


<ul><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2022/10/25/themes-team-meeting-notes-october-25-2022/">Themes Team Meeting Notes –&nbsp;October 25, 2022</a></li></ul>



<h2 id="h-training"><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training">Training</a></h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/individual-learner-survey/">How did you learn WordPress?</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2022/10/25/meeting-agenda-for-october-25-2022/">Meeting Agenda for October 25, 2022</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2022/10/24/october-2022-monthly-faculty-meeting-agenda/">October 2022 Monthly Faculty Meeting Agenda</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2022/10/22/xpost-wordpress-org-redesign-update/">X-post: WordPress.org Redesign Update</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2022/10/22/managing-projects-and-terminology-dri/">Managing Projects and Terminology: DRI</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/training/2022/10/21/proposal-create-a-new-onboarding-experience-to-the-training-team/">Proposal: Create a new onboarding experience to the Training Team</a></li></ul>



<h3 id="h-tutorials">Tutorials</h3>



<ul><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/adding-a-contact-form-to-your-site/">Adding a Contact Form to Your Site</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/managing-settings-media/">Managing Settings: Media</a></li></ul>



<h3 id="h-online-workshops">Online Workshops</h3>



<ul><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=what-is-seo-search-engine-optimization">What is SEO? (Search Engine Optimization)</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=lets-code-global-styles-variations-in-block-themes">Let’s code! Global Styles Variations in Block Themes</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wordpress-development-live-stream-global-styles">WordPress development live stream: Global Styles</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=wordpress-roles-and-capabilities-2">WordPress Roles and Capabilities</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=block-theme-global-styles-customization-2">Block & Theme Global Styles Customization</a></li><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/?meeting=a-brief-history-of-wordpress-2">A Brief History of WordPress</a></li></ul>



<h3 id="h-courses">Courses</h3>



<ul><li><a href="https://learn.wordpress.org/course/develop-your-first-low-code-block-theme/">Develop Your First Low-Code Block Theme</a></li></ul>



<h2 id="h-wptv">WPTV</h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/1430">WordPress TV videos now auto-published to Youtube</a></li><li><a href="https://wordpress.tv/category/year/2022/">Latest WordPress TV videos</a></li></ul>
</div>
</div>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2 id="h-related-news">Related News:</h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://tc39.es/#proposals">ECMAScript Proposals</a></li></ul>



<p class="has-theme-palette-7-background-color has-background">Thanks for reading our WP dot .org roundup! Each week we are highlighting the news and discussions coming from the good folks making WordPress possible. If you or your company create products or services that use WordPress, you need to be engaged with them and their work. Be sure to share this resource with your product and project managers. <br /><br /><strong>Are you interested in giving back and contributing your time and skills to WordPress.org?</strong> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/contributing-to-wordpress/">Start Here ›</a><br /><br /><strong>Get our weekly WordPress community news digest</strong> — Post Status' <a href="https://poststatus.com/news/week-in-review/">Week in Review</a> — covering the WP/Woo news plus significant writing and podcasts. It's also available in <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter">our newsletter</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f48c.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



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<div class="wp-block-media-text alignwide is-stacked-on-mobile has-background"><a href="https://poststatus.com/"><img src="https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/vertical-post-status-logo-250.png" alt="Post Status" class="wp-image-85823 size-full" /></a><div class="wp-block-media-text__content">
<p class="has-text-align-left has-normal-font-size" id="h-get-ready-for-remote-work">You — and <a href="https://poststatus.com/business-membership/">your whole team</a> can <a href="https://poststatus.com/post-status-membership-club/">Join Post Status</a> too!</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left has-small-font-size"><strong>Build your network. Learn with others. Find your next job — or your next hire.</strong> Read the <strong>Post Status</strong> <a href="https://poststatus.com/newsletter/">newsletter</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/2709.png" alt="✉" class="wp-smiley" /> Listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/podcasts/">podcasts</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f399.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Follow <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status/">@Post_Status</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>
</div></div>



<div class="wp-block-spacer"></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 18:05:56 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Courtney Robertson";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:29;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:90:"Post Status: To Heck with Black Friday, I’m Raising My Prices! — Post Status Draft 127";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=142062";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"https://poststatus.com/lesley-sim-newsletter-glue-business-model-pivot/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:8924:"<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><div class="wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">This week in <strong>Post Status Slack</strong>, <strong>Lesley Sim</strong>, the founder of <strong>Newsletter Glue</strong>, dropped this announcement: <em>&#8220;While everybody is offering discounts for Black Friday, we’re planning to significantly raise prices. We’ll be narrowing our target audience and focusing mainly on medium-large publishers and online businesses; working with them more closely and providing a high level of customization and support.&#8221;</em> What motivated Lesley's decision? Where does she expect it to take her company? How can plugin owners find enterprise agency partners? Listen to this episode of <strong>Post Status Draft </strong>and find out. </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper"></div>



<p class="yoast-reading-time__wrapper"><span class="yoast-reading-time__icon"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__spacer"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class="yoast-reading-time__reading-time">6</span><span class="yoast-reading-time__time-unit"> minutes</span></p>
</div></div>



<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#h-transcript">Transcript</a> ↓</p>



<p class="has-drop-cap">This week in <strong>Post Status Slack</strong>, <strong>Lesley Sim</strong>, the founder of <strong>Newsletter Glue</strong>, dropped this announcement: </p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>&#8220;While everybody is offering discounts for <strong>Black Friday</strong>, we’re planning to significantly raise prices. We’ll be narrowing our target audience and focusing mainly on medium-large publishers and online businesses; working with them more closely and providing a high level of customization and support.&#8221; </p></blockquote>



<p>What motivated Lesley's decision? Where does she expect it to take her company? </p>



<p class="has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background">For some background, listen to <a href="https://poststatus.com/till-kruss-on-object-cache-pro-wordpress-plugins-testing-and-performance/">my recent conversation</a> with <strong>Till Krüss</strong>, whose business model for <strong>Object Cache Pro</strong> and conversations following from it were part of Lesley's thinking about her own product.</p>







<p><strong>In this conversation with Lesley, we talk about:</strong></p>



<blockquote><p></p><p>Pay attention to the shape of your market and your pricing.</p><cite>Lesley Sim</cite></blockquote>



<ul><li>Lesley's experience with Black Friday sales tactics.</li><li>&#8220;Lifetime&#8221; memberships and licenses.</li><li>Where Newsletter Glue started and how its pricing model has changed.</li><li>Why freemium didn't work for Newsletter Glue.</li><li>Lesley's experience entering — and leaving — the WordPress plugin directory.</li><li>How Newsletter Glue's pricing has steadily evolved toward a better match with its ideal customers. </li><li>How Lesley accessed enterprise agencies and clients. </li><li>What Lesley has learned and hopes to achieve in the future.</li><li>The technical challenges and barriers to reaching a high-end market.</li></ul>



<div class="is-layout-flex wp-container-40 wp-block-columns has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background" id="GoDaddy-Pro">
<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-column">
<h3 id="GoDaddy-Pro"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/godaddypro">GoDaddy Pro</a></h3>



<p>Manage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with <strong>GoDaddy Pro</strong>. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. <a href="https://poststat.us/godaddypro">GoDaddy Pro is free</a> — and designed to make your life better.</p>
</div>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center">
<a href="https://poststat.us/godaddypro"><img src="https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/gdpro800x500-1-300x188.png" alt="GoDaddy Pro" class="wp-image-93683" width="150" height="94" title="Pressable" /></a>
</div>
</div>



<p> </p>



<h3 class="eplus-wrapper" id="h-mentioned-in-the-show"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f517.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Mentioned in the show:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper"><li><a href="https://newsletterglue.com/">Newsletter Glue</a> is a WordPress plugin that connects your WordPress content and the block editor with a newsletter service, like Mailchimp. It simplifies newsletter publishing so you can focus on writing — in WordPress — and sending your content out from there <em>without</em> having to copy/paste/edit content or create layouts inside your newsletter service's separate, not-as-good design interface. </li><li><a href="https://instawp.com/">InstaWP</a> is what it sounds like: a way to launch a WordPress sandbox/demo site  in less than a second.</li><li><a href="https://www.groundhogg.io/">Groundhogg</a> is <strong>Marketing Automation</strong> and <strong>CRM</strong> For Serious Agencies and Small Businesses using WordPress.</li><li><a href="https://lifterlms.com/">LifterLMS</a> helps education entrepreneurs enable their learners to achieve their desired outcomes, to truly change lives, and make a great living in the process.</li><li><a href="https://rtcamp.com/">rtCamp</a> is a <strong>WordPress VIP Gold Ageny Partner</strong> delivering enterprise-grade web publishing and digital commerce solutions with WordPress to Fortune 500 companies.</li><li><strong><a href="https://thecode.co/">The Code Company</a></strong> is a very specialized agency for publishers focused on the WordPress core competency: publishing! They are specialist WordPress engineers who solve complex publishing problems at scale.</li><li><a href="https://humanmade.com">Human Made</a> is one of the oldest enterprise agencies in WordPress. They've been one of the largest contributors to the WordPress core project, and the wider ecosystem and community. They make <a href="https://humanmade.com/2019/06/17/a-technical-introduction-to-altis-enterprise-augmented-wordpress-platform/">Altis DXP</a>, the <a href="https://humanmade.com/2019/05/21/beyond-wordpress-10-year-evolution-human-made/">evolution of how they work with WordPress</a>. Human Made believes Altis is a fundamental and major step forward for the WordPress ecosystem.</li></ul>



<h3 class="eplus-wrapper" id="h-you-can-follow-post-status-and-our-guests-on-twitter"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f426.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> You can follow Post Status and our guests on Twitter:</h3>



<ul class="eplus-wrapper"><li><a href="https://twitter.com/lesley_pizza">Lesley Sim</a> (Founder, <a href="https://newsletterglue.com">Newsletter Glue</a>)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/dan_knauss">Dan Knauss</a> (Editor, <a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a>)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode/photo">Olivia Bisset</a> (Intern, Post Status)</li></ul>



<p class="eplus-wrapper has-background">The <strong>Post Status Draft</strong> podcast is geared toward WordPress professionals, with interviews, news, and deep analysis. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4dd.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br /><a href="https://poststatus.com/category/post-status-podcasts/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Browse our archives</a>, and don’t forget to subscribe via <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/post-status-draft-wordpress/id976403008" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">iTunes</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5zaW1wbGVjYXN0LmNvbS8ySkU5c2M4UA" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/PostStatus" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">YouTube</a>, <a href="http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/krogsgard/post-status-draft-wordpress-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://wordpress-post-status-draft-podcast.simplecast.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Simplecast</a>, or <a href="https://feeds.simplecast.com/2JE9sc8P">RSS</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f3a7.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></p>



<h2 class="eplus-wrapper" id="h-transcript">Transcript</h2>



<p></p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 17:22:04 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Olivia Bisset";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:30;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"Post Status: What AI and Automation Are — and Aren’t — Good For";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=142212";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://poststatus.com/what-ai-and-automation-are-and-arent-good-for/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4789:"<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><div class="wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">Thoughts on how <strong>AI</strong> and automation can be enabling to individuals and help us all be part of our communities where human-to-human interaction is the best and most vital part. • We love our community on <strong>Twitter</strong>, but maybe that's not where our community will be in the future. • <strong>Nev Harris</strong> is in our <strong>Member Spotlight</strong>. • Our <strong>Black Friday deals</strong> are live — and you can still add yours. <strong>WordPress Accessibility Day</strong>, <strong>WordFest</strong>, and <strong>WP Wealthbuilder Summit</strong> are coming right up, and so are <strong>WordCamps</strong>! We'd love to see you at one of our EU/US weekly <strong>Huddles</strong>. </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper"></div>



<p class="yoast-reading-time__wrapper"><span class="yoast-reading-time__icon"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__spacer"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class="yoast-reading-time__reading-time">3</span><span class="yoast-reading-time__time-unit"> minutes</span></p>
</div></div>



<p class="has-drop-cap">Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about AI, automation, and how that fits into community. I applaud so much of how all of these things have simplified my life, and make my life so much easier as a disabled person. I use <strong>Ring</strong> doorbell to talk to anyone who rings my doorbell to let them know I’m on my way (but slow). I use <strong>Alexa</strong> to automate lights when I’m not home and voice commands to turn on/off lights, check the weather and news, and set my thermostat. This week I installed a <strong>Stream Deck</strong> to automate things at my desk like key lights, opening websites, and I even added a sound for podcasting fun. AI can generate copy for titles, tweets, and even site content.</p>



<p>But nothing surpasses human interaction. Being on a <strong>Zoom</strong> call for our Post Status weekly huddles, creative brainstorming with my <strong>Stellar</strong> team, one-on-ones with friends and family, and recording podcasts with my podcasting partners and guests all enhance my life greatly. And I appreciate interacting with so many of you on <strong>Twitter</strong> about <strong>WordPress</strong>, tech, and life in general.</p>



<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-twitter-acquisition-problems-speech-moderation">Changes are coming to Twitter with the new leadership there</a>. Our community has thrived on Twitter, so keep an eye out for each other there, and if you find a better solution that we can adopt as a community, let us know!</p>



<h2>Don't Miss:</h2>



<ul><li><strong>Black Friday/Cyber Monday</strong> is coming quickly! <a href="https://poststatus.com/submit-black-friday-cyber-monday-deals/">Submit your deals here</a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f448.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></li><li><a href="https://poststatus.com/2022-black-friday-cyber-monday-wordpress-deals/">This year’s deals are live</a>! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f383.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /></li><li>In our <strong>Member Spotlight</strong> this week: <a href="https://poststatus.com/member-spotlight-nev-harris/"><strong>Nev Harris</strong></a>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f4a1.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Nev will help you unlock the profit trapped in your business and lower your stress around cash flow and expenses. Nev shows how money talk doesn’t need to be scary. Or boring. Or something you do behind closed doors with an accountant who appears to be speaking another language.</li></ul>



<h2 id="h-upcoming-events">Upcoming Events:</h2>



<ul><li><strong>Post Status</strong> <a href="https://poststatus.com/huddles/">Member Huddles </a>Every Week!</li><li><a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/">WordPress Accessibility Day</a> • <strong>November 2-3</strong></li><li><a href="https://www.wordfest.live/2022/november/">WordFest</a> • <strong>November 18</strong></li><li><strong>Calls for Speakers and Sponsors </strong>are open at <a href="https://www.wpwealthbuilder.com/">WP Wealthbuilder Summit</a>.</li><li><strong>WordCamps</strong> are back. <a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/schedule/">Check the schedule online</a>!</li></ul>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 16:30:30 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Michelle Frechette";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:31;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"Post Status: Daniel S. Pumpkins’ ? Post Status Halloween TechHorror Roundup";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=142189";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:64:"https://poststatus.com/post-status-halloween-techhorror-roundup/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4815:"<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><div class="wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">It's our Halloween roundup of ghoul tools, but we're not going to show you anything scarier than <strong>David Bisset</strong>&#8216;s <a href="https://twitter.com/dimensionmedia/status/1585986701343825920">dev dad joke tweets</a>. Just <strong>Blocks Made of Humans</strong>, a totally non-scary image creation AI — as long as you do not install the <strong>Performance Loab</strong> plugin. Also in our cauldron: hairy, scary <strong>Block Styles</strong> and the classic so-lean-it's-skeletal ingredient, <strong>Balsamiq</strong>. <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f987.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><br /> </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper"></div>



<p class="yoast-reading-time__wrapper"><span class="yoast-reading-time__icon"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__spacer"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class="yoast-reading-time__reading-time">28</span><span class="yoast-reading-time__time-unit"> minutes</span></p>
</div></div>



<h1 id="h-wordpress-design-development-haunts-around-the-web">WordPress Design & Development Haunts Around the Web</h1>



<p>Here’s a glimpse of what’s going on in the world of design and development in the WordPress space this past week. Halloween edition!</p>



<h2 id="h-blocks-made-of-humans">Blocks Made of Humans</h2>



<p>Well, not really, but here is <a href="https://humanmade.com/2022/10/18/1001-ways-to-implement-gutenberg-blocks/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a great overview of all the ways you can make a custom block</a> with code examples from the lovely gremlins at <strong>Human Made</strong>. It’s nice to have so many examples in one place with links to a few resources I hadn’t seen before.</p>



<h2 id="h-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-what-image-will-devour-them-all">Mirror Mirror On The Wall, What Image Will Devour Them All?!</h2>



<p>The folks at <strong>Bertha AI</strong> <a href="https://bertha.ai/its-easy-top-get-caught-up-with-all-the-tech-out-there-especially-when-it-comes-to-ai/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">have announced</a> that their plugin now features an image creation module. This is another major step towards seeing artificial intelligence integrated into the WordPress stack. I have not taken it for a spin yet but intend to kick the tires around this weekend to conjure up some spooky hellscapes.</p>



