Making your posts more beautiful
Here at WordPress.com we care about making things look good. Automattic, Inc., our parent company, invests heavily in design: every engineering team has a full-time designer. We know making things look and feel great is important and we love making things people love to use.
Over the last few weeks we’ve studied the most popular features people add to their blogs. Things like Sharing, Likes and Ratings. Previously when you turned them on it made your blog look cluttered, defeating the purpose of the features themselves. This made us sad.
After much research, prototyping and testing by Beau and Hugo, we’ve released a simplified, more attractive design. These features now appear as friends, lining up in orderly columns, sharing attractive styles and working together to get you the activity from your visitors you want to have.
You may notice the designs for individual buttons have changed. One specific difference is now the ‘smart button’ setting is now global (renamed “Official Buttons”) and not per button. If you had mixed buttons before, you’ll now have them unified. This was a necessary tradeoff to make the larger design changes possible.
We think you and your visitors will appreciate this new design. If you haven’t used features like Sharing before, now is a great time to turn them on.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Good work! Like it.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
Excellent addition. The simple change is so very effective.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
Is it just me or you can’t “like” with Facebook anymore?
August 11th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Looking at your blog at http://annjoo.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/anytime-for/, The Facebook like button is there, right where it should be, and works fine.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
August 11th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Aww! Please don’t be sad! The improvement is truly beautiful.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
It looks beautiful, thank you!
August 11th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
“like” button is not working on my blog anymore. It has turned into an ordinary Facebook button which only shares posts. Why???
August 11th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
If you switch to “Official Buttons”, then the button is now a Like button. In the text/icon only modes, it’s a standard share button.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Much nicer now than before!
August 11th, 2011 at 10:52 pm
Looks good – except the Google+ button. That one looks out of place with the rest.
August 12th, 2011 at 12:01 am
Indeed. Sometimes its hard to get all the buttons to get along. We’ll get this fixed soon.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
Its very good! It really is beautiful.
August 11th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
I love the way that changes happen before your eyes, this is a definite improvement – thanks!
August 11th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
It looks great thank you!
August 11th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Only problem is the Google+1 does not align properly with the Facebook and Twitter buttons which have a different button height.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Hi Linear: You have a good eye. We’re aware of this small problem and will fix it soon. Thanks.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
About time, glad to see you guys looking out for these small details wrongly presented and correcting them. Thanks
August 11th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
Much more aesthetically pleasing! A bit confusing when I first saw them w/o the benefit of having read this post, but much nicer than it was before. One suggestion: I think that in your mention of the “unified” buttons, you should mention the button styles available & where to find them. I’m not sure I would have understood how to change the different button types if someone else hadn’t mentioned it in a forum post. To display smart buttons, go here: Settings > Sharing > Button style > Official buttons.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Great work! I always thought the sharing scheme was too cluttered before…this is a big improvement. Thanks!
August 11th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Yep, that’s a keeper!
August 11th, 2011 at 11:39 pm
Yeah it looks nicer.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Nicely done. Thank you!
August 11th, 2011 at 11:42 pm
Thanks to MMadfan for a few instructions! I was just wondering when I read your input. Yea!
August 11th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
Beautiful sure, but there’s not the ‘Facebook like’ button anymore nor the ‘tweets counter’ button.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Hi Nick: If you have the official buttons on, you’ll still see the Facebook Like and the tweet counter on. I looked at your blog (itsvnews.com) and it looks to be working just fine.
August 11th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
I’m probably out of line here with this reply. I don’t know what I’m doing yet. I’m new to blogging and so… If the above is designed to show people something and if I missed the boat here, well sorry for this but I just wanted to respond to the words within ‘This is for you’ So I’m so warned but I don’t think my world is so precious that I must monitor and maximize each and every second of it. The other things I can do are nearly infinite. So! My life is rich and full. I’m am the only judge who can adjudicate that fact so just leave it alone. What are you talking about when you say there are things I’m supposed to be reading? Where is this rule book of yours which would tell me what to read, and why? As to your comment regarding thinking thoughts I’m supposed to think? What the hell is that all about? I don’t need to read any thing at all. Ask the newspapers how many are reading their products. Don’t you know people just don’t read much anymore…
August 11th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Ok, it seems I can’t read. Sorry
August 11th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
I love this! So clever.
August 12th, 2011 at 12:03 am
Looks good!
August 12th, 2011 at 12:11 am
Thank you for the email. Look forward to the ever improving workpress
I would say an overall success!
August 12th, 2011 at 12:22 am
This is great; it looks so much better!
August 12th, 2011 at 12:42 am
Very neat. I really like it. Thanks
August 12th, 2011 at 12:47 am
I LOVE IT!
