Provide users with an easy-to-access action to create content from the toolbar [#1847116]

Problem/Motivation

We should provide a short path or users to add content to their site from the toolbar.

Adding content to a site is a primary task and one that has traditionally been difficult to do for new Drupal users. See the usability studies video from Baltimore in 2009 for evidence.

The need for adding this path was originally cited in the initial responsive toolbar issue: #1137920-313: Fix toolbar on small screen sizes and redesign toolbar for desktop, #1137920-328: Fix toolbar on small screen sizes and redesign toolbar for desktop, #1137920-330: Fix toolbar on small screen sizes and redesign toolbar for desktop

Proposed resolution

Northstar designs by tkoleary include an Add tab with a tray that includes the content types that one can add.

Remaining tasks

Agreement on the design approach.
Determine what existing module should implement hook_toolbar on behalf of the Add tab.

User interface changes

The addition of a new top-level Add tab to the toolbar.

API changes

Potentially but not likely. Unknown at present.

Original report by jessebeach

Comment	File	Size	Author
	toolbar-add-button.png	75.21 KB	jessebeach

Comments

Comment #1

shyamala commented 22 November 2012 at 17:12

Issue tags:

+Needs design review, +#d8ux, +toolbar-followup

tagging

Comment #2

Bojhan commented 23 November 2012 at 12:16

Issue tags:

+Usability

My concern in earlier design specs around this, that it largely duplicates the purpose of Shortcuts. With that creating two containers, where we might end up by default with one hardly used anymore.

This path is actually equally fast as clicking Shortcuts, so I do not see how this issue relates to the solution proposed.

Comment #3

David_Rothstein commented 24 June 2013 at 03:35

This issue was originally supposed to be a major followup to #1137920: Fix toolbar on small screen sizes and redesign toolbar for desktop but was filed as normal. However, I just bumped #1852346: [discussion, no patch] Toolbar UI regression: shortcuts and menu not visible at same time to major rather than this one, since it seems to better identify the root cause. (The problem is really more about the extra clicks required to access any shortcut, not just "Add content" although that is probably the most prominent example.)

As for the design in this issue, my questions would be:

If "Add" opens up a tray, how do you get to the main "Add content" page itself (node/add)?
If the link just says "Add" rather than "Add content", won't people expect to be able to add other things (such as users) here too?