<h2 id="h-your-blocks-are-scaring-the-children">Your Blocks Are Scaring The Children</h2>



<p>Post Status members <strong>Roy Sivan</strong> and <strong>James Tryon</strong> have been working on their own suite of design tools for the <strong>Block Editor</strong> lovingly called <a href="https://blockstyles.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Block Styles</a>. Recently they’ve been on fire with so many updates and new features that it’s hard not to be excited. For me, the responsive tools alone are the killer feature that I needed. I’ve tried so many plugins for better responsive control, and this one feels the closest to what I would expect. <a href="https://twitter.com/blockstyleswp" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Follow them on Twitter</a> as they share how they’re evolving these tools.<br /></p>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h1 id="h-cool-tools-for-ghouls">Cool Tools for Ghouls</h1>



<p>Each week we feature one cool tool that can help make your life easier as a WordPress builder.</p>



<h2 id="h-just-add-some-balsamiq-with-an-eye-of-newt">Just Add Some Balsamiq with an Eye of Newt</h2>



<p><a href="https://balsamiq.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Balsamiq</a> does one thing and does it well — it’s an application for creating wireframes. I’ve tried using <strong>Figma</strong>, <strong>Adobe XD</strong>, <strong>Illustrator</strong>, <strong>OmniGraffle</strong>, <strong>Visio</strong>, <strong>Sketch</strong>, real sketches, and more. Every time I end up coming back to Balsamiq because it’s so easy to get the vision out of my head and onto the screen. I know it’s been around a long time and its roots actually came from a <strong>Flash</strong>-built web app, but it has evolved to be a no-bloat application that lets you get in, do what you need, and get out.</p>
</div></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 15:56:35 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Daniel Schutzsmith";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:32;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"Do The Woo Community: Building Your Community Without the Noise";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=73251";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:62:"https://dothewoo.io/building-your-community-without-the-noise/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:401:"<p>Active engagement and conversation can turn into unproductive noise. That is until you start to use the art of listening.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/building-your-community-without-the-noise/">Building Your Community Without the Noise</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 09:49:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:33;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:83:"Post Status: Post Status Excerpt (No. 72) — Can We Get to “Yes” on Better UX?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=142079";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:50:"https://poststatus.com/wordpress-user-experiences/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45816:"<h2 id="h-wordpress-user-experiences-from-diy-builders-to-enterprise-users">WordPress User Experiences from DIY Builders to Enterprise Users</h2>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group eplus-wrapper has-theme-palette-2-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container"><div class="wp-block-post-excerpt"><p class="wp-block-post-excerpt__excerpt">This week in an article shared in Post Status Slack, <strong>Eric Karkovack </strong>suggested some ways to improve the WordPress user experience, especially for DIY users setting up a website for the first time. Some of the things Eric wants to see happen, like a standard interface for plugins and a curated view of the plugin ecosystem, are also commonly expressed by designers, developers, and people in other roles at WordPress agencies serving enterprise clients. Can we get everyone to &#8220;yes&#8221; on a better UX? </p></div>


<div class="wp-block-spacer eplus-wrapper"></div>



<p class="yoast-reading-time__wrapper"><span class="yoast-reading-time__icon"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__spacer"></span><span class="yoast-reading-time__descriptive-text">Estimated reading time:  </span><span class="yoast-reading-time__reading-time">7</span><span class="yoast-reading-time__time-unit"> minutes</span></p>
</div></div>







<p><a href="https://poststatus.com/planet/feed/#transcript">Transcript ↓</a></p>



<h2 id="Post">Can We Get to &#8220;Yes&#8221; on Better UX?</h2>



<p class="has-drop-cap">What does WordPress need to do to increase its appeal to do-it-yourself website builders and creators who are trying to take a business, hobby, or side project online? That question may be key to keeping that mass market appeal from draining away to simpler, leaner SaaS alternatives. In an article <strong>Eric Karkovack</strong> shared this week in <strong><a href="https://poststatus.com/#choose-membership">Post Status Slack</a></strong>, Eric has <a href="https://speckyboy.com/can-wordpress-appeal-to-diy-markets/">some ideas for improving the WordPress user experience</a>, especially for DIY users setting up a website for the first time. </p>



<blockquote><p>We all have lists of plugins we disrecommend — to the point that it's a dealbreaker if a client insists on using them. And of course, these lists change a lot over time. We all know these things — but it's a kind of &#8220;open secret&#8221; within professional WordPress circles. That's understandable! Comparison is the thief of joy — and possibly revenue. But it's also not a healthy or sustainable situation.</p></blockquote>



<p>Some of the things Eric wants to see happen, like a standard interface for plugins and a curated view of the plugin ecosystem, are similar to views commonly expressed by designers, developers, and people in other professional roles at WordPress agencies serving enterprise clients. And why not? In the WordPress enterprise space, are the end users really that much different than mass-market WordPress users in what they do and <em>don't </em>need to quickly perform routine content creation and management tasks?&nbsp;</p>



<p>That's where my thinking has been lately, so I had a conversation with Eric to see if we might identify areas where nearly everyone thinks WordPress offers a poor experience and how we might align ourselves toward solutions. Can we get everyone to &#8220;yes&#8221; on a better UX?</p>



<h2>Don't Play Favorites — Recognize Excellence</h2>



<p>Standardizing admin interfaces and notifications might be easier than figuring out how to curate best-of-breed themes and plugins. But imagine, as Eric and I do in this conversation, some kind of &#8220;plugin quality score&#8221; at wordpress.org based on neutral, objective data. It might be &#8220;gamed&#8221; — in a positive way. It would encourage developers to do better, deeper, ever-maturing work. </p>



<p>Personally, I'd like to see the maximum and the average number of queries a plugin adds to a page. That, along with PHP and WordPress versions that have been tested for compatibility (which are existing features of the plugin repository) would be key code quality indicators. Frequency of updates, reviews, and support responses would indicate a capacity for long-term sustainability.  Raising <a href="https://poststatus.com/we-dont-need-no-stinkin-standards/">standards for testing aimed mainly at performance and security</a> would be great too. All of this could be done or encouraged by key players in the WordPress ecosystem coming together to set standards for their industry. It would impact how all users of the plugin directory understand quality and how best to assemble a WordPress site.</p>



<h2>Too Many Open Secrets About Quality are Bad for Everyone</h2>



<p>As of today, there are 60,153 uncurated free plugins at wordpress.org that can only be explored via external search and a limited (<a href="https://poststatus.com/a-visit-from-the-good-idea-fairy/">arguably broken</a>) site search tool. WordPress professionals with high-end client services would never expose their customers to this chaos — so why does the WordPress community expose its newcomers to it? Anyone who has developed WordPress sites for very long has a list of plugins they prefer, particularly in combination with each other, for common feature sets and use cases. We all have lists of plugins we disrecommend — to the point that it's a dealbreaker if a client insists on using them. And of course, these lists change a lot over time. </p>



<p>We all know these things — but it's a kind of &#8220;open secret&#8221; within professional WordPress circles. That's understandable! Comparison is the thief of joy — and possibly revenue. But it's also not a healthy or sustainable situation. We need to be more open and better at communicating these things in a problem-solving, always-learning way within appropriate channels. <a href="https://poststatus.com/open-secrets-forced-updates-in-wordpress/">Security is a slightly different issue</a>, but <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards">performance and code quality standards</a> — and the products/people who follow them in exemplary ways — should be much more visible, celebrated, and learned from. </p>



<p>Information that maturing developers and product owners can learn from to improve their work doesn't trickle down as openly or as easily as it should. It's inside baseball, and it shouldn't be quite so insider-y. It's not out there alongside independent <a href="https://poststatus.com/kevin-ohashi-deep-history-and-integrity-in-hosting-benchmarks/">plugin performance reviews</a> or clear standards and guidance for anyone who wants them. What if someone did a tutorial series walking through current WordPress code standards and the <a href="https://poststatus.com/wordpress-coding-standards-has-reached-a/">history</a> of <a href="https://poststatus.com/accessibility-draft-standards-are-ready-for-review/">their</a> <a href="https://poststatus.com/wordpress-coding-standards-1-2-1-has-been/">evolution</a>? </p>



<p>What if?</p>



<p>Why not? </p>



<p>What are the barriers?</p>



<p>Who can remove them?</p>



<p>Industry peers and WordPress community members working together on common interests?</p>



<p>As Eric and I end up saying in our conversation, <em>we hope so!</em></p>



<div class="is-layout-flex wp-container-44 wp-block-columns has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background" id="GoDaddy-Pro">
<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-column">
<h3 id="GoDaddy-Pro"><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f64f.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Sponsor: <a href="https://poststat.us/godaddypro">GoDaddy Pro</a></h3>



<p>Manage your clients, websites, and tasks from a single dashboard with <strong>GoDaddy Pro</strong>. Perform security scans, backups, and remote updates to many sites on any host. Check up on site performance, monitor uptime and analytics, and then send reports to your clients. <a href="https://poststat.us/godaddypro">GoDaddy Pro is free</a> — and designed to make your life better.</p>
</div>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-center">
<a href="https://poststat.us/godaddypro"><img src="https://cdn.poststatus.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/gdpro800x500-1-300x188.png" alt="GoDaddy Pro" class="wp-image-93683" width="150" height="94" title="Pressable" /></a>
</div>
</div>



<h3>Learn More:</h3>



<p>The <strong><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress-Coding-Standards">WordPress Coding Standards</a></strong> can be found evolving on <strong>GitHub</strong>.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content"><a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/coding-standards/wordpress-coding-standards/">WordPress Coding Standards</a></blockquote>
</div>



<h3><img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f44b.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /> Credits</h3>



<ul id="block-a3e9962f-97ca-4009-be8e-db47b5d1fddf"><li><a href="https://twitter.com/karks88">Eric Karkovack</a>, Owner at <a href="https://www.karks.com/">Eric Karkovack Web Design Services</a>&nbsp;(Twitter)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/dan_knauss">Dan Knauss</a><span>, Editor for </span><a href="https://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a><span> (Twitter)</span></li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/lemonadecode">Olivia Bisset</a>, Web Producer intern for <a href="http://twitter.com/post_status">Post Status</a> (Twitter)</li></ul>



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<h3 id="transcript">Transcript</h3>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> I'm here with Eric Karkovack, and this morning on Post Status Slack, he shared his latest article published on Specky Boy. &#8220;What can WordPress do to appeal to the do it yourself market?&#8221; What brought that topic up for you this week, Eric?</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> I think it's a combination of things. For one, you know, we have full site editing that's been around for a little bit now, and, you know, we're not seeing like huge adoption rates with it.</p>



<p>We're getting people to, um, you know, kind of learn what's involved with that and block themes and, um, [00:02:00] and also at the same time we're, you know, the, the changes that we've seen, The block editor over time and you know, even the, kind of, the genesis of that project I think was to kind of compete with, um, more.</p>



<p>Content management systems, kind of like, you know, WS or Squarespace and what have you. Um, and it seems like WordPress is just going toward that market more and more as they, as they build on. And so I thought those were really nice steps in that direction, right? So we have tools that. Make it a little bit easier for someone who maybe isn't, uh, familiar with code to go in and and build a, a site.</p>



<p>But that led me to think about, well, what else should we be doing in that area? What else could WordPress do to make it. Uh, as foolproof as possible, um, to build a basic site, not something necessarily like, um, you know, a complex, you know, high end enterprise site, [00:03:00] but just something basic that someone can do within a couple of hours.</p>



<p>So that really kind of where that, the post came from.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. Have you seen the, uh, videos where Jamie Marsland and, uh, who else did this had, had their daughters or, Um, I think of very different ages too, but it tried to do exactly that. And, um, he had, he had his kids do, um, um, Elementor versus Gutenberg, I think it was.</p>



<p>Yeah. Yeah. And that was, that was interesting. I mean, you really have to. That totally someone totally different from you, um, using it for the first time and Yeah, I think, I think a lot of, um, thought has gone into that user experience is, is huge. Uh, now, of course, always, always should have been, but um, Gutenberg is, is very squarely focused on the, on the user experience, building out your, your site and, and [00:04:00] pages.</p>



<p>And, um, my, my thought though was everyone wants that. Um, it's not just the mass market, the lower and middle end, um, of that, but, um, agencies to up. The, uh, those that are serving enterprise, enterprise clients, uh, WordPress, v i p partners, um, I hear, I hear the same things from them, like, you know, even very recent conversations, um, about.</p>



<p>How having standard interface that doesn't throw you different, totally different screens when you use, uh, a plugin in the back end. Um, that's a, a con basic design principle of there's much less cognitive load on you when the navigation is standard. Even if you've never used WordPress before, um, [00:05:00] you.</p>



<p>You're f it seems familiar because things are intuitively laid out. Cause it's, it's like a lot of other things. WordPress is, is old enough and in so influential that it's, it's, uh, backend interface has been copied in a lot of ways. It's very, very familiar. Um, interestingly, even if people haven't used it.</p>



<p>Um, so when you hit a plugin with, you know, crazy level of setting screens or its own interface design, um, that's not, that doesn't. Look good with, uh, with anyone really, but with a enterprise client. I, I think that's an issue. That's one of the things you talk about in here. Um, Yeah, we have you thought about that at all?</p>



<p>Um, how, Yeah. Pretty much every market, every WordPress market, uh, could benefit from.</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> It's, it's funny you mentioned that cuz I really wasn't thinking of like the enterprise clients. And I [00:06:00] think the reason for that is because usually if I have a client who's a little more higher end on the, on the price scale, I'm usually building things to kind of account for all of that right?</p>



<p>Where I can, I mean, obviously I can't change a in ui, but I can certainly do things with custom fields or blocks or what have you to try and make the, the content creation and editing process. Simple as possible for them. So by, by doing some of these things at core level, you would take away the need to build all that extra stuff on top to, you know, to make it easier for the corporate client to use.</p>



<p>So I think it, it, it goes together pretty well. Um, The one example in terms of UI that I have in the article is, uh, you know, just looking at the standard WordPress settings page. We have the reading settings, and then next to it I have, uh, the opening screen of slider Revolution, which is, uh, plugin bundled with [00:07:00] a bunch of different schemes and, uh, like a theme forest, what have you.</p>



<p>Um, it's like a completely different thing. And to, to that end, even Elementor is as well, I mean the, a lot of. Popular page builder plugins basically take over, uh, the UI and it's like you're in a completely different planet. And think about if you're a brand new user and you've got just Elementor or Slider Revolution on your site, you bought this theme and it comes with these things, you're kind of thinking you're dropped into a middle of Mars or something.</p>



<p>You're not sure what, you know how to get back to where you were and what the difference is between. You know, that UI based versus, you know, the, the core WordPress ui. Uh, in a lot of ways that doesn't make sense. So I think that's something we have to try and unify. Um, I don't know how we go about doing that at the core level.</p>



<p>Um, but I, I think if we make core as clean as possible, maybe that's at [00:08:00] least a good start.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah, there were, there would have to be, um, some, some standards in reusable. Patterns and, and tools. Um, I, I think that in the long run, the, uh, Gutenberg is, is supposed to eat the entire, you know, it's, it's a true ship of Tesus project where the entire thing gets rebuilt while moving.</p>



<p>Um, And in, in some way it will be a, the goal is, is to have a unified experience at the end of that, just how quickly that happens depends on, on core contribution. Um, on the velocity of that, um, Yeah, that's for lack of that. I, I think it's, um, it's a bad experience for everyone and Sure. Uh, uh, an enterprise client is really just at bottom end users, uh, employees who have as much experience maybe as the average DIY site builder, a [00:09:00] creator, someone who wants to start a podcast or, or sell a product, um, as a side project or something like that.</p>



<p>There's, there's really no difference there. Everyone, um, has the same, uh, usability needs in general, and more or less, there's, there's big differences when you, you started talking about compliance needs with accessibility and, and so on and, and things like that. But, um, yeah, it seems like to me that there, there's a lot of opportunity for aligning, um, different parts of, of the word.</p>



<p>Community and business community where. Plug in. Developers and owners should really want this. The same thing that, uh, agency people, um, do. And that's, they, they support each other. Um, they feed each other business. So I, I'm curious why. That hasn't [00:10:00] happened, and it seems to me like there's some information flows or I don't know.</p>



<p>There there are probably other, other sticky barriers. Have you, did you, did that question come up for you at all? Why? Um, why?</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> Well, I know it's like, it's something we've talked about a little bit, right? I mean, yeah, just on, on a few different levels and with the, uh, you know, Active install data going away from wordpress.org, and maybe these folks need to band together a little more and, and share amongst each other.</p>



<p>I, I think the reason it hasn't happened yet is because it really hasn't had to, um, you know, maybe they haven't seen necessarily the benefit of it, but when you see kind of the, the yeah. Jumble of the, the UI right now and how it, how different it can be depending on what you have installed. You know, maybe there is something that, you know, some of these larger plugin developers could work together on.</p>



