray help text can sit under the heading per usual, if that's helpful.

[ndiego]

Could it be Community results for "blocks"?

Yeah I think that could work nicely.

It's notably this double heading that looks awkward:
The gray help text can sit under the heading per usual, if that's helpful.

Agreed on both.

[fcoveram]

I don't see the reason for adding the Search results for: "blocks" part. Regardless of supporting the idea, and previously sharing a mockup for it, it currently does not exist in the other sections.

With that in mind, and in sync with #309, I would remove that text, place all search actions in one row, and include the category description.

Here is a mockup gathering the three changes mentioned.

[ndiego]

I don't see the reason for adding the Search results for: "blocks" part.

That's the title (<h1>) on the page. It probably needs to be there for SEO/accessibility, but I am not an expert.

[fcoveram]

So in that vein, do we need to update the all search results pages? If so, I then would like to go back to the idea shared previously that adds a sentence above the results grid.

[ryelle]

That's the title (<h1>) on the page. It probably needs to be there for SEO/accessibility, but I am not an expert.

That's correct, but technically we can hide it with the screen-reader-text class as long as it's clear to sighted users what the current page context is. For example, on patterns we have this on all archives, but we can hide it because the breadcrumbs give context + the item is selected in the menu.

Archive	Search results

[ndiego]

That's correct, but technically we can hide it with the screen-reader-text class as long as it's clear to sighted users what the current page context is. For example, on patterns we have this on all archives, but we can hide it because the breadcrumbs give context + the item is selected in the menu.

Based on this, I like your mockup @fcoveram. 👇

@StevenDufresne thoughts on moving forward with this iteration? Note this mockup does include the proposed changes in #309

[ryelle]

The proper heading for a search results page should be "Search results" or "Search results for [term]", though. The production site is doing this correctly, now. Otherwise this has the same h1 as the main "Community" archive. And there can only be one h1 here, so the invisible heading doesn't apply, as there's already one visible h1.

Maybe the headings can be combined to be "Community plugins: Search results for [term]" with the description under it?

[ndiego]

Could "Community plugins" be an h2 like the headings (that look the same) on the Homepage?

[ryelle]

I suppose (technically nothing wrong with it), but I feel like you're loosing half the context either way. Instead of only saying search results like production does now, it'll only (appear to) say "community plugins" — only screen reader users will get the benefit of full context.

IMO it works on Patterns because there is no heading, so you look to the filters & breadcrumbs. Here, there is a heading, but it's not the full story, so it feels just as strange as the original issue. But this isn't a strong opinion, so feel free to outvote me.

[ndiego]

I think "Community plugins: Search results for [term]" could work well too. No stong opinions here either

[StevenDufresne]

For me, this is the same conversion we are having in WordPress/wporg-mu-plugins#603 and it should be solved consistently across patterns/plugins/themes.

I feel like we can do category education with a tooltip (assuming we can make it accessible).

[ndiego]

I feel like we can do category education with a tooltip (assuming we can make it accessible).

That's a cool idea!

[StevenDufresne]

@fcoveram Do you have any thoughts on this idea?

[fcoveram]

I like the idea. Do you have an idea for the "Learn more" link? I don't think we need it.

[ndiego]

I like the idea. Do you have an idea for the "Learn more" link? I don't think we need it.

The only place I can think to link to is the Make post 🤔 I am surprised there is no information (that I could find) in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory section of the Plugin Handbook.

[StevenDufresne]

We could exclude it from the first iteration but I think it's valuable to have a place for plugins to visit that explains the categorizations along with how to categorize their plugin in the future.

[ndiego]

As a first step, I would love to see something like this when "test" is searched for:

Search for all	Search for community	Search for commercial

This is similar to what is being done in the Patterns Directory. It doesn't solve all issues, but does provide more context to the search and should be easy to implement.

[jasmussen]

That feels a great start to build on, and is hopefully easy to do.

[fcoveram]

@ndiego's idea looks good. +1 to go with that.