Premium Analytics: remove the page descriptions and the section header date subtitle

[retrofox]

Fixes WOOA7S-2027

Proposed changes

This removes them from the three places they rendered, along with the plumbing that only existed to carry them.

• Report pages: the subTitle each page passed to ReportPageShell, and the getDescription entries in the report registry, which nothing read.
• Dashboard: the per-section description rendered as the Page subtitle above the tab bar. The field comes out of the section registration, the Dashboard_Section model, the REST schema and the DashboardSection type, so a section can no longer register one. The distinct section title (Site traffic for the Traffic tab) stays.
• Section header: the subtitle describing the applied date configuration (Tuesday, July 21 – Monday, July 27 (7 days, daily) vs. …). The recap moves the exact range to a tooltip on the date controls, so the header keeps the title and the controls only, and getSectionSubtitle goes with it. condenseOnScroll still steps the title down a size once the header pins; there is no row left to collapse.

This undoes the description half of #51092 and the subtitle from #50897. formatDateRangeLong and getDateRangeSpan stay in @jetpack-premium-analytics/formatters for the tooltips WOOA7S-2024 and WOOA7S-2028 add.

Until those tooltips land, the compared period is readable only by its preset name on the comparison control, and the active chart interval only from the interval menu.

Screenshots

Dashboard, Traffic tab:

Before	After

Reports page:

Before	After

Related product discussion/links

• Linear: WOOA7S-2027, in the "Jetpack Stats v2: Revised date range picker" project.
• Eder's 26 August recap on the Unified Analytics P2, under "Other adjustments": "Remove all the page descriptions. We want to reduce noise as much as possible."

Does this pull request change what data or activity we track or use?

No.

Testing instructions

• Build the package: jetpack build --deps packages/premium-analytics.
• Open Stats (admin.php?page=jetpack-premium-analytics-wp-admin). Under the Stats page title there is no description on any tab. Each section header shows its title and the date controls, with no date range line under the title, and still condenses into the compact bar as you scroll.
• Open a report page (All pages, Emails, Videos, Tags & categories, All comments, Annual insights). The page header has no description under the breadcrumbs, and the section header carries the title and the range picker only.
• GET /wp-json/wpcom/v2/dashboards/analytics/sections returns no description key on any section.
• Storybook: Packages/Premium Analytics/UI/SectionHeader renders every story without a subtitle, and Packages/Premium Analytics/Routes/Dashboard/SectionsGrid shows no page description.

[github-actions]

Are you an Automattician? Please test your changes on all WordPress.com environments to help mitigate accidental explosions.

• To test on WoA, go to the Plugins menu on a WoA dev site. Click on the "Upload" button and follow the upgrade flow to be able to upload, install, and activate the Jetpack Beta plugin. Once the plugin is active, go to Jetpack > Jetpack Beta, select your plugin (Jetpack or WordPress.com Site Helper), and enable the update/remove-analytics-page-descriptions branch.
• To test on Simple, run the following command on your sandbox:

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack update/remove-analytics-page-descriptions

bin/jetpack-downloader test jetpack-mu-wpcom-plugin update/remove-analytics-page-descriptions

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  • Scheduled release: September 7, 2026

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[Nikschavan]

Thank you, the changes look good. I left one question inline about the chart interval.

[Nikschavan]

With the subtitle gone, the active bucket is no longer readable without opening the interval menu: the trigger is a glyph and its accessible name is the fixed Chart interval (date-interval-dropdown.tsx#L66). WOOA7S-2024 and WOOA7S-2028 cover the period and the comparison tooltips, but neither names the interval. Is there a ticket for it, or would folding the current value into the trigger label cover it for now?

[retrofox]

No ticket covers it. Going through the WOOA7S-1793 children: 2024 is the period tooltip, 2028 the comparison one, and 2026 is what moved the interval behind the button in the first place. None of them names the active bucket.

The design does treat the interval as secondary on purpose: the 26 August recap asks it to "always default to a recommended option based on the selected range, only needed if users want to adjust it", and that default already ships. getAllowedIntervalsByRange() returns the buckets a range allows, default first, and several ranges allow exactly one, so there the control has nothing to choose.

What is not intentional is the asymmetry you are pointing at: the period and the comparison each get their exact value on a tooltip, and the interval gets nothing. So yes, folding the value into the trigger label covers it. IconButton's label renders both as the tooltip and as the accessible name, so Chart interval: Days gives the interval the same hover surface its two siblings get, with no text back on the face.

I'll do it in #51708, which already rewrites that trigger onto the design system Menu and renames the buckets to Days / Weeks / Months, which composes better into that string. Keeping it out of this PR so the two don't collide.

[jp-launch-control]

Code Coverage Summary

Coverage changed in 6 files. Only the first 5 are listed here.

File	Coverage	Δ%	Δ Uncovered
projects/packages/premium-analytics/packages/datetime/src/presets/comparison.ts	8/10 (80.00%)	-20.00%	2 ❤️‍🩹
projects/packages/premium-analytics/packages/widgets-toolkit/src/components/report-page/report-page-layout.tsx	2/2 (100.00%)	0.00%	0 💚
projects/packages/premium-analytics/routes/dashboard/stage.tsx	35/40 (87.50%)	-1.63%	0 💚
projects/packages/premium-analytics/src/class-dashboard-section.php	48/48 (100.00%)	0.00%	0 💚
projects/packages/premium-analytics/src/dashboard-sections.php	201/207 (97.10%)	-0.13%	0 💚

Full summary · PHP report · JS report