<p>Sure. Uh, it makes sense. You know, it makes sense for all of them. I mean, [00:11:00] I, I, I somehow see us heading towards some sort of consortium of, of, uh, folks who, who can't necessarily write strict standards, but maybe they have certain. You know, broad outlines of, of what they, they want to, to abide by. And, you know, the more people that do that, the better I think it is for WordPress users and for just really everyone involved, because the software's going to be easier to use and more uniform.</p>



<p>Right.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah. There's, there's a lot that the, um, that, that part of the community could do for itself. I've, uh, Tried to be more vocal about, but I, I think there, there have been a few, few voices behind those ideas of you, Hey, you, there's a lot you can do, um, to shape your own industry. Um, Yeah, if you do have a shared, a shared interface framework and, um, formal or informal standards for [00:12:00] Yeah, we were talking about.</p>



<p>Admin notifications previously. Um, that's part of it. Um, it, it'd save you a lot of time if there was a base to build on. Um, more than, more than I think exists now. Um, so that, uh, anyone starting, starting out creating a, a new plugin, um, would have some kind of, uh, head start. Really a standard interface or, or guidance at least.</p>



<p>I don't know that there's that much, um, public information. And, uh, it's curious to me as, as, uh, as things like the W Commerce, um, partnership program kind of is a bit, looks like, a bit like a, getting into, uh, a relationship with WordPress, v i p. Um, there's criteria to go through, uh, that you have, well you have to meet, um, to become, um, a preferred agency working.</p>



<p>Um, with w commerce.com side with [00:13:00] automatic, um, what those criteria are and what the standards are, should I think, have some kind of trickle down effect, like know what they are and, um, and have them as at least aspirational for everyone. Um, there's been some talk in, in, uh, core of, um, bringing. Some changes on, uh, on standards and testing for, uh, coding, um, coding standards for security.</p>



<p>Uh, I think primarily performance and security. Um, and I hope those continue to get prioritized that that's what all seems, seems to need to happen to, um, to move this forward. But the one point you mentioned, um, where you're talking about modernizing the onboarding experience, Where you direct people to, where to find themes, where to find plugins that, uh, [00:14:00] that becomes challenging and touches, touches.</p>



<p>This other recent issue we've talked about, um, it is hard to search in the, in the plugin repository is not in an ideal state and people who are trying to sell. Their plugins there, um, have a number of frustrations with, with trying to surface their, their products as relevant to what people are searching for.</p>



<p>Um, do you think this could be part of a solution to that if, or a potential conflict point when you're curating, you're, you're curating and recommending, um, certain ones?</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> Well, I think as far as, as core goes, um, my idea is more. Just pointing people to the repositories. Mm-hmm. , uh, for themes and plugins, not necessarily being a, uh, a [00:15:00] curator, but, um, I, I, I see the, you know, I see there, there, there should be more impetus to improve the, the repositories and make them easier for folks to search and figure out what it is they're getting and what, you know, um, allow new entries to be a little more, uh, visible.</p>



<p>But I think they're kind of separate things, you know, just to be able to, I mean, if, if you're installing WordPress now from the, you know, from, from your host, or if you're, you know, FTPing it up to your site, old school style, um, you know, you're, you're gonna get this little. Widget did on the, on the front screen of the dashboard that welcomes you to WordPress and gives you a few handy links, but it doesn't really tell you about how to actually use what you're, you've got.</p>



<p>And I think that was where I, I thought improvement could be made right now. I mean the person that doesn't understand where themes reside or where plug-ins reside, they're not [00:16:00] gonna know necessarily to go under the appearance menu and look to add a theme or you know, the plug-ins menu. You know, they may find that eventually, but why not put it right out there in front of 'em so that they can easily click and say, Okay, I know what I need.</p>



<p>I need to get a plugin that does this. And you know, cuz we have a nice interface to actually go in and. Poor plugins and themes, but Right. It's not necessarily, um, in front of, front of your mind when you, when you first install WordPress. So I thought that was, um, something that was important to, uh, you know, to, to emphasize in this.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Sure. Yeah. And that, that seems like it, it's potentially in a good way, open for change with, uh, potential changes to the.org repository. And, and I imagine that as, um, as the.com marketplace. Um, and, you know, potentially other, other things like that. Um, If, if other hosts hosting W Commerce or, or [00:17:00] WordPress were to do something similar, um, that, that, that requires some kind of curation at some point or some, some way of featuring particular things like, this is what you need to do.</p>



<p>Uh, for, for example, you know, one of my pet things is can you build a, uh, sub stack like, uh, site out of WordPress very quickly. Yes, if you know how. But, um, the, there's act, those documentations kind of emerged relatively recently for doing that with a, a couple of plugins. Um, if you dig around on wordpress.com, um, and I, like Kim Coleman is, uh, for, uh, uh, paid memberships.</p>



<p>Pro is giving a talk right about now, I think on. On how to do that with, uh, Mail poet and their product, the Coleman's product, uh, paid membership pro. Um, that's, that's something that, um, yeah, [00:18:00] I, I agree. It's, it's tri on the, on the mass market level. It's, it's sort of the level of suggestion of here's if you want to do this, here are some ways you can do that.</p>



<p>And. What gets recommended there, I, I guess, is, is maybe a, a thorny issue, but as you kind of move up the up the market, um, you don't want give that much. You don't want to have an onboarding screen that says install this and this and this to, uh, you know, an agency's client. Uh, you know, you don't, they don't wanna see that either.</p>



<p>So, um, you want to actually be making those choices. For them. So it occurs to me that the thing that's not talked about OP openly but is talked about everywhere is that the upmarket WordPress and building even, you know, freelancers, small agencies to v i P agencies generally, um, you know, have their own ways of doing things.</p>



<p>[00:19:00] That do a lot of curation and like you said, building, building custom materials. But the less you do that, the less you have to support yourself. Um, that they're essentially doing, making these choices and saying, these are the things that work well for these purposes under these conditions. And I've always thought, why should that be a proprietary trade secret, especially when it's out there, but.</p>



<p>We're hesitant to, uh, convey that or some version of that to the, um, to the mass market. Um, what, what do you, what do you think about that? Do you think there could be some synergies there? Cause there's learning potential too, if you, if you kind of disclose, this is how we're doing it up here. Um, people who are just starting out building with WordPress are learning from leaders then.</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> Yeah. Um, well, one of the things I. I, I talked about with curation was, you know, maybe managed hosts are in the best [00:20:00] position to do kind of something like that, because I think some of them already do to, to a degree. I mean, many of them are buying up, you know, plugin and themes anyway. And so, you know, maybe they're in the best position to add something like this, The WordPress, um, for someone that has the fresh install, You know, in the community it's, it's interesting because there's just so many, there's so many plugins and so many opinions that you know mm-hmm.</p>



<p>I may ask, well how do you build a membership site? And somebody may tell me, paid memberships, pros the way to go. Somebody may say, Member press, or, you know, there there could be five or six other, you know, really big players in that market. Um, same thing for forms and, you know, e-commerce may be a little bit less, but, um, you know, cuz we have one dominant, uh, you.</p>



<p>Entity there in W Commerce. But, um, you know, if you ask about w commerce extensions, you'll probably get a couple hundred different answers on that, so. Right. You know, the curation is a, a [00:21:00] bit of a tough, a tough call. Like, I, I don't, I certainly don't think, you know, the WordPress project should be, um, doing anything other than generically taking you to the, you know, Repositories and saying, this is where you can find plugins.</p>



<p>Now, maybe in the future they write, you know, they, they share articles or something about, well, you know, if you're going to build an e-commerce site, maybe you should consider X, Y, and Z. Not necessarily talking about. Specific plugins, but things you need to consider on your end and find to help you find the, the tool that works best for your needs and, you know, design for what your workflow is going to be.</p>



<p>Um, so maybe if we can add some guidance in that way without necessarily favoring one product over another. Um, but I, I, I think they're, you know, for the new user, the person who wants to just build their own basic site, Having some sort of guidance in [00:22:00] not only what plugins to use, but just how to use WordPress, I think could be, you know, extremely helpful.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yes. Uh, yeah, I, I agree with you. Um, you know, the way you, you put it here was, um, Uh, yeah, the, who would be responsible for curating is the, is the really tough issue. You'd need a, a third party of some, some kind to take that on. Um, and yeah, in the mass market where everyone's competing, um, with, with their product or service, um, that's a difficult one to do.</p>



<p>Who, who would be a third party? Who could, who could potentially navigate those, those waters? And are, are there things that the plugin repo could do that are sufficiently neutral with the kind of data that, that could be reported out that would, um, help that? Um, do we need something like Kevin Ohashi doing, um, you know, [00:23:00] plugin performance?</p>



<p>WP plugin performance reviews, like his hosting, uh, reviews.</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> Yeah, that, that's interesting. You could, you, you could certainly see the repo. I mean, you know, again, you don't wanna play favorites. That's definitely, you know, gonna cause a lot of problems. Um, maybe there could be, you know, stats for, you know, different types of sites.</p>



<p>Um, if you are into publishing, these are the most popular plugins in that category. Because we don't, It may even be listed that way now, but we don't necessarily say that. Um, so you could look at, you know, membership sites, you could look at e-commerce, um, you know, selling digital goods, all those types of things.</p>



<p>Maybe we break it down by category a little more and just show what the trends are in that area. It doesn't necessarily have to favor anyone, but obviously it's going to show, you know, who's in the lead and who's not. Maybe that's [00:24:00] something to help people again and again, I, I put these out there as ideas.</p>



<p>They may be extremely flawed and, uh, you know, you can certainly tell me on Twitter if, if, if you don't agree. Uh, but just I think we need to find more ways to empower people to make good decisions with WordPress. Um, that's going to keep people on the platform. Throughout and they're going to hopefully have less frustration in trying to get started because I think that's, from my experience, that's the area where people are, you know, hit that wall after installing, They're like, Okay, well what do I do next?</p>



<p>Right.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, I wonder if something like a, uh, plugin quality score could be developed. Which, which to some extent is being done with, with, uh, review, like combining, uh, correlating, um, support tickets and response to those and, [00:25:00] um, installs and, and things like that. But I wonder if you could, you could do a quality, um, rating that would be sufficiently neutral that people would accept.</p>



<p>The curation that developed from that. Say, I, I keep thinking of this one. I don't, I don't know if it's realistic, but, um, I would love to know on every plugin if I install this, what's the, what's the maximum number of queries it will add to a page load? What's the average number? And, um, that right there creates an incentive to plug in developers to get that right.</p>



<p>Learn, you know, if you're just starting out, uh, coding something, um, learn what that means, why it matters. Um, because that's, that seems to be one of the real, real slow downs. Um, and, and that's a pretty objective measure. Fewer queries, quicker response, um, from the server, [00:26:00] something like that. I don't know.</p>



<p>Do you, do you think that that sort of thing could potentially be done, um, as. Sufficiently neutral thing coming from the, From</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> I think so. I think so. I mean, one idea that just kind of popped in my head was, how about we do something activity based? Hmm. Like, just for example, um, we take into account how often a plugin updates, uh, how responsive, uh, Right.</p>



<p>You know, support requests are in the forms. That doesn't necessarily tell you the quality. Now I. You might be updating your plugin three or four times a week because it's broken, and you may be re responding to, you know, support requests without necessarily resolving problems. But that might be a way to, to, to help steer people away from plugins that.</p>



<p>Haven't been updated in years. I mean, we have that little warning on there now that, you know, when it's been, I think, what three versions. It'll tell [00:27:00] you that, hey, this hasn't been, you know, updated in, in a while, huh? But if you had maybe some sort of activity based scoring that, you know, I mean, you know, that, that puts everybody, I think on a.</p>



<p>Closer playing field. I don't know if it's completely level, but you know, I mean, the plugins with the most resources might, you know, be able to, to, uh, to win on some of that. But then again, if you have a, a solo entrepreneur who's got a plugin that you know, they really are passionate about and they're constantly trying to improve and they're, you know, we know there are a lot of those out there, you know, they might be able to, to compete on that.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Sure. Yeah. I, I feel, I feel like that could work if the repository made some distinction between completely free plugins and freemium model plugins, or those that have, uh, a recognized business entity behind it with. Staff and [00:28:00] like this, We exist here to support this in theory, in in perpetuity. Um, because actually there, there are some plugin if you base this on activity like TenUp.</p>



<p>Um, there's some, Jake Goldman still has under, under his account on, uh, on the repo that are really nice, simple, single purpose plugins and I completely trust. The support for them, for them, for the, for the most part. But, um, they're not, they're not gonna be high volume, um, uh, support activity there or updates, and they're pretty simple, yet reliable.</p>



<p>Um, it might be tricky to do that, but I, I think it would be fair to recognize. Leaders and high performers and recognized experts at, at some point. And, um, and the business, um, you know, the number of people who, you know, who actually exist to support [00:29:00] a particular plugin. That was when I was, when I'm doing things for clients and when I was doing that a lot more, um, you're looking at, I, I try to look at what's gonna be around for a long, long term.</p>



<p>You know, the, the fewer, uh, We don't wanna make changes to themes, to major plugin changes. Um, over time we want this to be really stable. So, so to me a concern would be, Hey, this is a really nice plugin, seems really well supported, but there's no business model behind it. Or it's not one that, yeah, I think will be here in five, even just five years.</p>



<p>Um, and the long term view. Yeah. Is another, is another criteria that's hard to, hard to suss out. Um, but those are, those are all potentially valid ways to curate, um, and indicate different, different categories of, of product that may really help people figure out what they need. Um, yeah, it's a [00:30:00] good, good question, uh, to open.</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> Yeah, I think there's, there's potential for it. Um, you know, any, I think anything we can do to make it, give people more confidence that what they're installing is going to work and be, you know, stable and, you know, allow them to do. What they want to do easy in a more easy fashion. I think that would, you know, definitely be a benefit.</p>



<p>And just going back to the activity thing for just a second, I mean, how many plugins that are still, you know, somewhat maintained, Still say that their, their latest compatibility is like WordPress 5.8 or 5.9. Right. You know, just the simple fact of going in and, and testing with WordPress six or 6.1, maybe that gets you, you know, some brownie points in that as well.</p>



<p>Just that you version checked and you know, you're keeping up with that. Because I see that as another issue [00:31:00] in the repository where, There may be plugins that work perfectly well, but you're still a little hesitant because it, Yeah. You know, the compatibility hasn't been updated in two years or three years.</p>



<p>So that could also be, you know, a</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> factor. And it's not just compatibility to WordPress, it's, uh, you know, word WordPress, GUIs and, and compatibility for php. So plug in, plug in compatibility with, uh, which, what up to what version of PHP will it. Will it operate</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> and Yeah. Just checking. Yeah, I know. Uh, like I'm looking at a, a plugin now it says PHP version 5.4 or higher.</p>



<p>So there you go. Ah, right, right, right. You're in good shape, even out in a really, really old install.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yes. Right. So that raises some, some ideas. Well, that's, and that's something a DIY person isn't gonna know. They aren't, they aren't going to know. Um, you know, what version of PHP is my. Running and what does that mean and, and all that.</p>



<p>[00:32:00] Yeah. Support activity and development activity are, are good indicators, but then you, you can game that as well. Um, well, it creates, it creates a good incentive to do that work. But then, you know, are we adding features or minor updates just to, uh, to rank higher at that point. I don't know if it would have that, that kind of effect.</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> I mean, we've seen it with reviews, right? Yeah. People put in the phony reviews and or higher out firms to, to do that for them. So yeah, any, anything that they put in probably could be gained. I don't know if we're gonna fully prevent that, but you hope that, you know, most developers take it as a, uh, a serious matter and, you know, try to actually put in the hard work to, to rank highly and, and.</p>



<p>Hopefully that that's a way for them to kind of go up the charts a little bit in, in terms of how many installs they have and how many paying customers they get because of it. Right. [00:33:00]</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> Yeah. And there's, there's such a categorical difference between people who are running their business that way. And well, it's a good, it's a good way to game things towards more support, more development, and, uh, taking an active interest in, in what's going on with your, your product.</p>



<p>And in the way it's, uh, presented to people who are going to install it. Um, and it's. Good idea. I, I do feel that those things go together. Any, anything that improves or changes in, in core to change the onboarding experience to, um, make it easier with respect to what you install, has gotta be corresponding somehow to, um, what you see on the on.org, um, what it's putting out publicly as a, as a signal for, um, for quality.</p>



<p>The last thing. Well close to where you, you closed was, was talking about outreach, um, that we should just show what, what WordPress can do. [00:34:00] Um, and do you think we just don't do that enough or it's not unified enough? Or just in the Gutenberg era, we're just beginning to see tutorials and guides, um, show up, especially for non-technical users.</p>



