I’m a fan of some of the user enhancements that Troy Dean suggests over at WordPress Video User Manuals. We also use his product to provide clients with WordPress training videos.
White Label CMS
One of the tools that he advocates using is the White Label CMS plugin.
We use it to reduce some of the noise and improve the user experience.
We love WordPress and have no intention of hiding the fact that it is the platform but there are a lot of great features in the plugin to improve the user experience.
We look to remove the options that are unneeded on a daily basis. We do this for a couple of reasons.
- First of all, it increases the usability of the platform. Users are not confused by options they will not be using and the remaining items make more sense.
- Secondly, there are some options that we do not want users to play with as they can break the site.
Removing Ads
One of the things I don’t like about White Label CMS is that it shows an add for an eBook targeted at WordPress developers.
Now I do like the eBook fine but I don’t want it there on client sites. Again more noise. It takes away from the simple user experience and distracts.
While the White Label CMS settings only show when an admin is logged in, I still don’t want that kind of advertisement presented to clients.
One of the options that exists in White Label CMS is the ability to override or ad to any styles in the WordPress admin.
- Go to Settings > White Label CMS
- Click on the + sign next to Admin Setting
s. - Scroll down to the Custom CSS for Admin box and enter the following CSS:div#wlcms-sidebar { display: none; }
- Click the Save changes button.
Once the page refreshes, you’ll see that the unwanted ad is gone.
As employing the White Label CMS plugin is often just an exercise in improving user experience, this is just one more step that makes sense.