Site Editor inconsistencies with section labels, descriptions, and "Add new" buttons

[ndiego]

The user experience in the Site Editor (or anywhere in the Admin) should feel intuitive and consistent. The Site Editor is still very much in flux, especially with the ongoing work on Data Views, but I'm opening this issue to document a few enhancements that are hopefully relatively easy to implement.

Sidebar

Templates	Pages	Patterns

Notice how:

• Templates and Pages labels are prefixed by "Manage"
• Pages does not have a description like the others
• The Pattern sidebar includes a + icon to add new Patterns (more about this in a minute)

"Add new" functionality

The way new templates, pages, and patterns are added is quite inconsistent.

Templates (Desktop)	Pages (Desktop)

Patterns (Desktop)

Notice how:

• Templates and Pages both have an "Add new..." button that is present outside of the Sidebar
• Patterns has the + icon to add new Patterns in the Sidebar.
• The label for the template button is "Add New Template" and the label for pages is "Add new page". Capitalization should be consistent.
• The labels are "Templates", "Pages", and "All patterns".
• Patterns has a description below the label, but the other pages don't.

This implementation adds additional issues on mobile devises. While you can add templates and pages via the button, since the Patterns page does not have the button, there is no way to add new patterns (you cannot access the Sidebar on mobile, which is where the + icon lives, see #62106).

Templates (Mobile)	Pages (Mobile)	Patterns (Mobile)

These screenshots were generated using Playground with WordPress 6.5 and Gutenberg 18.4.1.

[ndiego]

cc @jasmussen @richtabor

[jasmussen]

Good one. CC: @jameskoster as well.

[t-hamano]

The Pattern sidebar includes a + icon to add new Patterns

I think this has been improved by #60302. In Gutenberg version 18.5, the UI should look something like this:

[jameskoster]

The 'Manage...' prefixes were to differentiate between the dark sidebar lists and the management views in 6.5:

Given the dark sidebar lists are removed for 6.6, there's no need for the prefixes any more. Let's remove them 👍

[jameskoster]

The descriptions could use an audit. Currently they inform about what you can do, actions you can take in the section. This is consistent with the root 'Design' panel.

However, capturing everything one can do in data views is a bit tricky beyond "Manage your pages", the scope is so broad. Is it worth updating this to be more informational, IE explaining what pages/templates/patterns are, or perhaps removing the descriptions altogether?