<p>And, um, that's, that's something. on.org, Learn, Learn. Um, wordpress.org is, uh, busy trying to do, there's a ton of meetups coming out that are really geared towards this sort of thing. Um, and, and also people who are building at sites at a more advanced level. Um, do you see that as something that's just starting to happen or something altogether different that you had in mind?</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> I, I sort of see this as kind of like a, a. Coming of WordPress, right? Because when a lot of us, you know, who have been in this a while started, you know, if you went to a Word camp, you probably learned an awful lot about the basics of WordPress. Whether you were just [00:35:00] using it as, you know, a content creator, or you were a developer.</p>



<p>And I think we've kind of lost that along the way a little bit. We've kind of focused so much on the more advanced topics. And then of course, the pandemic, you know, took away a, a lot of the in person events. So I, I think, you know, the word camps are one way to really start showing, you know, new users what's possible and you know, how to, to do the basics.</p>



<p>Um, you know, I, I would, I honestly, I would love to see that at Word Camp us or one of the really. International events, you know, have a track just for new people, uh, you know, where they can ask experts questions, you know, that people that, you know, we, we see in the post status slack or we see on online all the time.</p>



<p>You know, if, if a new user's able to ask them questions that, you know, that can go a long way towards selling them on the platform and keeping them there. Um, and you mentioned the learn [00:36:00] tool. Well, I, I think that's fantastic. That's actually something I brought up on the, uh, on the slack the other day. You know, Has there been any effort to kind of integrate that with the core software so that you can easily find tutorials?</p>



<p>Uh, maybe through a plugin or, or something like that? Because we have various WordPress support, uh, tools that are third party, you know, that'll show videos on how to do different things. We have this wonderful resource and if somebody doesn't visit wordpress.org, they're really not gonna know it's. And I think, you know, it's such an opportunity to reach people and, and teach them how to do anything from the basics to, you know, once they level up to, you know, some more advanced things, it's all right there waiting and, you know, all we have to do in some way, some respects is, you know, put it in front of them, You know, give them the opportunity to see it.</p>



<p>Um, so those are things, you know. The WordPress community has so much great content, so many smart people. I think we [00:37:00] ought to be able to put our heads together and, and find ways to, you know, encourage new users and embrace them and, and, and, you know, kind of help them, you know, with any stumbling blocks.</p>



<p>And because, you know, if once we kind of. Hate to say the phrase die out. You know, what, what, what is the next generation of WordPress user going to look like? How, how are they going to use the software? You know, if we want to keep it as a market leader, we want to keep it, uh, viable, you know, the new users are, you know, just critical</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> to that, right?</p>



<p>Yeah. I, I think that Learn is, uh, learn. WordPress is. Logical, the content that's being developed there and also the meetups that are going on, the, um, kind of webinars that are, that are happening are, um, are logical to move into the dashboard for certain, um, certain use [00:38:00] cases, um, in the, in mass market, DIY users.</p>



<p>All right, well, It's been good talking to you again. I, I think this, this is a good, a good topic with a lot of questions in it that touch a couple of the main, main conversations and, and issues today that we've, we've been all, all thinking about, um, what to do with, uh, potential changes to the plugin repository and, and the kind of data that that comes out of there.</p>



<p>Dot org content and information can somehow fit into the, um, into the WordPress dashboard and, um, interface there to help people and connect them with the community. Um, how we could maybe standardize, uh, the experience and some interface design, how things are, are done on the back end that, um, makes [00:39:00] it a more palatable and, uh, Less busy interruptive, um, or confused experience on, on sites with a lot of things installed, whether it's, um, someone just setting up their own, their own site, or, uh, an agency doing it for a, a high end client.</p>



<p>Um, I think the more, the more we see those all as, uh, common problems everyone has. The better chance at br at bringing everyone towards a, an aligned solution where everyone wins. Um, ideally one, one would hope .</p>



<p><strong>Eric Karcovack:</strong> There's potential there. Absolutely. Hope so. Um, you know, The, the, you know, if you start the conversation, hopefully, um, you know, you bring in some good ideas and if we see a few of them implemented, uh, that's like you said, that's gonna benefit everybody.</p>



<p><strong>Dan Knauss:</strong> You have been listening to post status excerpt, a podcast from post Status, the [00:40:00] community for WordPress professionals. Check us out@poststatus.com. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter, or become a member and join us in post status. We have membership plans for freelancers, agency owners, product founders, and business partners who share and support our mission of investing in the open web by growing the WordPress ecosystem and coming together for fun and networking as we give and grow together.</p>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:52:49 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:10:"Dan Knauss";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:34;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WPTavern: Gutenberg 14.4 Introduces Distraction-Free Mode, Redesigns Pattern Inserter";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=138957";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-14-4-introduces-distraction-free-mode-redesigns-pattern-inserter";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3067:"<p><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/27/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-4-26-october/">Gutenberg 14.4</a> was released today with long-awaited support for distraction-free editing, to the delight of content editors around the world. It hides all non-essential UI and clears the canvas for a focus on text-based content creation. </p>



<p>The mode can be toggled on in the options menu in the top toolbar. Distraction-free mode hides the top toolbar, any open sidebars, along with the insertion point indicator and the block toolbar.</p>



source: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/27/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-4-26-october/">Gutenberg 14.4 release post</a>



<p>The project to improve the editing experience for text-based content began with <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-contributors-begin-early-exploration-of-a-new-distraction-free-mode">early explorations</a> in February, which <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-contributors-make-progress-on-distraction-free-mode">progressed</a> into a <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/41740">PR</a> that contributors have been refining for the last few months. This distraction-free mode is a monumental improvement over the days when users struggled to write with various UI elements popping in and out of view.</p>



<p>Another major update in 14.4 is the <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44028">redesigned pattern inserter</a>. It has been updated to show the categories before rendering the patterns, giving users a more fluid visual preview as they browse the pattern library. Patterns can be dragged and dropped from the preview pane into the canvas.</p>



source: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/27/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-4-26-october/">Gutenberg 14.4 release post</a>



<p>Other notable improvements users may notice include the following:</p>



<ul>
<li>Image Block: new toolbar button to <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44965">add a caption</a></li>



<li>Block Locking: <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44739">Added content locking to the navigation block</a></li>



<li>Many improvements to fluid typography, including <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44765">automatically converting custom font sizes to fluid values</a> when “settings.typography.fluid” is set to true</li>



<li>Inserter: <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44711">Add a more pronounced hover effect</a></li>
</ul>



<p>Performance benchmarks show an improvement in loading time for both the post and site editors. Check out the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/27/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-4-26-october/">release post</a> to see the full list of all the changes and bug fixes included in 14.4. This release will not be included in the upcoming WordPress 6.1 release next week, but users who are eager to adopt these new features can get them right now in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/gutenberg/">Gutenberg plugin</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:48:15 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:35;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"Do The Woo Community: Building WooCommerce Community in Africa with Sunday Ukafia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=73309";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:80:"https://dothewoo.io/building-woocommerce-community-in-africa-with-sunday-ukafia/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:437:"<p>Listen in as we hear the passion that Sunday has for bringing WooCommerce to Nigeria and the broader community in Africa.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/building-woocommerce-community-in-africa-with-sunday-ukafia/">Building WooCommerce Community in Africa with Sunday Ukafia</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 27 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:36;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:95:"WPTavern: 2022 Web Almanac Performance Data Shows WordPress Sites May Be Overusing Lazy-Loading";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=138932";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"https://wptavern.com/2022-web-almanac-performance-data-shows-wordpress-sites-may-be-overusing-lazy-loading";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6567:"<p>The last two chapters of the <a href="https://almanac.httparchive.org/">2022 Web Almanac</a> were released this week &#8211; Structured Data and Performance, completing the 729-page ebook of the report. The WordPress-specific chapter was published earlier this month with metrics that indicate <a href="https://wptavern.com/2022-web-almanac-report-finds-wordpress-adoption-is-growing-adds-new-page-builder-data">adoption is growing</a>.</p>



<p>The Performance chapter was written by Etsy performance engineer Melissa Ada and Google web transparency engineer Rick Viscomi. Performance metrics in the chapter focus on <a href="https://web.dev/vitals/">Core Web Vitals</a> (CWV), which Google introduced in 2020 and <a href="https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/11/timing-for-page-experience">made a ranking signal</a> in 2021. They used the public <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/crux/">Chrome UX Report</a> (CrUX) dataset for the report, which collects data from <a href="https://developer.chrome.com/docs/crux/methodology/#eligibility">eligible websites</a> &#8211; publicly discoverable sites with an undisclosed minimum number of visitors.</p>



<p>Most of the data concerns the performance of the web as a whole over time, but the 2022 Web Almanac highlighted one specific concern regarding WordPress sites&#8217; use of lazy-loading and its impact on LCP performance. Google defines <a href="https://web.dev/lcp/">Largest Contentful Paint metric (LCP)</a> metrics as “the render time of the largest <a href="https://web.dev/lcp/#what-elements-are-considered">image or text block</a> visible within the viewport, relative to when the page <a href="https://w3c.github.io/hr-time/#timeorigin-attribute">first started loading</a>.”</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>Lazy-loading is a good thing when used correctly, but these stats strongly suggest that there’s a major opportunity to improve performance by removing this functionality from LCP images in particular.</p>



<p>WordPress was one of the pioneers of native lazy-loading adoption, and between versions 5.5 and 5.9, it didn’t actually omit the attribute from LCP candidates. So let’s explore the extent to which WordPress is still contributing to this anti-pattern.</p>



<p>According to the <a href="https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2022/cms">CMS</a> chapter, <a href="https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2022/cms#most-popular-cmss">WordPress is used by 35% of pages</a>. So it’s surprising to see that 72% of pages that use native lazy-loading on their LCP image are using WordPress, given that a fix has been available since January 2022 in version 5.9. One theory that needs more investigation is that plugins may be circumventing the safeguards built into WordPress core by injecting LCP images onto the page with the lazy-loading behavior.</p>



<p>Similarly, a disproportionately high percentage of pages that use custom lazy-loading are built with WordPress at 54%. This hints at a wider issue in the WordPress ecosystem about lazy-loading overuse. Rather than being a fixable bug localized to WordPress core, there may be hundreds or thousands of separate themes and plugins contributing to this anti-pattern.</p>
<cite><a href="https://almanac.httparchive.org/en/2022/performance">2022 Web Almanac &#8211; Chapter 12: Performance</a></cite></blockquote>



<p>Prior to WordPress 5.9, WordPress’ default of lazy loading implementation was causing slower LCP performance, because it had been applied too aggressively and was lazy-loading images above the fold. In 5.9, <a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-5-9-to-fix-lazy-loading-performance-regression-resulting-in-30-faster-page-loads-in-some-cases">WordPress shipped a fix</a> that more eagerly loads images within the initial viewport while lazy-loading the rest. That&#8217;s why results that show WordPress sites overusing lazy-loading are surprising.</p>



<p>&#8220;Admittedly, &#8216;lazy-overloading&#8217; a hard problem to solve,&#8221; Viscomi said in his <a href="https://twitter.com/rick_viscomi/status/1585248419701874688">Twitter thread analysis</a>. &#8220;We don&#8217;t always know whether an image will be the LCP.  WordPress core sets it on every image by default and uses heuristics to unset it. Nearly 3/4 of pages that natively lazy-load images are on WordPress.&#8221;</p>



<p>In 2020, Viscomi remarked on how quickly the adoption of native image lazy-loading shot up after WordPress 5.5 was released in August of that year with  images lazy-loaded by default. WordPress has been driving adoption of this feature, which is why any implementation &#8220;anti-pattern,&#8221; as Viscomi characterized it, has an outsized effect on the performance of the web.</p>



<div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">As of October, 10.6% of the web is using native image lazy loading, per <a href="https://twitter.com/HTTPArchive?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HTTPArchive</a>. That number was 1.5% in July! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/14.0.0/72x72/1f92f.png" alt="?" class="wp-smiley" /><br /><br />This appears to be _entirely_ driven by WordPress at 28.9% of WP pages, which makes up one third of the web.<a href="https://t.co/QYGyyctFgc">https://t.co/QYGyyctFgc</a><br /><br />left: all web<br />right: WP <a href="https://t.co/RQnDw4UZ56">pic.twitter.com/RQnDw4UZ56</a></p>&mdash; Rick Viscomi (@rick_viscomi) <a href="https://twitter.com/rick_viscomi/status/1344380340153016321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>&#8220;What gives, WordPress?&#8221; Viscomi said. &#8220;My theory is that it&#8217;s not the core heuristics that are wrong, it&#8217;s the plugins. Also, keep in mind that the majority of pages that even use lazy-loading are WP.</p>



<p>&#8220;To support the plugin theory, let&#8217;s look at custom lazy-loading of LCP: More than half of the pages that do it are built with WordPress. WordPress is &#8216;only&#8217; a third of the web, so there&#8217;s clearly something going on with JS-based lazy-overloading in WP.&#8221;</p>



<p>On WordPress.org there are <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/search/lazy+loading/">multiple pages</a> of performance, caching, and image and video optimization plugins that are using lazy-loading in some way. Plugin and theme developers who are using lazy-loading in their extensions may want to test their implementations to see if they are having a negative impact on LCP performance.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Thu, 27 Oct 2022 03:04:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:37;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:106:"WPTavern: #48 – Christina Deemer on Making Digital Content Usable for People With Cognitive Disabilities";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:48:"https://wptavern.com/?post_type=podcast&p=138814";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:120:"https://wptavern.com/podcast/48-christina-deemer-on-making-digital-content-usable-for-people-with-cognitive-disabilities";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:42987:"Transcript<div>
<p>Christina Deemer</p>



<p>[00:00:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Welcome to the Jukebox podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.</p>



<p>Jukebox is a a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress. The people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case making digital content usable for people with cognitive disabilities.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to WPTavern.com forward slash feed forward slash podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.</p>



<p>If you have a topic that you&#8217;d like us to feature on the show, I&#8217;m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you all your idea featured soon. Head over to WPTavern.com forward slash contact forward slash jukebox, and use the form there.</p>



<p>So, on the podcast today, we have Christina Deemer. Christina is a senior UX developer at Lede, a company of the Alley Group, where she champions accessibility and headless WordPress in her work with publishers and nonprofits. She&#8217;s passionate about inclusivity and community and has spoken at a variety of events about the subject.</p>



<p>Christina is autistic and brings her personal experience with neurodivergence and disability to bear in her work.</p>



<p>At the recent WordCamp US, Christina gave a presentation called &#8220;embracing minds of all kinds, making digital content usable for people with cognitive disabilities&#8221;. And it&#8217;s this talk, which is the foundation of the podcast today.</p>



<p>In her description of the presentation, Christina wrote, &#8220;cognitive disabilities are among the most prevalent types of disabilities, yet experts have struggled to provide web accessibility best practices around this area due to cognitive disabilities being such a broad category. However recent work by standards groups has begun to address this deficiency&#8221;.</p>



<p>In past episodes, we&#8217;ve covered website accessibility from some different angles, and today we focus on how the web might be experienced by people with cognitive disabilities.</p>



<p>First, Christina talks about what the term cognitive disabilities actually means, and what it encompasses. It&#8217;s a wide range of things, and so we talk about how people may differ in the way that they access the web. Memory, over complicated interfaces and readability are a few of the areas that we touch upon.</p>



<p>We also discuss what legislation there is in place to offer guidance to those wishing to make their sites more accessible, and as you&#8217;ll hear, it&#8217;s a changing landscape.</p>



<p>Towards the end, Christina talks about her own late diagnosis of autism and how this shapes her experience of the web, particularly with auto-play content and when web design includes elements which flash or flicker.</p>



<p>Typically when we record the podcast there&#8217;s not a lot of background noise, but that&#8217;s not always the case. This is the last of the live recordings from WordCamp US 2022, and you may notice that the recordings have a little echo or other strange audio artifacts. Whilst the podcasts are more than listenable, I do hope that you understand that the vagaries of the real world were at play.</p>



<p>If you&#8217;re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links and the show notes by heading over to WPTavern.com forward slash podcast, where you&#8217;ll find all of the other episodes as well.</p>



<p>And so, without further I bring you Christina Deemer.</p>



<p>I am joined on the podcast today by Christina Deemer. Hello.</p>



<p>[00:04:14] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Hello Nathan.</p>



<p>[00:04:16] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s very nice to have you on. We are at WordCamp US 2022. We&#8217;re upstairs in the media room, and we&#8217;ve got Christina on the show today because she did a presentation. Have you actually done the presentation yet?</p>



<p>[00:04:27] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yes, I did it yesterday morning. I was lucky in that I got to get it over with early and then enjoy the rest of the conference.</p>



<p>[00:04:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> How did it go?</p>



<p>[00:04:35] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> It went really well. It was a lot of fun. I had a really great audience.</p>



