I’m going “Doc Brown” on Jason Schuller’s new Pickle project. Here’s why

Here’s how I think it will change WordPress

If you’re not familiar with Jason Schuller’s, new Pickle project, it’s worth taking a look at: Pickle.

As well as Sarah Gooding’s excellent write-up over at WP Tavern.

But, to give you the skinny on it… it’s a WordPress theme designed for restaurants, bars, etc. who want a minimalist look for their website.

What’s interesting to me about it is Jason’s aim was to remove the thick line between the WordPress front-end and back-end so editing content happened in the same familiar interface as viewing it.

And to implement a concept he believes in deeply:

I’ve always felt that a good CMS should reflect the functionality you need for any given project. —Jason Schuller

All of this meant an aggressive re-skinning and re-thinking of the WordPress admin… which currently isn’t very easy.

I think this is kind of a big deal.

Where we’re going, we don’t need a CMS!

I worked with clients of all skills levels, wants, needs, opinions, etc… and one of the most common themes is their confusion and frustration with the WordPress admin.

Often these are people who have worked with WordPress for awhile.

And, one of Jason’s points speaks directly to this. WordPress assumes a set of core functionalities regardless of what theme you happening to be using.

So, WordPress always contains the admin interface for things like widgets, comments, even posts, pages and categories.

But, what if you’re not using one of those on the front-end?

Shouldn’t the admin mirror the front-end to give you everything you need and nothing more?

Currently, that’s difficult to do… but Pickle is Jason’s attempt at that.

I think this is a big step forward for WordPress. Don’t get me wrong… I love WordPress, but for the casual user who is not a WordPress fanatic the admin can be daunting.

I know several of my former clients who would have benefited tremendously from a streamlined admin. Not to mention the thousands of others who may have been turned off by WordPress for this exact thing.

As I sit here thinking about it, I can’t help but wonder what this might look like if built around membership sites.

At WishList Products, we encounter this kind of thing daily… customers are overwhelmed by the sheer size of WordPress and WishList Member admin-wise.

They could benefit tremendously from a streamlined interface.

Now, I don’t think this should be the only option. The current admin makes sense for a lot of people and scenarios.

But, giving theme and plugin developers the option to create this kind of experience more easily would be a big step forward for WordPress and almost certainly attract a sizeable number of new users.

Of course, there’s lot of ways this could go down. But, I for one am looking forward to see how this progresses.

Thanks for reading! What do you think of the new Pickle project? I’d love to know your thoughts on it.

John Morris is a freelance web design strategist who helps other web designers get more clients so they can make more, work less, and be happier.

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