Styling blocks: Color panel descriptions are ambiguous

[jameskoster]

Navigate to: Styles > Blocks > Button > Colors > Background and you see the following UI:

From the description, you might interpret the change to affect the whole site rather than just the Button block.

The Text panel is similar:

This feels a bit buggy, and could do with some attention.

[jameskoster]

A couple of options:

Contextual descriptions:

Set a background color or gradient for Buttons.

Set the default color used for Button text across the site

Less explicit descriptions

Set a background color or gradient

Set the text color

Add context to the panel UI

The current descriptions might not be so ambiguous if there was something to indicate what it is you're styling:

cc @WordPress/gutenberg-design

[richtabor]

It's not in scope, but we could use a better panel navigation — breadcrumbs style perhaps — which would add the context needed to know where you're at, and what you're doing.

Like Styles > Button > Text or such.

[richtabor]

Set a background color or gradient for Buttons.

Do you think just saying Set the default background for Button blocks is clear enough?

I wasn't thinking we'd need "default", but we probably do - as this change won't affect any button block with modified background/text attributes.

[jameskoster]

Breadcrumbs aren't perfect, but I agree something like that could help with orientation. @SaxonF has shared such concepts before.

I wasn't thinking we'd need "default", but we probably do - as this change won't affect any button block with modified background/text attributes.

Good point, we also need to consider style variations. IE:

Set the default background for Outline Button blocks

So now the description has to include the block name, and the chosen style variation where applicable. Is the additional logic worthwhile, or would a generic description ("Set a background color") be better? More radical: Do we actually need a description in this context? Doesn't the navigational path make it obvious what you're doing?

[SaxonF]

Worth exploring what a breadcrumb approach might look like. From previous explorations:

Difficulty will be when working with longer block names.

Related question, why does the global block panel differ from the local block panel?

[jameskoster]

Related question, why does the global block panel differ from the local block panel?

That's a very good question. It would probably solve a lot of issues (including this one) if they were the same.

[jameskoster]

No longer an issue :)