<p>[00:04:39] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> That&#8217;s nice to hear. That&#8217;s good. The subject, I&#8217;m just gonna give everybody the title. That&#8217;s probably a quick way to introduce what we&#8217;re gonna talk about. The subject title was embracing minds of all kinds, making digital content usable for people with cognitive disabilities. So we&#8217;ll dive into that in a moment. Just before then, though, just paint a little bit of a picture about who you are and how come it is that you&#8217;re speaking at a WordPress conference particularly about this topic.</p>



<p>[00:05:04] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Okay. I am a career changer. I spent the first 12 years or so of my career working in arts management. Then I decided I wanted to do something very different, and I became a developer. And one of my early mentors introduced me to WordPress. So, the first projects that I worked on were WordPress sites. I wrote my first WordPress theme when I was 35, and just really enjoyed getting involved in the WordPress community.</p>



<p>And from the beginning of my career, I&#8217;ve been very interested in accessibility for a wide variety of reasons. And it&#8217;s become a passion of mine. I really enjoy sharing knowledge about accessibility with people. I enjoy hearing people&#8217;s stories about accessibility. And recently there&#8217;s been a lot of work done on the standards around cognitive accessibility or accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities, and that work has been really fascinating and I&#8217;ve wanted to share it with people. And that was how, the reason that I pitched this talk for WordCamp US.</p>



<p>[00:06:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you. That&#8217;s great. The words cognitive disabilities, it probably makes a great deal of sense to you because you&#8217;ve parsed and you&#8217;ve said it many times. You fully understand it. Would you just run over a brief definition of what it encompasses? And I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s not just one thing, maybe it&#8217;s a multitude of things.</p>



<p>[00:06:28] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> So it&#8217;s a very nebulous term, and it acts as a sort of umbrella for neurological disorders as well as behavioral and mental health disorders that may or may not be neurological. It covers a wide variety of things from autism, ADHD, aphasia, dementia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, tourette syndrome, traumatic brain injury.</p>



<p>It covers a real wide variety of things, which is one of the reasons actually why it&#8217;s taken so long to develop some standards around how to make websites more accessible to people with those diagnoses. But just to take a little further step back with things. When I talk about this I really try to make a point to not focus on some of these sort of diagnostic labels, but to rather focus on underlying cognitive skills.</p>



<p>Because a lot of people with cognitive disabilities don&#8217;t even realize they have a disability, for a number of reasons. There are a lot of systemic barriers to getting a diagnosis, and a lot of things come into play there. But really what we&#8217;re talking about is some underlying cognitive skills, like memory issues, focus issues, ability to concentrate, reading, math and language comprehension, decision making, executive function, which has to do with the processes involved in following instructions and planning things and processing a bunch of things at once.</p>



<p>So, when I talk about cognitive accessibility, I really like to focus less on those diagnostic labels and more on the underlying cognitive skills that are involved.</p>



<p>[00:08:13] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So from that, I take it that cognitive disabilities, as you described it, was a long list. There was a really large amount of things that you&#8217;re covering here, which is really interesting. So let&#8217;s unpack that a little bit. Just before we clicked record, I mentioned that we may get into the weeds of what it is like for people who have some of these things. And maybe we could cherry pick some examples.</p>



<p>What I&#8217;m intending to do here is for you to paint a picture of what the web looks like for some of these different things. So in my case, when I approach the computer and open it up and get it started, I can see the screen, I can hear the video when it&#8217;s played. I just don&#8217;t really have a window into what that might look like. So if you have a moment to just broadly paint a picture of what some of these things feel like and look like.</p>



<p>[00:09:01] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Sure, and even people who are somewhat familiar with general accessibility and maybe more accustomed to thinking about what the web is like for people who use screen readers. So they think about, they&#8217;ve maybe done some testing and they know how things are read. They think about reading order, and how a screen reader works. And when they&#8217;re thinking about making sites accessible for people who are deaf, they are thinking about making sure that there are captions on videos.</p>



<p>So when we&#8217;re thinking about cognitive accessibility, we&#8217;re thinking about some other issues. So in my talk yesterday, I had a couple of examples of sites that are pages that had weak cognitive accessibility. And one of them was a desktop screen of an interface of eBay, like buying a shirt on eBay. And in the middle of the page, there were four calls to action, with three different designs. So it wasn&#8217;t clear what the user was supposed to push. There was no clear call to action. There was very little white space on the page.</p>



<p>So this isn&#8217;t great for users with cognitive disability. Somebody who has an issue with focus is not going to know really where to look on the page. Could get distracted by all of the various details. All of the sidebars on the left, little small text below an image. People who struggle with decision making haven&#8217;t helped them with those four CTAs in the middle of the page.</p>



<p>Anybody with memory issues, it&#8217;s not going to be clear, like, if they bought something on eBay previously. They won&#8217;t remember what they did last time because it&#8217;s a little confusing. So a lot of users may abandon their task on a page like that. So that&#8217;s an example of a page that maybe has complex or overwhelming interface.</p>



<p>And another barrier that users face is if a site has very complex text or unusual words. So I mention Wikipedia page on the planet Saturn, that included words like perihelion, and a word like eccentricity, but people may not be accustomed to understanding what Saturn&#8217;s eccentricity is. Like, what does that even mean?</p>



<p>So, readability is often analyzed through a, a system called the Flesh Reading E Score. And I went to a website that measures the readability of, particularly of, Wikipedia pages. And it indicated that this page had a reading level of 10 to 12th grade. So it was very, very difficult to read. And for most adults we say that the reading level of content should be at about a seventh or eighth grade level. So if you want to make your content accessible for people who have reading or language comprehension issues, you&#8217;re going to want to go with even simpler content. A readability of about sixth grade or less. So those are of a couple of examples of some barriers that users with cognitive disabilities face on the web.</p>



<p>[00:11:57] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> So the accessibility piece, the bit that you mentioned earlier, about potentially some of the WCAG guidelines and things like that. That now is being drawn into the domain of, it&#8217;s illegal if you don&#8217;t perform some of these things. Is there anything surrounding that with the cognitive disability side. Is there any mandated things that you must do?</p>



<p>[00:12:17] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Okay, so that&#8217;s where things are evolving, a lot and some really interesting things are happening. In WCAG 2.1, there&#8217;s already a couple of things, a couple of success criteria that address cognitive accessibility. Things around space around text, stuff like that. Auto filling in or making it possible to auto complete form fields. Those things are great for people with language or reading comprehension issues, people who have issues with focus.</p>



<p>In April, 2021, the W3C came out with a working group note on guidelines for making content more usable for people with cognitive disabilities. And this was a non-normative document, which meant that it was supplementary to WCAG and you don&#8217;t need to conform, follow these guidelines in order to meet WCAG compliance. So they came out with all of these really great framework, with eight objectives, dozens of design patterns, and none of that is necessary to comply with WCAG. So, yeah, that was April 2021.</p>



<p>So now we&#8217;re in September 2022. We now have WCAG 2.2 is in candidate recommendation, I think. And there are two new success criteria that feel like they&#8217;ve come directly out of that working group note. One is on accessible authentication, which is where you need to supply at least one method for logging in that doesn&#8217;t rely on cognitive skills. So you need to have at least one option where somebody doesn&#8217;t have to, by memory, type in their password. They can use a password manager or there&#8217;s an option for magic links, QR codes, single sign on, something like that. So that&#8217;s a new one.</p>



<p>And there&#8217;s also a new success criteria on consistent help. Oftentimes the quickest way for somebody to solve a challenge online is to get help from a real person that can support users. And it&#8217;s important that this information on like how to get help from a real person isn&#8217;t hidden. You don&#8217;t have to scroll and click through a bunch of non obvious links to find out how to get help from a real person. That information is accessible in the same place on consistent pages. And that&#8217;s just even having an email address for help, or a number to get help via text, or social, or a chatbot or something that&#8217;s not a chat, that&#8217;s a real person or something. Just making it possible for somebody to get help from a real person</p>



<p>So we&#8217;re seeing some of these things that were in that working group note come into the standard, which is very exciting. And part of the reason there were all of these design patterns in the working group note in the April, 2021 working group note, that are not included in the standard, in 2.2. And I think that&#8217;s for a variety of reasons. Like one of them is that so much of it is it&#8217;s hard to figure out a way to test it. To like design it so that you can have some sort of measurable test of yes, you are conforming with this or you aren&#8217;t.</p>



<p>A lot of it, with cognitive disabilities is very contextual and subjective, and it depends on your product and it depends on so many different things that they haven&#8217;t figured out a way to create testable success criteria yet. But it&#8217;s exciting to me that we at . Least have these two new success criteria.</p>



<p>[00:15:43] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Is one of the things that makes this difficult to pin down, is it because unlike, let&#8217;s take the example of somebody who is blind, it&#8217;s binary in that case. I don&#8217;t mean you, your heart of sight, I mean you are literally blind. You know what to do with that because the outcome is obvious. You can&#8217;t see the screen. So there&#8217;s remedies for that, and you can create those remedies with screen readers and so on. But it sounds like the description of cognitive disabilities, there&#8217;s such a broad spectrum. It&#8217;s hard to pin it down, so it&#8217;s hard to create the solution because each person may be slightly different.</p>



<p>[00:16:15] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Absolutely. And there&#8217;s a saying in the autism community that when you&#8217;ve met one autistic person, you&#8217;ve met one autistic person. So a lot of times with these things, you can have an interface that works for one person who has a lot of trouble with memory, may not work for another person. Or even that same person when they&#8217;re having a good day versus having a bad day.</p>



<p>So, it is very hard to pin down. It comes down then not to an argument about we have to do this to legally comply with the standard, to not get into trouble. It comes down to, you have to do this or you should do this because you want to do the right thing for your users. And sometimes, I talk about this in my talk, that there can be sometimes tension between like business goals and accessibility goals or something like that.</p>



<p>And there are a lot of ways to find the like win . Win. You know we&#8217;re improving things for users, for disabled users also improves things for your business goals. But you really have to get out of more of a checklist, we&#8217;re doing this because it&#8217;s legal, because we need to legally comply with the standard, to like having a more accessibility mindset about it all.</p>



<p>[00:17:24] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that makes sense. I don&#8217;t know if you&#8217;re American, but we&#8217;re in America. I&#8217;m from the UK. So, completely different sides of the world really. And obviously you take in every other country on the planet, there&#8217;s gonna be a different complexion there. Is there broad consensus of how important it is across the world? Or is it very much a case that America&#8217;s doing one thing and the UK is doing another, and Australia and all the other countries that we could mention.</p>



<p>[00:17:47] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> I can speak more about that in terms of accessibility in general. So there are different laws in different places, which sounds like a really obvious thing when I say it that way. But what&#8217;s really great about WCAG is that it is a sort of internationally recognized standard, and a lot of countries use WCAG as a standard, and they&#8217;ll refer to it because it is kept up to date, because it is all testable.</p>



<p>So there are like slightly different laws in different places, but a lot of places do fall back to WCAG, usually the double A standard. Depends on the places and everything, but a lot of times a law may apply only to like government websites, or sites that serve the public interest or something like that.</p>



<p>And I think there&#8217;s still a lot of debate around whether or not websites fall under the Americans with Disability Act. There&#8217;s still some argument about that. I mentored a developer out of the UK on accessibility at the end of 2021, in the beginning of 2022, and we talked a little bit about some of the laws there and they&#8217;re, yeah, slightly different than they are in America, but everything falls back to WCAG.</p>



<p>[00:19:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Okay. Thank you. You mentioned in the notes that we exchanged prior to recording this, that there are some, some ways that you can make this job easier for yourself. And you talk particularly about some design patterns that you feel will be able to assist people who, perhaps having listened to this podcast, think, okay, this is something I need to be mindful of. Just run us through what these design patterns are. That may take a long time, I don&#8217;t know. You might have a quick version or it may be a long version. I don&#8217;t know.</p>



<p>[00:19:25] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yeah, in the April 2021 working group note, it mentions dozens of different design patterns. And um, I really encourage people to check that out. Of course, read this spec and look at the working group node and understand all of the different things. But a couple of sort of top things for me are making your content as clear as possible. And a lot of times people think of content as post content.</p>



<p>But content is everything that&#8217;s on your site. So it includes button text, it includes how the content in a menu, it includes instructions, it includes headings, and it&#8217;s important that all of that is as clear as possible. So if you have multiple CTAs on a page, if you have a CTA for subscribing, what does subscribing mean? What are you subscribing to? Versus registering for a newsletter. You need to make sure that the CTA for registering for the newsletter, versus subscribing to a publication, that they have a separate CTA. That it&#8217;s clear that you&#8217;re doing two different actions here.</p>



<p>And we talked about readability a minute ago, making sure that you&#8217;re using short sentences with simple common words. That is helpful. And that you&#8217;re using punctuation intentionally, which sounds like a small thing but using punctuation intentionally, like a period when you mean to use a period and using commas. That&#8217;s helpful for, clear content is important for SEO as well. And it helps with users who use screen readers, which includes people with cognitive disabilities who are more comfortable hearing the text, the content, than reading it.</p>



<p>And while a blind person who does not have a cognitive disability may be able to work out the meaning of something that&#8217;s not formatted correctly. Somebody who has communication issues may not be able to work out what the meaning of the content is, if it&#8217;s not formatted correctly. So the clear content is one. Using clear step by step instructions for something is important. A lot of times we give users feedback only when they&#8217;re making a mistake.</p>



<p>But it&#8217;s important to give them a little help before they&#8217;ve made a mistake in a form. Give them an example of how you want a telephone number formatted. Or like where they can find if a username is actually a user&#8217;s email address, make that clear to the user before they&#8217;ve tried to submit the form and they&#8217;ve made a mistake. Those little bits of instructions sometimes can seem unnecessary or they&#8217;re cluttering up the site. If you feel like they&#8217;re cluttering up the site, you can hide the instructions round like a little eye icon or something like that.</p>



<p>One of the things that I think is particularly important is not making the user have to remember. If a user wants to upgrade their subscription or change their service plan. They should know what their current plan is, how much it costs, when it is set to expire. They shouldn&#8217;t have to remember that when they&#8217;re being asked to upgrade to another plan. So that&#8217;s another one.</p>



<p>And you see that with a number of cases where, you are asked to upgrade and you&#8217;re like what plan am I even on right now? Am I on a particularly high plan? How much money am I, how much extra am I spending to upgrade my plan? And it can be confusing to users. So like, just give them everything that they need on every single screen. That&#8217;s a lot better for them.</p>



<p>So those are some more concrete things. And then there are some more sort of conceptual design patterns around things like making sure that a user&#8217;s most important tasks are featured prominently on a site. What are a user&#8217;s most important tasks? Do you even know what a user&#8217;s most important tasks are on your site?</p>



<p>The example I give in my talk is that, you know if you have a library and the team thinks that the most important thing is getting users to sign up for an event, and it takes two clicks for the users to sign up for the event at the library. But, if you look at the usage data, or focus groups, or user testing, like a user&#8217;s most important tasks may be figuring out what the library hours are. Signing up for a library card. But maybe to do that you have to click on a bunch of different links and maybe even have to search or something to find out what the library hours are.</p>



<p>So you may have to sort of reconcile what the user&#8217;s most important tasks are versus what the team considers the most important. But that&#8217;s only possible when you actually know what your users want to do.</p>



<p>[00:23:56] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It feels like there&#8217;s a whole subset, and I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m not saying that this is the norm, but I think there&#8217;s a subset of people out there who quite deliberately go out of their way to make things as confusing as possible. So an example that just comes to mind recently is I purchased a flight, and the process of completing the flight purchase was extraordinarily challenging. In that I couldn&#8217;t get to the end of it without declining hundreds of different things. I simply wanted a flight, but then came the insurance and the, do you want the hotel at the other end? And do you want the car and all of this? I was just completely overloaded by the whole thing. Getting really frustrated.</p>



<p>[00:24:37] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yes.</p>



<p>[00:24:38] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> And I thought, but this is intentional. This has been designed to, in a sense, trip me up. Because the button that I wanted to press, which was continue.</p>



<p>[00:24:47] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yes.</p>



<p>[00:24:48] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Was masked, and the button which was going to sell me the insurance was large and colorful and obvious. And I feel that there&#8217;s a sort of subset of the internet where they&#8217;re trying to do exactly the opposite of what you&#8217;re describing, because, maybe it&#8217;s profit, maybe that&#8217;s all it is. It&#8217;s as simple as that. So that must be frustrating, shall we say.</p>



<p>[00:25:05] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yes, a design pattern, an accessible design pattern, is to make critical paths as short as possible. Anything that can be optional, buying the insurance, upgrading your seat, should be something that happens after you&#8217;ve completed the initial purchase. Because it&#8217;s so easy for users to get distracted. It&#8217;s so easy for users to get confused about what button to push. And again there&#8217;s that tension between accessibility needs and business needs. And I really wonder like, I would want to look at the data. Is this really effective for them?</p>



