How to customize the WordPress dashboard for a client

How to customize the WordPress dashboard for a client? Find out in this tutorial.

As a WordPress developer, you've probably had to write a lot of complex code to create a website perfect for your client. But if you take a moment to think about it, an average WordPress user usually only deals with posts. Why complicate the dashboard with unnecessary information (for him)?

More often than not, your customers want an easy-to-manage interface for day-to-day tasks. While WordPress is already pretty straightforward, we can simplify it even further and increase its usability for business owners who don't have the time to learn everything from scratch.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through a few simple steps to customize the WordPress dashboard.

But before, if you have never installed WordPress discover How to Install a WordPress Blog in 7 Steps et How to search, install and activate a WordPress theme on your blog

Then let's go back and cLet's start with the basics.

Some preliminary steps

In this section, we're going to go over some of the first things you need to do afterWordPress installation. 

Skipping these preliminary steps could potentially cause persistent problems in the future.

Add primary security

One of the first things you are going to have to do is set up basic security measures like changing admin username and changing login page url. Adding brute force protection will allow you to improve the level of security on the website.

Adding users and assigning roles

The next thing you need to do is manage the user roles. WordPress allows webmasters to give the user a specific role that suits the job they will be doing. You can assign the role: editors, authors, administrator or subscriber (although he has no real power).

The important thing to understand here is that each user has freedoms and restrictions when it comes to accessing the WordPress dashboard. Only the administrator has the privilege to set default user roles, so make sure you are logged in with this account.

Go further with these 8 premium WordPress plugins to manage roles and users

These basic things should be your first priority when it comes to developing sites for customers, to make the use of WordPress much more user-friendly, we will now explore some actions you can do.

Customize the dashboard

After going through the basics, you may want to think about other possibilities to further simplify the dashboard. What must be done is to put sensitive configurations away from the customer who does not have control.

Hide the Tools menu

The sidebar of the WordPress dashboard is very useful and offers several options. However, you are in a situation where you want to make the website more ergonomic.

// remove_menu_page ('tools.php'); Remove_menu_page ('tools_php'); }} Add_action ('admin_menu', 'remove_menus');

By putting this simple line of code in your file functions.phpyou will be able to hide the menu Tools, visible only by the administrator.

See also How to display different menus to user roles on WordPress

Enable Quick Tips

Another useful thing to improve the customer experience on a WordPress blog is to provide additional help and quick advice. You can do this through custom widgets which displays a brief and useful message. Giving useful tips in the dashboard can provide much needed help to customers who are new to WordPress.

Disable file editing

Reserve all the customizations and sensitive features that should not come under the control of the inexperienced customer. You need to hide any option that is not of any use to the client or users, for example, theme options and plugins.

Once you have created the website according to your customer's request and specifications, you can set the parameters to prevent users from accidentally changing your work.

define ( 'DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT', true);

This simple line of code allows web developers to prohibit any user from tampering with plugin and theme files. All you have to do is add this line of code to your file wp-config.php.

If more than one person accesses the website, you can limit user access to the dashboard. This is particularly useful when the website is intended to have authors or contributors.

// Redirect non-admin users away from dashboard to a custom URL function acme_login_redirect ($ redirect_to, $ request, $ user) {return (is_array ($ user-> roles) && in_array ('administrator', $ user-> roles) )? admin_url (): site_url (); } add_filter ('login_redirect', 'acme_login_redirect', 10, 3); }

By pasting this code directly into your file functions.phpyou will be reassured that users will not make important changes.

Some plugins to better personalize the WordPress dashboard

Maintaining your site is much safer than ever in terms of security and free from accidental changes to settings, the fact remains that for a client, the look of the WordPress dashboard is still pretty raw (complicated). In this section, we will introduce you to some plugins in order to improve the customer user experience. We're going to add themes for the dashboard and make some small changes.

1. White Label CMS

Here's another plugin that lets you customize a lot of things on the dashboard. For example, you can hide unnecessary menus to improve the user experience of your website.

You can choose from 3 models of layouts that allow you to completely customize the look of your dashboard. You can also add a custom logo for the headers or footer in case the customer wants their new website to use their brand images.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

Some themes WordPress for the dashboard

1. Everest Admin Theme

Everest Admin Theme is a WordPress Plugin which allows you to give the dashboard of your website a different appearance than that offered natively by the latter.

While WordPress is great, several people might want to change the look of this dashboard to remove all mention of WordPress.

This powerful WordPress Plugin therefore allows you to do this quite easily by offering you the possibility to give it a completely different look, by rearranging the menus and other elements. It gives you full control over your dashboard.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

2. Material

Material Admin is one of WordPress plugins the most advanced and elegant on the market when it comes to customizing the WordPress dashboard.

Ce WordPress Plugin comes with 100 stylish themes and gives you the option to create your own theme. You will be able to control the complete appearance of the dashboard menu, top bar, buttons, typography, forms, text and background colors, logo, etc…

Material Admin also has more than 20 custom dashboard widgets for your website and displays statistics for visitors.

Download | Demo | Web hosting

3. Ultra WordPress Admin Theme

Ultra Admin is a WordPress plugin that brings life to your dashboard. Like the previous plugin, it comes with nearly 30 professionally designed and fully customizable themes. It is compatible with LTR and RTL modes and can be used for all languages.

You'll have the ability to control the appearance of the main WordPress menu, take control of the top bar, buttons, content areas, typography, forms, text colors and background , logo, etc ...

In short, this plugin will offer you to: reorganize the menu and submenu items, modify the menu icons and the links on the top bar, customize the footer, modify the access permissions of the plugins, etc ...

Download | Demo | Web hosting

recapitulation

After going through all these procedures, your WordPress website should be ready to use. You will have applied the default security measures, and on top of that, the dashboard will be much more user-friendly.

We've covered the basics of customizing the WordPress dashboard for your clients. Fortunately, you are now in a position to take things a step further.

• How to customize the WooCommerce thank you page
• How to create a responsive menu for mobile WordPress
• How to duplicate your pages on WordPress: The tutorial
• How to write an irresistible article introduction