It looks so much better.
Thank You and keep up the good work!
August 12th, 2011 at 1:02 am
Every day I’m more impressed by WordPress. My only request would be to have the new, cleaner buttons while retaining the counter. The counter is a subtle way of showing readers that there is some activity on the site. I’d like the best of both worlds, the new buttons and the counter..
August 12th, 2011 at 1:03 am
Is it possible to get an option in the Top Rated widget where the blogger can select which tab to show as a default?
It used to show Today as the default tab until you introduced All as a default first tab. I had to stop using it because my blog is a fast moving blog and I have no use to keep All as a default tab for this widget. This also made me remove Rating stars because it was useless.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:05 am
nice
August 12th, 2011 at 1:10 am
looks better,smaller less cluttered.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:14 am
That looks really nice. Thank you!
August 12th, 2011 at 1:22 am
Great work, thank you very much. Now it looks much cleaner.
Suggestion on the print button, could you think the way you print to print only the text of the article?
August 12th, 2011 at 1:43 am
This is pretty cool.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:49 am
Nice! Practical and simply labeled makes it easy to choose.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:52 am
This is useful 4 me,thanks
August 12th, 2011 at 1:53 am
you could have written something of value that would uplift people, an then their time would have been well-spent. A thought?
August 12th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Next time I promise to pick something sure to make everyone smile.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:56 am
Not to be a Debbie downer, but I don’t get it.
August 12th, 2011 at 1:57 am
I dosent works. In my Blog is writen only: Rate, but not Share. So the whole does not appear uniformly left-justified! It looks more mess than before!
August 12th, 2011 at 2:01 am
I have solved the problem. But i still like it more how it was before. Now there more lines, more unrest, more words…
August 12th, 2011 at 2:03 am
Love it. Beautiful. Thank you!!!!
August 12th, 2011 at 2:04 am
that’s more of an eye candy now..
thanks! 
August 12th, 2011 at 2:07 am
Sweet. Thanks for all your hard work!
August 12th, 2011 at 2:21 am
Hi Scott, thanks for at this. I too have social buttons at my blog posts, but they do not seem to be aligned properly and look cluttered. Please tell me some solution. Here is the address to my blog:http://cellcustomize.com
August 12th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Raakaysh: This update is for WordPress.com – It doesn’t appear your blog is hosted by us.
August 12th, 2011 at 2:34 am
I don’t have Sharing listed under my settings. What am I missing? Still learning how to use WordPress.
August 12th, 2011 at 2:36 am
I like it, but I don’t see the change in my page
Do I have to do anything or is it automatic?
August 12th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
Hi Honduras:
You currently have Sharing set to only appear on posts and pages, not on your main (index) page. If you go to any specific post, you’ll see them:
http://honduraspositiva.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/expresa-tus-sentimientos/
If you want Sharing to show on your main page as well, go to Settings, Sharing and set “Show buttons on” to be Posts, pages and index pages
August 12th, 2011 at 2:38 am
Never mind. Retract last statement. Figured it out. Installed Sharedaddy.
August 12th, 2011 at 2:47 am
Looks really bad on the K2-Lite theme :/
August 12th, 2011 at 2:57 am
Hi. Great looks! But…
1) My “LinkedIn” button isn’t loading, all the rest do, or maybe my connection is slow. 2) With these new changes, does the difference between normal buttons and smart buttons still exist? i.e. when people click, are these new buttons registering the clicks in the stats? Thanks
August 16th, 2011 at 12:16 am
Hi Rhonda: You can turn on the official buttons, which have the counts, by going to Settings, Sharing, and setting Button style to official.
August 12th, 2011 at 3:07 am
Nice and organized! Beautiful
August 12th, 2011 at 3:13 am
Thaks !! It’s great
August 12th, 2011 at 3:14 am
I like I like….keep up the awesome work
August 12th, 2011 at 3:14 am
WP.com is Great! Thanks!
August 12th, 2011 at 3:25 am
This improvement automatically fixed a bug in WPTouch mobile theme. When viewing with my mobile browsers, I did never see any sharing buttons on the posts or pages , however in general(nontouch) mobiles, in which WordPress Mobile Theme by Alex King works, there buttons were shown. Now, everything is okay and I can tweet, share via my touch phone because these beautiful buttons are there. I have a doubt, when I tweeted one post from my blog, ‘via @wordpressdotcom’ was suffixed with the tweet. Can I change or eliminate it?
August 12th, 2011 at 3:33 am
Excellent work – Keep it coming!
August 12th, 2011 at 3:34 am
I like it
August 12th, 2011 at 4:01 am
It’s so better than earlier.