<p>Do they know? Would it be more effective for users if they were allowed to choose whether or not to buy the insurance or upgrade their seat, after they&#8217;ve completed their purchase and feel good about that, and then have the option to like do all of these other things. And then you know that the user isn&#8217;t going to, is less likely to abandon their task, and then they haven&#8217;t even purchased the ticket.</p>



<p>[00:26:00] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> I feel also that the language often is deliberately obfuscating what it is that is intended. So you know you get like double negatives, and if you do not wish to achieve such a thing, tick this box. And actually just have to spend a moment thinking about it. Hang on, what does that even mean? Do I want to tick that box or not? And give it a moment&#8217;s thought and it comes to you. But I guess those trip wires are just really frustrating.</p>



<p>[00:26:25] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yeah. And imagine like a user who struggles with reading comprehension issues, managing a sentence with double negatives. Maybe it&#8217;s hard enough for them to just parse the content in the first place, let alone battle that double negative. And maybe they think they&#8217;ve done the right thing and have said that they don&#8217;t want the insurance, but then they find out that they&#8217;ve actually purchased it.</p>



<p>And then they feel exhausted. They feel embarrassed and frustrated. And maybe reluctant to say anything because they don&#8217;t want to admit that they made a mistake and didn&#8217;t understand the content. It personally makes me feel very frustrated and angry that people maybe intentionally like praying upon people who are disabled. It is, for a lot of people, it may be just a matter of okay, I&#8217;ve gotta take a moment, figure this out. What do I wanna do? And it may just be an inconvenience or a nuisance. But for some people those kinds of barriers, it really can take a toll on people.</p>



<p>[00:27:28] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, and I feel the flight example, albeit was easy to understand, it&#8217;s not an essential part of my life. But if I was acquiring something which was utterly critical, trying to access healthcare or something and wasn&#8217;t thought through, and I really need to get this form finished yesterday. Those things do matter and so putting the time in to make it as straightforward as possible. It feels like, the word that&#8217;s coming into my head here is, clarity, simplicity, those kind of things. Just keep it as straightforward and as easy to understand as possible.</p>



<p>[00:27:58] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Absolutely.</p>



<p>[00:27:59] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You mentioned that you wanted to talk about in this podcast interview, that you have autism and how this actually impacts you. I don&#8217;t wanna lead you off in any particular direction, so I&#8217;m just gonna ask you if you want to just describe the experience.</p>



<p>[00:28:14] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Sure. So I am late diagnosed autistic person. I was diagnosed in March of 2020. So like right as the pandemic started. It was a turbulent time for me. But I also have, I have multiple family members who are autistic and the more I learned about autism, the more I found myself relating to a lot of the things that were talked about. And things like having trouble reading social cues, having some very rigid routines, getting really involved in some special interests and a number of other things, but those are some top things.</p>



<p>And a sort of funny thing is that people have told me, they&#8217;re like, hey, you don&#8217;t look autistic. And I&#8217;m like, what does that even mean? Does that mean that I&#8217;m not, I don&#8217;t look like the sort of stereotype for an autistic person as a young white boy who likes trains? And granted, trains are awesome, I do like trains. And I do love Star Trek, especially like the autistic coded characters like Spock and Data and Seven Of Nine. But like, autistic people look like people. There are women who are autistic, there are black people who are autistic.</p>



<p>And I think the other thing is that I&#8217;m good at masking, and masking is where autistic people sort of adopt neurotypical traits to fit in. And that is something that a lot of people, especially people who are socialized as girls, get accustomed to doing. So like there&#8217;s that. But I am autistic. Autistic people look a bunch of different ways. I wanted to take advantage of this platform, this opportunity to address that misconception about what autistic people look like.</p>



<p>And earlier we were talking about my experience on the web. What that looks like and how my autism can inform that or what barriers I experience. And a couple of things came to mind, and one is that definitely like any autoplay content, like autoplay media, or auto play video auto play audio, animations that are not functional, it can feel to me like I&#8217;m intending to step into a library and I&#8217;ve, and I walk into a rave. That is how it feels. It feels very loud and bright. And that is no knock on raves, everybody likes a good rave sometimes. But you wanna give people the opportunity to like turn off the music, and turn off the flashing lights.</p>



<p>So a thing that I really hope people can do is, if you have some auto play thing. A, don&#8217;t auto play anything in the first place, it&#8217;s very inaccessible, but like always give users the opportunity to personalize, and turn those things off.</p>



<p>So the other one is like very similar in that it&#8217;s flashing and flickering content. And that can feel like looking at the sun. I can feel pain in my eyes, from flashing and flickering content. And it doesn&#8217;t have to be that super fast flash that can trigger seizures in photosensitive people. It can just be like, a little too much flash. I can feel it in my eyes and I can have even that like startled physical reaction to it. And that&#8217;s just me personally.</p>



<p>I think there are a lot of other people who may have different responses to things on the web and, and I&#8217;m fortunate enough that I can, on my team, and this is why it&#8217;s great to have diverse teams, is like when we&#8217;re building content, when we&#8217;re building websites, I can help guide us and say, or help give that feedback about auto playing things and put my foot down and say we are not going to build this in a way that is inaccessible. We are not going to build this animation that seems cute, doesn&#8217;t have any functionality or whatever, but I know is going to like ruin somebody&#8217;s day or whatever, just because they accidentally like encountered this webpage.</p>



<p>[00:31:53] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Really fascinating. You are educating me in an area that I genuinely don&#8217;t have much contact with. So it&#8217;s really fascinating. Given everything that you&#8217;ve just said, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s gonna be a proportion of people who have woken up to this, during the listening of this, and thinking to themselves, okay, how do I find out more? So just for those of us who are starting on this journey, just give us some idea of where the resources might lie. Where might we go? Who might we speak to? Which organizations? So that could be online, or a book, or an organization, whatever you like.</p>



<p>[00:32:22] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> I think if you&#8217;re interested in learning more about accessibility, there are a few organizations that do a pretty good job with providing accessibility education. The first is the company Deque, they make an accessibility testing extension, but they also offer really great courses and training and have a lot of just general resources on their website. They even have a great resource library of accessible components.</p>



<p>There&#8217;s Knowbility, which is spelled k n o w b i l i t y. Also has a number of great webinars and they have a conference, so a great place to go for resources. There&#8217;s a really great community on Twitter, on accessibility, Twitter. There are a number of experts there, and I&#8217;m always a big fan of if you really want to understand accessibility, you&#8217;ve gotta read the specs.</p>



<p>And actually, it&#8217;s ironic but when some of the April, 2021 working group note that I keep referencing, when that came out, some folks criticized it online saying, this document itself isn&#8217;t very accessible. It&#8217;s very, very extensive, very thorough, very meaty. And so they went back, God bless them, they went back and they made the document itself more accessible. They added some icons which help with scanning the document. They added some more use cases and examples, so people could better understand how these things work in real life. So it&#8217;s a lot. I think it&#8217;s actually the working group note on cognitive accessibility, I think is actually sometimes easier to parse than WCAG itself, in terms of the content.</p>



<p>And I also want people to understand that there are probably some accessibility champions in your network. You may have somebody on your team or in your company who has a good understanding of maybe how accessibility intersects with your product or your sector. And talk to those people. I learned a lot about accessibility from the agency I work for called Alley. Shout out to Kevin and Owen, who both really mentored me and helped me really level up my accessibility knowledge. So like use the people that you have in your network. They really want to talk to you about these things. So I hope that&#8217;s helpful.</p>



<p>[00:34:34] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Yeah, that&#8217;s really helpful. But also just to know that this is an area where there are actual jobs. There are people who do this, who would like to assist you. There&#8217;s probably somebody in your local area who takes this all very seriously, and would be willing to speak to you on the phone. It&#8217;s not just, okay, I heard a podcast, I can forget about it now. There are calls to be made and people to meet who will help you with this.</p>



<p>[00:34:54] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Absolutely, and so I don&#8217;t do accessibility full time at my job. I&#8217;m a developer. So there may be accessibility champions who are developers in your organization. There may be people who are designers who work in content, who work in strategy. The awesome thing about accessibility is that it touches all areas of the product. And, there are also people, yes professionals who focus exclusively on accessibility and who can do things like perform an audit of your product.</p>



<p>And if you are starting from zero on this, a lot of times those people can be the best people to reach out to because they are going to give you that comprehensive look that includes content design, you know development, all strategy, like all aspects of accessibility.</p>



<p>[00:35:41] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> You mentioned that you work for . A company called Alley. I&#8217;ll link in the show notes. Your agency isn&#8217;t uniquely focusing on this area?</p>



<p>[00:35:48] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> No.</p>



<p>[00:35:49] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> It&#8217;s a web design agency?</p>



<p>[00:35:51] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yeah. So the Alley Group is an agency that works with a lot of enterprise level publishers. And I work for a company within the Alley group called Lead, and we&#8217;re a platform for mid and small size independent publishers. But accessibility is something that the Alley group takes very seriously.</p>



<p>We work with a lot of very large publications. So we have to make sure that we get this right for them, and the millions of people who visit those websites. And we are hiring. If you&#8217;re interested in joining a group that takes accessibility very seriously, please visit alley.co/careers. We are always hiring software developers and have a number of other positions available.</p>



<p>[00:36:33] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> This is such an interesting subject. I feel that we could go on for hours more. But Christina Deemer, thank you so much. Is there a place where you are comfortable people connecting directly with you? It may be Twitter or email?</p>



<p>[00:36:44] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Yeah, you can find me on twitter at c a h d e e m e r. And this was so much fun. It went by so fast.</p>



<p>[00:36:52] <strong>Nathan Wrigley:</strong> Thank you so much for joining us. I&#8217;m really hoping that it&#8217;s gonna have opened some people&#8217;s eyes to something, which seems to be incredibly important. Thank you.</p>



<p>[00:37:00] <strong>Christina Deemer:</strong> Thank you.</p>
</div>



<p>On the podcast today we have <a href="https://twitter.com/cahdeemer">Christina Deemer</a>. Christina is a senior UX developer at <a href="https://joinlede.com/">Lede</a>, a company of the <a href="https://alley.com/">Alley Group</a>, where she champions accessibility and headless WordPress in her work with publishers and nonprofits. She&#8217;s passionate about inclusivity and community and has spoken at a variety of events about the subject.</p>



<p>Christina is autistic and brings her personal experience with neurodivergence and disability to bear in her work.</p>



<p>At the recent WordCamp US, Christina gave a <a href="https://us.wordcamp.org/2022/session/embracing-minds-of-all-kinds/">presentation</a> called &#8220;embracing minds of all kinds, making digital content usable for people with cognitive disabilities&#8221;. And it&#8217;s this talk which is the foundation of the podcast today.</p>



<p>In her description of the presentation, Christina wrote, &#8220;cognitive disabilities are among the most prevalent types of disabilities, yet experts have struggled to provide web accessibility best practices around this area due to cognitive disabilities being such a broad category. However recent work by standards groups has begun to address this deficiency&#8221;.</p>



<p>In past episodes, we&#8217;ve covered website accessibility from some different angles, and today we focus on how the web might be experienced by people with cognitive disabilities.</p>



<p>First, Christina talks about what the term cognitive disabilities actually means, and what it encompasses. It&#8217;s a wide range of things, and so we talk about how people may differ in the way that they access the web. Memory, over complicated interfaces and readability are a few of the areas that we touch upon.</p>



<p>We also discuss what legislation there is in place to offer guidance to those wishing to make their sites more accessible, and as you&#8217;ll hear, it&#8217;s a changing landscape.</p>



<p>Towards the end, Christina talks about her own late diagnosis of autism and how this shapes her experience of the web, particularly with auto-play content and when web design includes elements which flash or flicker.</p>



<p>Typically, when we record the podcast, there&#8217;s not a lot of background noise, but that&#8217;s not always the case. This is the last of the live recordings from WordCamp US 2022, and you may notice that the recordings have a little echo or other strange audio artifacts. Whilst the podcasts are more than listenable, I do hope that you understand that the vagaries of the real world were at play.</p>



<h2>Useful links.</h2>



<p><a href="https://www.deque.com/">Deque</a></p>



<p><a href="https://knowbility.org/">Knowbility</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">WCAG</a></p>



<p><a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/coga-usable/">W3C Working Group Note 29 April 2021</a></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2022 14:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:14:"Nathan Wrigley";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:38;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:71:"Do The Woo Community: The Flexibility of the WP-CLI Configuration Files";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=73110";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:86:"https://dothewoo.io/devlife_snippet-the-flexibility-of-the-wp-cli-configuration-files/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:401:"<p>For those special projects, you could set multiple WP-CLI config files in various places.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/devlife_snippet-the-flexibility-of-the-wp-cli-configuration-files/">The Flexibility of the WP-CLI Configuration Files</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2022 10:13:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:39;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:45:"HeroPress: A Community That Transcends Labels";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:56:"https://heropress.com/?post_type=heropress-essays&p=4922";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:142:"https://heropress.com/essays/a-community-that-transcends-labels/#utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=a-community-that-transcends-labels";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18134:"<img width="1024" height="512" src="https://heropress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/102522-min.jpeg" class="attachment-large size-large wp-post-image" alt="Pull Quote: WordPress is an incredible opportunity to build a successful business that is flexible enough to give me the lifestyle I want." />
Here is Katie reading her own story aloud.



<p>WordPress has changed my life in so many ways.</p>



<p>This is the story of how I discovered WordPress and used it to build a business that gives me financial freedom and a flexible lifestyle.&nbsp;</p>



<p>It’s the story of how the unique nature of the WordPress community has allowed me to achieve my dreams, without the obstacles and prejudices which are common in other industries.&nbsp;</p>



<p>It’s the story of how I haven’t achieved this “despite” being a woman founder and a mother. And how it wasn’t “because of” these things either. Instead, it was because of the incredible WordPress community which transcends these labels.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-the-beginning-building-a-career-without-a-goal">The Beginning &#8211; Building a Career Without a Goal</h3>



<p>I’ve always been extremely motivated and hard working, getting top marks at school and University. However, as a child I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Everyone around me seemed to have specific ambitions to work towards. My sister wanted to be a doctor. My Mum had always wanted to be a doctor too. My Dad had always wanted to be a TV producer. And surprise surprise, they all achieved those goals.&nbsp;</p>



<p>But I was different, as I had never seen a job that I wanted to do.</p>



<blockquote><p>It felt like there was something wrong with me.</p></blockquote>



<p>Careers advisors tried to force me into a category. This was normally very basic, for example: “You’re good at writing, you should be a journalist” &#8211; regardless of the fact that I obviously didn’t have the right personality type for that.&nbsp;</p>



<p>However, it didn’t really matter because I was hard working enough to do well at whatever I tried, and I didn’t feel I <em>needed</em> a specific purpose &#8211; whatever other people thought. I chose my favorite subjects to study at University (English Literature and Philosophy), focussing on the skills it would give me rather than what career it would lead to. And when I graduated in 2002, I applied for a range of jobs where I felt like I had the required skills. It took about 20 attempts, but eventually I got a job offer.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I didn’t enjoy my first job, which was being a Technical Writer for a software company. After that, I got a job as a Trainee Manager for a relatively small company &#8211; and that’s when things started to get interesting. I discovered that by being enthusiastic and showing my potential, I could mould the job around my skills rather than the other way round. I’m good at research and writing, so the company gave me responsibilities in those areas and let me take over the company newsletter, communication and marketing.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Since then, every role I’ve had (including at Barn2) has evolved around my skills and experience. This makes it much more interesting, as well as more useful to the company! I realised that you don’t need a specific career goal. Instead, you can just focus on what you’re good at and where your interests lie, and everyone benefits.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-the-drive-to-do-more">The Drive to Do More</h3>



<p>When I started my career, I absolutely did not have the skills or independence to start my own company. The UK education system does nothing to encourage budding entrepreneurs, or even to acknowledge entrepreneurship as a possible career option. My path had always been to go to University and then “get a job”.&nbsp;</p>



<p>However, it was the early 2000’s and the world was changing. I could see the internet taking the world by storm and creating opportunities that had never existed before. I enviously watched people who were becoming successful by building innovative online businesses. I didn’t just want their success &#8211; I wanted the flexible lifestyles that they were achieving by working for themselves.&nbsp;</p>



<blockquote><p>My husband Andy and I talked endlessly about how we wanted to stop working for other people and start a business together.</p></blockquote>



<p>However, neither of us were big risk-takers or “big ideas” people. As a result, we stayed in our jobs for the rest of our 20’s, feeling more and more fed up and longing for more freedom.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-discovering-wordpress-while-becoming-a-mother">Discovering WordPress While Becoming a Mother</h3>



<p>Eventually, in 2009/10 we agreed for Andy to quit his job to start a web design company. The plan was for him to do the technical work, while I would do the marketing, content and SEO alongside my main job. My salary was just about enough to support both of us through the early days, so while it was the biggest risk we had ever taken, it wasn’t a huge gamble.</p>



