Restore the terms 'Permalink' and 'Slug' in the PostURl user interface

[afercia]

Description

Splitting this out from #56381 (comment)

In #60632 some long-established temrinology regartding the 'post permalink' has been changed. I'm not sure there has been a broader discussion to validate whether these changes are any good for users. I'd liek to start a broader discussion about that.

Current state on trunk, where the new UI uses the term 'Link':

While I'd agree that, if I had to explain tp a complete newbie or to non-tech-savvy users what to edit here, I would use the most simple phrasing e.g. 'Edit the post link', I'd also note that, for ages, WordPress has been using its own specific terminology:

Permalink

The term 'permalink' has been for ages one of the most prominent terminology used in WordPress. For years, it appeared right below the post title, in a very prominent place:

Even though it's a somewhat 'technical' term, WordPress users are very familiar with what a 'Permalink' is.

The admin menu uses the same term under Settings > Permalinks at wp-admin/options-permalink.php

Slug

The term 'Slug' or 'URL Slug' has been used in WordPress for ages as well. I can count around 30 occurrences of the term 'slug' used within transtlatable strings.

Sometimes this term is used for objects other than a post, such as plugins, widgets, patterns, font collections, etc. Regardless, it's a widely used term and WordPress users are familiar with it.

Concerns

#60632 changed the terms used in the 'edit permalink' user interface after very little discussion. I'm not sure such changes should be done that lightly. I'm not aprioristically opposed to changes but I definitely think changes that impact long established conventions should be validated by user testing. In absence of user testing that validates the proposed change performs better, we should just avoid to introduce such changes.

In this specific case, personally I don't see a good reason for this change.

Also, I'd like to point out the new terminology 'Link' is technically incorrect. Boht in the settings panel and in the popover, 'Link' is now the label for the last part of the URL However, in this UI, users can edit the last part of the URL. they can't edit the 'Link'. In everyday's language, although a little incorrectly, the term 'Link' is used to indicate the full URL.

Overall, my question is: why change these terms? In which way this change makes the user experience any better?

I would say a more wise approach would be to not change long established conventions. Although both terms 'permalink' and 'slug' are a little technical, to me there's no good reason to stop using them. Rather, the Editor UI should a better job to explain new users what they are about.

More screenshots of the admin UI where the Permalink and Slug terms are still in use:

Step-by-step reproduction instructions

• Edit a published post (to make sure it has a saved slug).
• In the Post settings panel, observe the slug is now called 'Link'.
• Click the slug to open the popover.
• Observe the popover title is 'Link'.
• Observe the input field has an aria-label attribute 'Link'.

Screenshots, screen recording, code snippet

No response

Environment info

No response

Please confirm that you have searched existing issues in the repo.

Yes

Please confirm that you have tested with all plugins deactivated except Gutenberg.

Yes

[afercia]

Previously in WordPress 6.5:

The Post panel settings shows, or at least attempts to show, the full URL. This is actually what WordPress calls the 'permalink', i.e. the full URL:

In the popover, the term 'permalink' is used incorrectly because that's actually the slug:

[afercia]

For some history: at the beginning of this Gutenberg project, the 'Permalink UI' has been discussed at length. To make an informed decision, I would suggest everyone to do some GitHub archeology and read the discussions on the issues and PRs related to the permalink UI.

The root issue with the permalink UI is that the post URL may be very long. In order to show the full URL, the permalink UI should be placed in a spot that provides sufficient width to show long content. The settings panel is, by its own nature, limited in width.

As a consequence, efforts have been made to attempt to display the permalink in a 'smart way', which resulted in truncating the text. However, that is less than ideal.

In 6.5., this (truncated permalink in the settings panel):

Is clearly less usable then the UI in the Classic editor, which does a better job to show long URLs:

Also, the Classic Permalink UI uses some smart handling of long URLs to attempt to display only the relevant parts, as explained in #61158

Basically, until 6.5 the Gutenberg editor hasn't solved yet this problem and users can't see the full permalink in the UI.

The latest changes on trunk make things worse because the UI now shows only the slug.

There is no way to see the full post permalink.

I would say that, even before any accessibility consideration, this is a serious usability and design issue.

I would like to suggest to use some lateral thinking and try to solve the root issue instead of the symptoms.

Rather than trying to 'squeeze' the content in a limited-width UI, I think it's time to consider to move the permalink UI to a different place. A place in the editor UI that provides way more horizontal space. Clearl, not a side panel.

[afercia]

Additionally, also the toggle button that opens the PostURL popover is labeled incorrectly.

Imagine you're editing a post with title 'Hello World'.
As such, the permalink of your post is https://myawesomesite.org/hello-world/.

The toggle button that opens the popover will be labeled with aria-label="Change link: hello-world", which is clearly incorrect because 'hello-world' is not a link.