August 12th, 2011 at 4:12 am
good job. keep working hard ^_^
August 12th, 2011 at 5:12 am
Awesome!
August 12th, 2011 at 5:18 am
Great job!
August 12th, 2011 at 5:20 am
Great, looks so much better!
August 12th, 2011 at 5:24 am
we are….. god team……oke
August 12th, 2011 at 5:48 am
…Se nota que el equipo de WordPress se preocupa por mejorar cada día. Great work!!!
August 12th, 2011 at 5:49 am
I really like this. It looks so much cleaner.
August 12th, 2011 at 5:54 am
How can I insert these features in my blog?
August 12th, 2011 at 5:55 am
Thanks again wordpress I really love this new feature. You are right – it does streamline the page and looks much better.
August 12th, 2011 at 6:04 am
it’s look very nice.. thanks
August 12th, 2011 at 6:21 am
Hi Beau, Many thanks – looks great. BTW – the friends are aligned in rows, not columns
August 12th, 2011 at 6:22 am
All very nice and good thinking. But its a very weird piece of text that comes along with the change….. couldnt you have picked a better text instead of “You just wasted 2 seconds bla bla. Is your life that empty bla bla…”
August 12th, 2011 at 6:29 am
Pretty organized! Loved it
August 12th, 2011 at 6:48 am
…yes,thank you for the email…
August 12th, 2011 at 6:48 am
Certainly adds beauty to a blog. Go tmine turned on and loving the effect. Thats great
August 12th, 2011 at 6:56 am
Like this. Posts look more neat now. First I got a shock when I found this on my homepage, too, in a place where I did not care to have it at all, but then remembered that I can still switch it off for a specific page so everything is just perfect right now.
August 12th, 2011 at 7:05 am
Thank goodness. I really didn’t like the way the ‘share this’ stuff looked when I put all the ones I wanted on there, so I felt I had to limit my selections for the sake of beauty. Now I can enable sharing with reckless abandon and no concern that beauty will suffer. Well done!
August 12th, 2011 at 7:08 am
Neat, Tidy, clear, AND aesthetically pleasing – win!
Sarah
August 12th, 2011 at 7:14 am
Thanx for sharing this info =)
August 12th, 2011 at 7:16 am
YES! Thanks!
August 12th, 2011 at 7:18 am
Looks better than the previous one.
August 12th, 2011 at 7:19 am
Very nice! I just noticed this today before I received this message and was really please. I appreciate these small but aesthetically pleasing changes! Thank you.
August 12th, 2011 at 7:31 am
Beautiful, but how i can add “Rate This” to my blog?
August 12th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
Howdy, check out this support doc on how to enable ratings: http://en.support.wordpress.com/ratings/
August 12th, 2011 at 7:43 am
thanks for sharing!
August 12th, 2011 at 7:51 am
Hi,
Gr8 work… Looks pretty cool than earlier… thanks! but font for “Rate this”, “Share this” & “Like” is increased automatically, which I couldn’t resolve in anyway… Plz help me out..
August 12th, 2011 at 8:10 am
Thanks for your efforts in polishing the already well-polished WordPress even further! I would like to ask if the option for Facebook “Like” button (with counts) and Twitter counts will be available again. These two features are quite important for us. Many thanks!
August 12th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
They are available – Just go to Settings.Sharing and Set Button style to Official Buttons.
August 12th, 2011 at 8:13 am
Unfortunately it screw up the font size for the ‘share this’ text.
August 12th, 2011 at 8:14 am
And google+1′s button it’s horizontally aligned.
August 12th, 2011 at 8:17 am
Good change. Many thanks
August 12th, 2011 at 8:24 am
I like the looks. But miss the numbers of twits on the page and find a little cheecky to have add /via @worldpress on all twits!!
August 12th, 2011 at 8:29 am
Much better! I like it.
But there is minor issue in my theme. there is no label “Share This”
for example
http://goosetea.wordpress.com/2011/07/17/2514/#respond
August 12th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
If you go to Settings, Sharing you can change the ‘Sharing label’ to say whatever you want. For some reason yours is currently blank.
August 12th, 2011 at 8:36 am
Please change the color of lines in dark color scheme.
August 12th, 2011 at 8:39 am
I noticed the changes but thought it had to do with something else, like my version of windows or internet explorer. I love it! K
August 12th, 2011 at 8:47 am
>>> If you switch to “Official Buttons”, then the button is now a Like button. In the text/icon only modes, it’s a standard share button.
Thanks for the tip, Beau! I was crazy trying to enable the FB Like.
August 12th, 2011 at 9:02 am
I should try this, thanks!
August 12th, 2011 at 9:15 am
You’ve convinced me. Just hope I can find out how to do it.