<p>While Andy was a Senior Software Developer, he had to teach himself web design and PHP. We chose to start a web design business because it felt like an easy market to enter, and would nicely combine his technical abilities with my business and marketing skills. We didn’t have the confidence to start a business that required large upfront investment or a higher level of risk.&nbsp;</p>



<p>While our initial focus was designing websites for small local businesses, Andy discovered WordPress during our first project. He immediately realized that it was the best way to build any type of website. I remember being sceptical when he first told me about it because it sounded like a template-based blogging platform, but he was absolutely right! We used it for all our clients’ websites.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In 2011, our daughter Sophia was born.</p>



<blockquote><p>Surprisingly, being a mother actually helped me to build the business.</p></blockquote>



<p>Andy and I had felt comfortable reducing our income to one salary, but it was much scarier for us both to quit our jobs. After all, that was the point where our finances would be completely reliant on the business.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Fortunately, becoming a mother eased this transition because my income naturally reduced during my year’s maternity leave. My parents were amazingly helpful while Sophia was a baby, giving me the opportunity to breast-feed every couple of hours while working on the business in between (and often at the same time!). It was also nice having Andy working from home, which meant that I got more help and felt less alone with the baby than if he had to go out to work.&nbsp;</p>



<p>It wasn’t easy. When Sophia was little, I always felt that she was different from other babies but when I raised my concerns, people told me not to be silly. At 6 months old, it became more obvious and she was diagnosed with a rare form of childhood epilepsy along with a lot of uncertainty for the future. I have never been so disappointed to be proved right! Sophia was given strong medication which made her very ill. Luckily the medication worked, but it was a terrifying time.&nbsp;</p>



<blockquote><p>Sophia’s illness made me realise how important it is to have flexible work that can fit around your lifestyle.</p></blockquote>



<p>While Andy and I did less work during this period, we still kept moving forward with some projects. I remember discussing one client’s website in a hospital waiting room! This helped to take our mind off things, while also helping to pay the bills. I’m not sure how we would have copied if we had traditional jobs where we were expected to be in the office.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>When it was time to finish maternity leave and return to my previous job, I wanted to quit and stay with Barn2 full-time, but was still too scared to make the commitment. Fortunately, ‘fate’ made the decision for me because my employer decided to withdraw all their family-friendly policies with no notice. They refused to allow me to work part-time, while at the same time trying to downgrade my role and reduce my salary by about 40%! To make a long story short, this created the perfect opportunity to jump head first into the business, which I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do otherwise.&nbsp;</p>



<p>After that, the web design business grew quickly. We grew a name for ourselves as one of the only UK companies specializing in WordPress, and had clients all over the world. You can read about this in more detail in my previous HeroPress essay, “<a href="https://heropress.com/essays/building-a-new-life/">Building a New Life</a>”.</p>



<h3 id="h-the-switch-to-wordpress-plugins">The Switch to WordPress Plugins</h3>



<p>True to form, after a few years of building a successful client-facing web design agency, I wanted more. Client work was very demanding in terms of time and commitment, and it was difficult to take time off work. I hired freelance designers and developers to help with the workload, but was managing more projects than I could handle.&nbsp;</p>



<p>In 2015, Andy and I took a month off work to travel around France in a motorhome. It was the last chance to do this during term time as our daughter Sophia was about to start school. One of my freelance project managers looked after our clients and I tried to switch off for once. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out and I returned home to a lot of unhappy clients! One project completely imploded while I was away, and I remember responding to some very stressful emails by the pool at one campsite.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As owner of a WordPress agency, I was very familiar with a range of WordPress themes and plugins. I watched the big product companies with envy, such as Gravity Forms, The Events Calendar, and others. I could see that selling WordPress products would bring even more lifestyle benefits than client work.&nbsp;</p>



<blockquote><p>After spending a year trying and failing to get a theme accepted onto ThemeForest, we decided to start building plugins.</p></blockquote>



<p>We figured that plugins could be simpler and more defined than themes, and were therefore more realistic for a single developer to build. We looked around for ideas, and found them in a range of places.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Our first plugin was released in March 2016 &#8211; <a href="https://barn2.com/wordpress-plugins/woocommerce-protected-categories/">WooCommerce Protected Categories</a>. We had seen on the WooCommerce Ideas forum that there was demand for a plugin like this, and at that time nothing like it existed. It was relatively straightforward to develop and because it was so niche, I felt confident in how to market it. Despite this, we were still amazed to get our first sale a few days after launching. It actually felt like maybe we could build a product business after all!&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-tables-tables-and-more-tables">Tables, Tables, and More Tables</h3>



<p>The second plugin was <a href="https://barn2.com/wordpress-plugins/posts-table-pro">Posts Table Pro</a>, which was a more advanced version of a plugin that we had built to list a client’s blog posts in a table. We had released it as a free plugin, which was an excellent opportunity because people started sending us feature requests that we could use to build more plugins. This directly led to the development of <a href="https://barn2.com/wordpress-plugins/woocommerce-product-table/">WooCommerce Product Table</a>, which has turned over more than $1,500,000 since its launch, and our current bestselling plugin <a href="https://barn2.com/wordpress-plugins/document-library-pro/">Document Library Pro</a>.&nbsp;</p>



<p>All of these plugins are similar in that they list information from the WordPress database in a searchable table with filters. However, people use them for radically different purposes and each plugin is tailored to a specific use case.&nbsp;</p>



<blockquote><p>We never planned to become a table plugin company &#8211; it just happened over time, as a result of adding one free plugin to wordpress.org.</p></blockquote>



<p>I think that’s how a lot of businesses work &#8211; you try one thing, and that opens doors to more opportunities. It’s the same as my career &#8211; I tried a few things and let them evolve in their natural direction. The most important thing is that you put yourself out there and get things done.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-growing-barn2-plugins-and-moving-abroad">Growing Barn2 Plugins, and Moving Abroad</h3>



<p>The plugin business has continued to grow. We’ve released more and more plugins, mostly specializing in WooCommerce. We’ve built a team, which currently consists of more than 14 people.</p>



<blockquote><p>Andy and I have taken advantage of the freedoms that we have built for ourselves. For example, last year we moved from the UK to the sunny island of Mallorca in Spain!</p></blockquote>



<p>I work when I realistically can, and I also take time out to do fun things like hiking in the mountains, or paddleboarding in the sea.&nbsp;</p>



<p>I try to be an active part of the WordPress community, for example attending WordCamps and building partnerships with other WordPress companies. I talk to people who run similar companies every day, and hope that I help them as much as they help me. Working together like this helps everyone to grow &#8211; the aim is to complement each other’s work rather than competing.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-being-a-woman-founder-in-wordpress">Being a Woman Founder in WordPress</h3>



<p>I’ve never had a problem being in a male dominated environment. As a teenager, my best friends were boys despite the fact that I went to an all-girls school. At a school parents’ evening, my teacher said that I had a “male mind” &#8211; whatever that means! As a student, I lived with Andy and 3 other guys. Before having children, most of my friends were men. So maybe ending up in a male-dominated industry is no coincidence.</p>



<p>However, I can only talk about my own experiences, and I have never experienced any issues from being a woman in WordPress. A lot of companies aim to be “color blind” and I can’t really comment on this, but I would describe the WordPress community as “gender blind”.</p>



<p>Sure, most of the people who run WordPress product companies are men, and so are most of the people at WordCamps. Most of my WordPress friends are men. However, I don’t think that’s due to discrimination because the community is 100% welcoming to the women who do choose to join. In fact, it is rare for people I meet to even acknowledge any sort of gender difference &#8211; even people I know well. Everyone is just treated equally, regardless of gender.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Interestingly, the most marginalized that I have ever felt is by other women, and by people who are trying to promote gender equality. For example, at WordCamp Europe this year, another woman founder asked me if I work at Barn2 or if I’m just here with my husband! I have never, ever been asked a question like that by a man in the WordPress community.&nbsp;</p>



<p>At WordCamp US this year, I spent almost the entire time with men and not one person drew attention to the fact that I was a different gender. As a result, I resented having my pronouns written in huge letters on my name tag! I realise this is largely in support of people in the LGBTQIA+ community but for me, it was the first time that the WordPress community had ever made a point of my gender, and felt uncomfortable and counter-productive.</p>



<p>Of course, most people feel imposter syndrome at some point, and I’m no exception. I wonder whether people only invite me on podcasts and to join groups because they want a token woman. Equally, I wonder if people respect me less because I’m not a developer. However, those are my own personal hangups and with a couple of tiny exceptions, no one has ever done anything to make me feel this way.&nbsp;</p>



<h3 id="h-what-does-wordpress-mean-to-me">What Does WordPress Mean To Me?</h3>



<p>Most industries &#8211; including tech industries &#8211; demand long hours and huge levels of commitment. It’s much harder to work <em>and </em>have a life. For me, WordPress is an incredible opportunity to build a successful business that is flexible enough to give me the lifestyle I want. I work hard when I choose to work hard. I relax when I want to relax. It’s my choice.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The barriers to entry are incredibly low, and you don’t need any specific qualifications to get started with WordPress. Most people in the industry work remotely, which brings a much better work-life balance for both the founders and team members. Everything is done online, which makes it easier to bootstrap a business with minimal investment. And yet despite this flexibility, the market is absolutely huge and you can find real success with WordPress.&nbsp;</p>



<p>A lot of people think that the WordPress industry is changing due to the spate of acquisitions over the past few years.</p>



<blockquote><p>Some product company owners feel like they will be left behind unless they join one of the big players. However, as the owner of a self-owned plugin company, I haven’t seen any evidence of this.</p></blockquote>



<p>We’re continuing to grow and thrive. In fact, being independent has advantages because I can make decisions and move quickly, without any red tape.&nbsp;</p>



<p>As well as the opportunities it brings, WordPress is an incredibly inclusive place to build a business. It does this in a natural, unintentional way where people can just “be”, without being judged. And that’s the best way.</p>
<p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com/essays/a-community-that-transcends-labels/">A Community That Transcends Labels</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://heropress.com">HeroPress</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2022 06:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Katie Keith";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:40;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:67:"WPTavern: WordPress Accessibility Day 2022 Publishes Speaker Lineup";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=138914";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:78:"https://wptavern.com/wordpress-accessibility-day-2022-publishes-speaker-lineup";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2639:"<p><a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/">WordPress Accessibility Day</a> is just one week away on November 2-3, and registration is still open. Co-lead organizer Amber Hinds published an impressive speaker lineup with 40 speakers from 14 countries. She also noted that 40% of the event&#8217;s sessions have at least one speaker who identifies as living with a disability.</p>



<p>WordPress professionals who want to learn more about creating accessible websites will want to attend, as the schedule is loaded with a wealth of educational presentations from well-known accessibility experts. Co-lead organizer Joe Dolson will start with opening remarks, followed by the <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/sessions/keynote/">keynote session</a> from <a href="https://incl.ca/">Nicolas Steenhout</a>, an accessibility consultant and host of the <a href="https://a11yrules.com/">A11y Rules Podcast</a>.</p>



<p>The 24-hour event will include practical sessions on <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/sessions/selling-accessibility-to-skeptical-clients/">Selling Accessibility to Skeptical Clients</a>, <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/sessions/think-smart-and-adapt-meeting-wcag-2-without-rebuilding-from-scratch/">Meeting WCAG 2 without rebuilding from scratch</a>, and <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/sessions/the-alt-scene-when-and-how-to-write-alternative-text/">When and How to Write Alternative Text</a>.</p>



<p>Gary Aussant, Director of Digital Accessibility Consulting at Perkins Access, and Stephen Plummer, Creative Manager at the Perkins School for the Blind, will be presenting a session titled &#8220;<a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/sessions/proof-accessible-websites-can-be-beautiful-too/">Proof: Accessible websites can be beautiful too</a>&#8221; that will debunk some of the common myths about accessible websites. They plan to show real examples of modern and engaging sites that also work well for screen readers, keyboard users, and sighted users.</p>



<p>Full-stack developer Nikole Garcia and Annie Heckel, Electronic Information Technology Accessibility Manager at Cornell University, will give a session on <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/sessions/developing-accessibility-first-wordpress-themes/">Developing Accessibility-First WordPress Themes</a>.</p>



<p>Check out the <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/schedule/">schedule</a> to browse the rest of the lineup and add the sessions you want to attend to your calendar. <a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/attendee-registration/">Registration</a> is free and the event will be live streamed via YouTube with closed captions.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2022 04:08:02 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:41;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"WPTavern: Arc FSE: A New Multipurpose Block Theme for WordPress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=138817";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"https://wptavern.com/arc-fse-a-new-multipurpose-block-theme-for-wordpress";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2260:"<p><a href="https://olivethemes.com/">Olive Themes</a>, a relatively new independent theme shop, has released its third block theme on the WordPress.org directory. <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/arc-fse/">Arc FSE</a> is a high contrast, multipurpose theme, designed to enable a broad range of flexibility through support for full-site editing features.</p>



<img />



<p>The theme features the open source and exceptionally readable <a href="https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/poppins">Poppins web font</a> in various weights and sizes. The color palette is dark with a bright lemon-yellow accent color. It&#8217;s bold without being overly splashy, making it suitable for professional use cases.</p>



<p>Arc FSE does not come with any style variations, but users can easily change the accent colors for buttons, headings, and anything else by editing the templates.</p>



<img />



<p>The theme comes with 20 custom patterns, which make up different sections of the design. They are all conveniently grouped together under &#8220;Arc FSE&#8221; in the Patterns explorer, so you don&#8217;t have to hunt for the ones that belong to the theme. It includes full-page patterns for the home, about, services, and portfolio pages. There are also section patterns for things like the default footer, 404 page, a promotional video, sidebar, search cover block, services, and more.</p>



<img />



<p>When first installing Arc FSE, the home page is set up to be nearly identical to <a href="https://demo.olivethemes.com/?demo=arc-fse">the demo</a>, making it easy for users to get started customizing. It would be helpful to have a style guide for the theme, but for the most part you get what you see with the demo for the free version. Olive Themes also makes a <a href="https://olivethemes.com/wordpress-themes/arc-pro/">pro version</a>, which includes additional features, WooCommerce support, and more blocks for things like testimonials and star ratings.</p>



<p>Arc FSE is good option for businesses, agencies, foundations, or artists with portfolios. After less than a week, it&#8217;s already being used on more than 100 sites. The theme is available to <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/arc-fse/">download</a> for free on WordPress.org. </p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Wed, 26 Oct 2022 02:55:01 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:42;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:73:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.1 Release Candidate 3 (RC3) Now Available";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=13670";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:69:"https://wordpress.org/news/2022/10/wordpress-6-1-release-candidate-3/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:6611:"<p>Release Candidate 3 (RC3) is now available for testing! The general release is just one week away with WordPress 6.1 scheduled for release on Tuesday, November 1, 2022. </p>



<p>This RC3 release is the final opportunity for you to test and help to ensure the resilience of the 6.1 release by performing a final round of reviews and checks. Since the WordPress ecosystem is vast and composed of thousands of plugins and themes the entire project benefits from the time you take to assist.</p>



<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development</strong>. Please do not install, run, or test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you test RC3 on a test server and site.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You can test WordPress 6.1 RC3 in three ways:</p>



<p><strong>Option 1: </strong>Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</p>



<p><strong>Option 2: </strong>Direct download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.1-RC3.zip">RC3 version (zip)</a>.</p>



<p><strong>Option 3:</strong> Use the WP-CLI command:</p>



<p><code>wp core update --version=6.1-RC3</code></p>



<p>Additional information on the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-1/">6.1 release cycle is available here</a>.</p>



<p>Check the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/dev-notes+6-1/">6.1-related developer notes</a> in the coming weeks detailing all upcoming changes.</p>



<h2><strong>What’s in WordPress 6.1 RC3?</strong></h2>



<p>Since Release Candidate 2, approximately 60 items have been addressed. </p>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.1">GitHub tickets</a></li>



<li><a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=closed&changetime=10%2F18%2F2022..10%2F25%2F2022&resolution=fixed&milestone=6.1&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">Trac tickets</a> </li>
</ul>



<p>WordPress 6.1 is the third major release for 2022, following 5.9 and 6.0, released in January and May of this year, respectively.</p>



<p>To learn more about the highlights for both end-users and developers, you’re invited to read more about them in the <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2022/10/wordpress-6-1-release-candidate-1-rc1-now-available/">RC1 announcement post</a> and review the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/12/wordpress-6-1-field-guide/">WordPress 6.1 Field Guide</a>.</p>



<h2><strong>Plugin and theme developers</strong></h2>



<p>All plugin and theme developers should test their respective extensions against WordPress 6.1 RC3 and update the “<em>Tested up to”</em> version in their readme file to 6.1. If you find compatibility problems, please post detailed information to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">support forums</a>, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of November 1st.</p>



