Shaping WordPress: AI, Colors & Typography
I received so much good feedback about the first issue of Shaping WordPress, thank you for the kind words.
If you’re new here, welcome to Shaping WordPress, where I share every couple weeks what’s top of my mind and what’s shaping up for WordPress. Subscribe if you haven’t already.
AI website builder I’m in on
Automattic, my employer and the the parent company of WordPress.com, is experimenting with an AI website builder for WordPress called Big Sky. I’d say it’s pretty neat. Each of these screenshots below were generated from prompts:
The interplay of AI and WordPress has been gaining more traction recently, with the likes of CodeWP, Kadence AI, ZipWP, Jetpack, and many more jumping into the mix—each with their own spin on how AI integrates with WordPress.
I’ve had the opportunity to work with the Big Sky team, helping to unlock how AI can become an invaluable tool for launching, designing, and managing WordPress websites.
It’s very much in active development, but if you’re curious, sign up for the Big Sky beta.
One big thing I’m working on
Now that the technical implementation is in place, I’ve been leaning in on improving the experience around color and typography variations, to prep for WordPress 6.6.
So why does this matter?
When I think of building a website, I think of the combination of content and style, assembled together to create an intentional message. We have themes, and we have variations of themes; why not abstract further to boost creative expression without introducing technical burdens?
Out-of-the-box, themes will have a broader range of color palettes and typography options, allowing for many creative permutations, without additional effort from theme designers. Plus, changing colors or typography across an existing website is much less concerning than changing a theme entirely.
WordPress is becoming more composable than ever, especially now that blocks, patterns, and styles can be assembled independently.
Three ideas I’m pushing forward
- Should the Block Inserter remain open, until you close it? Potentially so, although we’d likely loose the current UX of focusing immediately on the Inserter search field. What do you think? Is it worth the cost?
- Not small by any means, but I’ve been working alongside contributors on explorations for a zoomed-out page composition view. It reduces the granularity of editing, simplifies selection, rearranging, removing, and styling of entire sections of a page at a time. You should expect to read more about this in my next issue.
- It’s still confusing when global padding is applied throughout pages, patterns, and templates. I’d like it to be much more predictable, also allowing for better interoperability for patterns—as designers wouldn’t need to apply fixed left and right padding values to them. Here’s the pull request if you’d like to test it out so far.
Posts I published
- Wait…did WordPress development get good?! A reminder that there is often more to the latest clickbait WordPress narrative making the rounds.
- WordPress & Iteration. Iteration is all about relentless improvement; not just fixing what’s broken. It involves striking the right balance between innovation and problem-solving, one that fosters sustainable forward-moving progress.
Interesting conversations I’ve shared
- Fellow contributor Anne McCarthy hosted a Hallway Hangout with Saxon Fletcher and I, where we each shared a bit on the bigger ideas in flight today.
- I did a video with Dave Smith, walking through the more interesting bits landing in WordPress soon.
- I was recently a guest on WP-Tonic, where we talked about joining Automattic, contributing to WordPress, pitching big ideas, and the future of Gutenberg.
That’s everything for now.
If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, help me spread the word by sharing this with a friend. Your feedback is always welcome. Reply here, or reach me on X/Twitter. Is there anything you want to read more, or less, of? Until next time.
Rich