Rich Tabor

Design. Engineering. Product.

2023 Year in Review

Well, we made it. Welcome to 2024.

Last year was one of those years that will hold an impact far beyond from what I realize today. 2023 was a year of change, connection, exploration, and meaningfulness.

Working

I kicked off the year joining Automattic.

Automattic fosters an environment where everyone is encouraged to share ideas, work across teams, and consistently challenge the status quo. It’s right up my ally and I feel like I’m contributing in a meaningful way, producing meaningful output.

I’ve contributed to WordPress in some fashion for over a decade now, but 2023 was different. Focusing on the project nearly exclusively, and with more collaborators than ever, I’ve hit a stride that is equal parts challenging and rewarding.

Notably, I was the Design Lead for WordPress 6.2 and 6.3, and a major contributor to the widely acclaimed default WordPress theme, Twenty Twenty-Four.

Traveling (73,770 miles)

I’ve had the opportunity to travel all over the world for team meetups (and WordCamps), broadening my horizon quite a bit.

I covered just about 74k miles and having visited 6 countries:

A stylized infographic from the Flighty app, which tracks flights. It resembles a passport and provides a summary of Rich Tabor's flight activity, including the number of flights taken, total distance flown, flight time, number of airports visited, and the airlines flown with.

Automattic:

  • Malaysia 🇲🇾
  • Vienna, Austria 🇦🇹
  • Seville, Spain 🇪🇸
  • Málaga, Spain 🇪🇸
  • Playa del Carmen, Mexico 🇲🇽

WordCamps

Personal

  • Yurimaguas, Peru 🇵🇪
  • Panama City, Florida 🇺🇸
  • Manassas, Virginia 🇺🇸

I enjoyed every trip, meeting hundreds of passionate WordPress contributors from all over the world.

Contributing is about connecting; meeting the people behind the ideas and pull requests. These meetups help to build relationships, encourage collaboration, and provide space to review and plan.

A few of my favorite photos from all over:

Interior view of a modern building featuring a large window with a patterned glass design, casting shadows on an orange carpeted floor. The sunlight filters through, creating a warm, bright atmosphere with a view of trees and a blue sky outside.
Black and white image looking up at the vaulted ceiling of a gothic cathedral, showing detailed brickwork and a religious sculpture.
Ancient step pyramid (El Castillo) at the archaeological site of Chichen Itza, with green grass in the foreground and a sunburst through trees.
Coastal scene at twilight with a calm sea, clear sky gradient from blue to orange, and a striped lighthouse in the distance.
View from the bottom of a cave or sinkhole looking up towards the sky, with lush vegetation and a bird in flight visible through the opening.
Symmetrical arches reflecting on water in an underground architectural structure, creating a tunnel-like effect.
Aerial view of a densely packed city (Athens, Greece), with modern buildings, under a clear blue sky with distant mountains on the horizon.
A narrow European street with traditional buildings under a clear blue sky, leading to a view of a historic church tower in the background.

Blogging

I moved my blog to WordPress.com and re-designed it, twice. Design is iterative, I suppose.

My blog is much simpler, and more feed-like, with nice filters by topic at the top. I wrote a few custom blocks—like the comment count avatars and a better “read more” block that looks more like the link cards we all know from social.

And I tossed aside the more “heavy-handed” SEO plugins for a simple function that covers the bases. And another function to supply a fallback social featured image, so I don’t have worry about creating those for most posts anymore.

My goal with these changes was to reduce the barriers to publishing and create a space more conducive to writing.

These small iterations allow for a quicker, more effortless publishing flow, where posting is less of a “list of things to do” and more about writing.

I really like it now. It’s precise, yet welcoming.

Writing

Speaking of writing, I published 12 posts this year and had just over 65k views. And since re-designing my blog late last year, I’ve published seven of those posts—those efforts on reducing publish workload seem to be working.

My most popular posts of 2023 were:

I like this spread. I’ve been intentional about sharing product and leadership commentary. My personal favorites are “Tiny details” and “Fail fast” — perspectives you may have come across if you follow me on Github or X/Twitter.

Posting on X (formally Twitter)

I published much more on X throughout 2023, and it shows.

I’ve had the biggest year yet, nearly doubling followers (+8k), and increasing impressions by 1600% to 1.8 million.

The release threads I publish were by far the most popular:

If you’re not following me, I’m @richtabor on X. I share all about WordPress, blocks, design, and product.

Follow me if you’re into those kind of things.

Reading

My top reads of 2023 are:

I’m kicking off 2024 with “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin and a couple biographies: “Michael Jordan: The Life” by Roman Lazenby and “Elon Musk” by Walter Isaacson.

Life

We’ve had a great year in the Tabor household. I’ve particularly enjoyed playing Lego with the girls, pretending to be the Tooth Fairy a couple times, traveling to Athens, Greece and Yurimagaus, Peru with my wife, Jesse.

A brown, curly-haired small dog (Cavapoo) resting on a textured pink cushion with a soft-focus background.
A family of four in a forest setting, with two young girls, a seated woman, and a man crouching, all smiling and dressed in autumn colors.
Close-up of a smiling man and woman, with the woman wearing a cap and both looking off to the side.

To top off the year, here’s me playing guitar in my city’s Christmas concert:

2023 sure was one for the books.

How was your year? Comment with your own year in reviews; I enjoy reading those.

All years: 2019, 2018, 2017