Multidisciplinary maker specializing in the intersection of product, design and engineering. Making WordPress.
WordPress 6.5, scheduled to land on March 26th, 2024, is actively underway. My friend Anne shared Roadmap to 6.5 on the Make WordPress blog, detailing the ambitious goals for the first major release of next year.
The marquee planned additions are the font library, colorways, patterns for classic themes, data views for templates and patterns, more robust revisions, the Interactivity, Custom fields, and Block binding APIs.
Lots to look forward to.
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I recently worked with Ben Dwyer on an exploration to surface a WordPress block theme’s existing colors and typesets within the site editor. He made a video detailing the effort—give it a watch, it’s pretty cool.
What I like best is that any theme using variations inherit this capability right off. Folks can then choose any combination of color or typography among the variations.
What do you think?
Like the nuanced brushstrokes of a painting or the delicate notes of a melody, tiny details often go unnoticed, yet they play a key role in profoundly shaping creative outcomes.
In the realm of design and product, these tiny details are essential catalysts for curating thoughtful experiences.
Subtle animations, uniform copy, cohesive design metrics, and harmonious micro-interactions all come together seamlessly to level-up an application into a delightful user experience.
You might not see tiny details, but you certainly feel them.
Tiny details are not just embellishments; they are the cornerstone of design. And it’s in these seemingly insignificant tiny details that we transform mediocrity into excellence.
Such attentiveness to detail is absolutely vital, as the antithesis of tiny details is carelessness—which leads to outcomes that feel unfinished and unintuitive.
So, sweat the tiny details; they matter more than you think.
I had the pleasure of working with so many great folks to bring the Twenty Twenty-Four default WordPress theme to fruition.
In this post shared on automattic.design, I chatted with designer Beatriz Fialho and code wrangler Maggie Cabrera on how Twenty Twenty-Four was designed and engineered to be the most best out-of-the-box WordPress experience to date.
Failure is a vital part of the iterative process. An invitation to introspection. An indispensable role in exploration and creativity.
To fail is to learn—provided one seeks to learn. When we fail, we face an opportunity to sharpen our focus, unearth solutions, and gradually inch closer to our goals.
Software development (i.e. problem solving) is centered on eliminating variables, i.e. failing. Failing as many times as it takes, until a solution in narrowed into view.
That’s just how it works. That’s how most things work. Rather than a symbol of defeat, failure represents a testament to progress.
So don’t fear failure; invite it in. These are the moments where you—and your team—become better.
Fail often. Fail fast.
My friend and colleague Anne McCarthy recently published a guide on what’s landing in this next iteration of the command palette. This next iteration of the WordPress Command Palette is looking so nice. New commands, a polished interface, and more accessible — what more can you ask for?
And if you’re a plugin developer, lean into Riad Benguella’s WordPress Command Palette API post to add your own commands, and peruse the core commands, straight from the source. Some days it feels like WordPress 6.3 just landed, but 6.4 is shaping up quite nicely. Onward!
WordPress 6.3 is packed with new features and loads of enhancements to help you publish faster with WordPress. Here’s my take on the most interesting parts of this release.
Something that’s been on my mind lately is the notion of working on what matters: placing one’s best effort, in the best direction, for the best return.
In the realm of creativity and innovation, there exists a dichotomy between pursuing meaningful work and getting bogged down by the trivial. Those distractions masquerade as progress, creating an illusion of productivity where, in reality, the inconsequential bits detract from the potential of monumental impact.
Focus on true progress—progress that emerges as a beacon of purpose—regulate distractions, and build something that matters, like WordPress.
I ran into this Twitter thread on “how WordPress is all wrong for your SMB site in 2023”. Well, here’s my counter. If you’re not using WordPress for your site in 2023, you’re probably doing it wrong. Here’s why WordPress is probably right for you.
I made this video to showcase building a dynamic Gutenberg block with the help of artificial intelligence using ChatGPT.
I run through how to scaffold a block using the wordpress/create-block package, structuring a dynamic block, building the block, and using ChatGPT to write an accompanying PHP function.