<h2><strong>Translate WordPress</strong></h2>



<p>Do you speak a language other than English? <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev">Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.</a>&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>Keep WordPress bug-free – help with testing</strong></p>



<p>Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute. <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/09/21/help-test-wordpress-6-1/">This detailed guide</a> is an excellent start if you have never tested a beta release.</p>



<p>Testing helps ensure that this and future releases of WordPress are as stable and issue-free as possible. Anyone can take part in testing – regardless of prior experience.</p>



<p>Want to know more about testing releases like this one? Read about the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/">testing initiatives</a> that happen in Make Core. You can also join a <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/messages/core-test/">core-test channel</a> on the <a href="https://wordpress.slack.com/">Making WordPress Slack workspace</a>.</p>



<p>If you have run into an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">file one on WordPress Trac</a>. This is also where you can find a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<p>To review features in the Gutenberg releases since WordPress 6.0 (the most recent major release of WordPress), access the <em>What’s New In Gutenberg</em> posts for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/09/16/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-1-15-september/">14.1</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/09/01/whats-new-in-gutenberg-14-0-31-august/">14.0</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/08/17/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-9-17-august/">13.9</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/08/04/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-8-3-august/">13.8</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/20/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-7-20-july/">13.7</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/07/07/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-6-6-july/">13.6</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/22/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-5-22-june/">13.5</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/06/10/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-4-8-june/">13.4</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/26/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-3-0-may-25/">13.3</a>, <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/12/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-2-may-11/">13.2</a>, and <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/04/28/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-1-27-april/">13.1</a>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2>RC3, A Penultimate Haiku</h2>



<p><em>The time ticks forward<br />Release nears ever closer<br />Download and review</em></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p>Props to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dansoschin/">Dan Soschin</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/users/spacedmonkey/">Jonny Harris</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Oct 2022 20:29:49 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16:"Jonathan Pantani";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:77:"Do The Woo Community: A WooSesh Chat with Chris Mospaw and Krissie VandeNoord";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=73158";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:65:"https://dothewoo.io/woosesh-chat-chris-mospaw-krissie-vandenoord/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:428:"<p>In this episode we talk about integrating 3D visual customizations into your clients WooCommerce sites and WooCommerce performance.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/woosesh-chat-chris-mospaw-krissie-vandenoord/">A WooSesh Chat with Chris Mospaw and Krissie VandeNoord</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Oct 2022 09:26:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:89:"WPTavern: Gutenberg Contributors Explore a New Browse Mode for Navigating the Site Editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=138870";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:100:"https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-contributors-explore-a-new-browse-mode-for-navigating-the-site-editor";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4478:"<p>It&#8217;s easy to get lost while trying to get around the Site Editor unless you are working day and night inside the tool. The navigation is jumpy and confusing, especially when going from template browsing to template editing to modifying individual blocks. A large PR is in progress for redesigning this UI with the introduction of a &#8220;browse mode&#8221; that would <a href="https://wptavern.com/james-koster-shares-design-explorations-that-transform-wordpress-site-editor-into-a-more-visual-user-friendly-tool">make the experience feel more like a design tool</a>.</p>



<p>Gutenberg lead engineer Riad Benguella <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44770">opened the PR</a> as a continuation of the ongoing work on this project, which has its roots in <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/23328">ideas</a> and explorations that have been fermenting since 2019. He shared a video that roughly demonstrates the target for the proposed UI changes.</p>







<p>It essentially introduces a “navigable frame” where users can select from a menu of features on the left. More detailed efforts on improving the animations and placement of the menu items is happening simultaneously within the ticket.</p>



<p>The original idea was to include the &#8220;Navigation menu&#8221; item inside the sidebar, but Benguella removed it in favor of keeping the PR contained to simply adding the &#8220;edit/view&#8221; mode.</p>



<p>Although such a large PR has the potential to introduce a slew of regressions, Benguella said there is no other way around a big PR due to the the necessity of the structural changes to how the site editor is organized. He is attempting to keep it narrowly focused and not try to tackle features like browsing capabilities and adding UI (template lists, global styles, etc) to the sidebar.</p>



<p>The idea is not without <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44770#issuecomment-1281312589">some pushback</a>. Alex Stine, Cloud Platform Engineer at Waystar, warned against introducing another Mode into Gutenberg, saying it &#8220;feels kind of reckless considering we haven&#8217;t refined existing modes for all users.&#8221; He noted that Gutenberg already has select/edit mode contexts.</p>



<p>&#8220;This was a feature basically added for screen readers only,&#8221; Stine said. &#8220;I am hoping this will one day be removed, but we&#8217;re not quite there yet.</p>



<p>&#8220;I think the community is trying to solve the wrong problem. If Gutenberg itself did not have such a complex UI, there would not be the need for a hundred different modes in a hundred different contexts, blocks, or even editors. We have gone so crazy making everything so quickly, no one thought about how to unify the interface across all editors. This feels like it could be another patch to a bigger problem.&#8221;</p>



<p>Stine cautioned against growing the UI for something that ultimately doesn&#8217;t make things any simpler.</p>



<p>&#8220;In a sense this PR doesn&#8217;t introduce any new mode, it just redesigns the current navigation panel a bit,&#8221; Benguella <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44770#issuecomment-1281319290">said</a> in response. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s an opportunity to improve the a11y of the navigation in the site editor.</p>



<p>&#8220;The confusion in this PR is that it&#8217;s not about another mode in the editor itself, it&#8217;s higher level, it&#8217;s how we choose which template and template part to edit before actually entering the editor.&#8221;</p>



<p>Although the project&#8217;s contributors have been referring to it as &#8220;browse mode,&#8221; it is essentially a redesign for the existing UI to make it more intuitive for users to navigate. Gutenberg may not need any more new &#8220;modes&#8221; but the site editor is in dire need design improvements that will unify the experience and make it less chaotic for getting around.</p>



<p>During the most <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/10/24/editor-chat-summary-wednesday-20-october-2022/">recent core Editor meeting</a>, Gutenberg contributors called for feedback on the big PR, since it has so many moving parts and needs more scrutiny. It&#8217;s not ready to land in the next release of Gutenberg yet, but the concept is rapidly taking shape and may expand to include more features in the sidebar once the basic structure is in place.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 25 Oct 2022 04:14:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"Do The Woo Community: The Power of WooCommerce Blocks";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=73101";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"https://dothewoo.io/the-power-of-woocommerce-blocks/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:374:"<p>The WooCommerce team is actively exploring the interplay of block themes and full site editing within a Woo store.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/the-power-of-woocommerce-blocks/">The Power of WooCommerce Blocks</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 24 Oct 2022 09:01:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:60:"Gutenberg Times: What art can you create with WordPress 6.1?";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=22528";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:70:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/what-art-can-you-create-with-wordpress-6-1/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4422:"<p>Over the last year, the <a href="https://href.li/?https://block-museum.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Museum of Block Art</a> was launched, built by and for the WordPress community. The intent is to surprise and show off what one can do with the block editor in the form of making fantastic art. If you look through the site and wonder just <em>how</em> something was made, that’s by design. </p>



<p><strong>What art can you create with WordPress 6.1?</strong></p>



<p><a href="https://href.li/?https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/09/26/core-editor-improvement-catalyst-for-creativity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">With WordPress 6.1 bringing an immense number of new design tools</a> on November 1st, there’s a neat opportunity to show how the art one can create with WordPress continues to evolve with the tooling. Just as you might walk through a museum and see how over the years, craftsmanship refined, this WordPress release marks yet another evolution in what’s possible with a true surge in the tools available. What might not have been possible to do before now might be. Consider this your official nudge to give 6.1 a try and see what you can create:</p>



<div class="wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex">
<div class="wp-block-button"><a class="wp-block-button__link wp-element-button" href="https://block-museum.com/contribute/">Submit art</a></div>
</div>



<p>As a reminder, if you’re looking for inspiration for your creations and wondering <a href="https://block-museum.com/how/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">how folks have made theirs</a>, experimenting is highly recommended; play with <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/article/dimension-controls-overview/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">dimension controls</a>, <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/05/coloring-your-images-with-duotone-filters/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">duotone</a>, and the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/20/core-editor-improvement-creating-containing-containers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Row/Stack/Group blocks</a>. You can also <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/09/26/core-editor-improvement-catalyst-for-creativity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">check out this roundup post</a> on all the hard work that’s gone into expanding the tools now found in blocks to get a sense of what’s new. </p>



<p><em>Keep in mind that you can always try out 6.1 early by testing the Beta/RC versions (</em><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2022/10/wordpress-6-1-release-candidate-2-now-available/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><em>here’s the link to the 6.1 RC2 post</em></a><em> with more information). </em></p>



<p><strong>A look at what’s next&nbsp;</strong></p>



<p>When I originally came up with this idea, my mind went wild thinking about <a href="https://masterwp.com/an-interview-with-anne-mccarthy-on-wordpresss-coolest-new-project-the-museum-of-block-art/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">printing the art, virtual “exhibits” based on releases, and more</a>; this marks a step into exploring what could be next for the Museum of Block Art with a <a href="https://block-museum.com/contribute/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">new checkbox on the submission form</a> asking about whether someone is okay to have their work printed and new pages for each of the last two releases acting as virtual exhibits (<a href="https://block-museum.com/wordpress-5-9-exhibit/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WordPress 5.9</a>, <a href="https://block-museum.com/wordpress-6-0-exhibit/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WordPress 6.0</a>). While small changes, they set the groundwork for what might be ahead – perhaps you’ll see some of the art grace the next flagship WordCamp event you attend! </p>



<p><em>Thank you to <a href="https://twitter.com/karmatosed" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tammie Lister</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/visualwebmaster" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Rachel Winchester</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/richard_tabor" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Rich Tabor</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/Ana_Segota/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Ana Segota</a> for making up the lovely review committee for this art museum. </em></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 22 Oct 2022 09:30:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Anne McCarthy";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WPTavern: Openverse Audio Catalog Passes 800,000 Files, Audio Support Now Out of Beta";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=138837";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:94:"https://wptavern.com/openverse-audio-catalog-passes-800000-files-audio-support-now-out-of-beta";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:2857:"<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/openverse/">Openverse</a>, formerly known as Creative Commons Search before it <a href="https://wptavern.com/creative-commons-search-is-now-openverse">joined the WordPress project</a>, has<a href="https://twitter.com/WordPress/status/1583077584136704001"> passed an important milestone</a> with its support for audio files. The catalog has now indexed more than 800,000 audio files and its development team has taken audio support out of beta.</p>



<p>Openverse visitors can now confidently search for and explore audio files for use in their videos, podcasts, or other creative projects, all available for free use under Creative Commons licenses. It is an incredible resource that is expanding and improving every day. Users can search on any device, but I found that Openverse audio searches and files are surprisingly easy to navigate on mobile.</p>




<img />



<img />




<p>Search results can be filtered by permitted use, license, audio category, extension, duration, and source. Previewing works well and each file has attribution information readily available to copy. Clicking on &#8220;Get this audio&#8221; will take the visitor to the file on the external collection&#8217;s website where it can be downloaded.</p>



<p>Deeper integration with WordPress core is on the roadmap for Openverse files. It would also be interesting to see WordPress&#8217; core Audio block integrate access to Openverse, in addition to pulling files from URL or the media library, the same way the Image block allows users to browse Openverse.</p>



<p>Gutenberg contributors are currently exploring how they can <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/44496">add basic Openverse integration to the inserter</a>. Matias Ventura, lead architect of Gutenberg, has proposed adding a Media tab to the existing tabs for Blocks, Patterns, and Reusable blocks, which allow dragging and dropping content into the canvas. This would offer more convenient access to the media library while building pages.</p>



<p>&#8220;The inserter panel should support the ability to drag media from the inserter into the canvas, including dragging into block placeholders to quickly update patterns and such with your own content,&#8221; Ventura said. &#8220;The Media tab would allow users to choose between categorized assets from the media library, and from Openverse.&#8221;</p>



<p>Gutenberg engineer Nik Tsekouras created <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/pull/44424">a PR with a prototype</a>, basically a proof-of-concept, to explore how this might be implemented.</p>







<p>Development is still in the exploration and early stages, but this looks like a promising new integration that would make it easy for WordPress users to tap into Openverse&#8217;s catalog of 600 million free creative works.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 22 Oct 2022 02:03:58 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:81:"Post Status: New Venue Accessibility Checklist in the WordCamp Organizer Handbook";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=141561";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:92:"https://poststatus.com/new-venue-accessibility-checklist-in-the-wordcamp-organizer-handbook/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3494:"<h2 id="h-wordpress-community-news-roundup-for-the-week-of-october-17">WordPress Community News Roundup for the Week of October 17</h2>



<p>You may recall my prior post, <a href="https://poststatus.com/5-days-without-a-shower/">5 Days Without a Shower</a>, in which I wrote about my disability experiences at <strong>WCUS 2022</strong>. Writing things from a place of vulnerability isn’t always easy, but sometimes they’re necessary. Creating that post gave you insight into my experiences, and though I told them with a thread of humor, it was still not easy to share. But sharing with good intent, and with support, can help effect change. </p>



<p>This week the <strong>WCUS 2023</strong> team reached out to me in two ways, and when I tell you how warmed my heart was, you <em>still</em> can’t imagine the extent of my joy. First, <strong>Joe Simpson Jr.</strong> shared this new section of the <strong>WordCamp Organizer Handbook</strong> with me: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/wordcamp-organizer/first-steps/venue-accessibility-checklist/">Venue Accessibility Checklist</a>. This is a HUGE step toward accommodating those with disabilities at WordCamps. The team also reached out to me as they’re touring the venue for next year with questions as they went through, inviting my input. Kudos to the Community Team on these great efforts and forward momentum.&nbsp;</p>



<p class="has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background"><strong>Black Friday and Cyber Monday</strong> are coming quickly! <a href="https://poststatus.com/submit-black-friday-cyber-monday-deals/">Submit your deals on our site</a>. We’ll be publishing that page soon!</p>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group has-theme-palette-9-color has-theme-palette-5-background-color has-text-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h2 class="has-theme-palette-9-color has-text-color">In the <strong>Member Spotlight</strong> this week, it's <a href="https://poststatus.com/member-spotlight-miriam-schwab/">Miriam Schwab of Strattic</a></h2>



<p>Miriam's advice for WordPress professionals:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-default has-theme-palette-3-color has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-text-color has-background"><p><strong>Keep learning.</strong> We're in an industry that is always evolving, and always developing, and that's one of the things that's so exciting, but also challenging, about it. It's important to try to stay up to speed on what's going on directly in our industry, while also keeping an eye on what's going on around us in parallel industries. It keeps us fresh and current.</p><cite><a href="https://poststatus.com/member-spotlight-miriam-schwab/">READ MORE →</a></cite></blockquote>
</div></div>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h2>Upcoming Events:</h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://wpaccessibility.day/">WordPress Accessibility Day</a> Nov 2-3</li><li><a href="https://www.wordfest.live/2022/november/">WordFest</a> November 18</li><li>Calls for Speakers and Sponsors are open at <a href="https://www.wpwealthbuilder.com/">WP Wealthbuilder Summit</a>.</li><li>WordCamps are back! <a href="https://central.wordcamp.org/schedule/">Check the schedule online</a>. </li></ul>
</div></div>
<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2022 18:50:46 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Michelle Frechette";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:52:"Post Status: Tech Roundup for the Week of October 17";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://poststatus.com/?p=141537";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:63:"https://poststatus.com/tech-roundup-for-the-week-of-october-17/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3467:"<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h2 id="h-wordpress-design-development-around-the-web">WordPress Design & Development Around the Web</h2>



<p>Here’s a glimpse of what’s going on in the world of design and development in the WordPress space this past week.</p>
</div></div>



<h3><a href="https://olliewp.com/global-styles-and-the-future-of-css-in-wordpress/">Move Over CSS, Here’s JSON</a></h3>



<p>I feel like we just started getting a better rhythm of using CSS and SCSS for bringing design systems to life with WordPress theming, and now we’re taking a step backward. At least that is what I thought <em>BEFORE</em> I read Post Status member <strong>Mike McAlister</strong>’s&nbsp;<a href="https://olliewp.com/global-styles-and-the-future-of-css-in-wordpress/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">thorough breakdown</a>&nbsp;of why <strong>JSON</strong> is so important and how it will help us all develop better. This goes for theme creators as well!</p>



<h3><a href="https://wpturbo.dev/">A New Generator Goes Turbo</a></h3>



<p>A new code generator site is freshly launched in beta.&nbsp;<a href="https://wpturbo.dev/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WPTurbo</a>, from the folks that bring you&nbsp;<a href="https://wpmarmite.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">WPMarmite</a>, has similar features that you’ve seen from&nbsp;<a href="https://generatewp.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">GenerateWP</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wp-hasty.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hasty</a>&nbsp;— <em>BUT</em> Turbo has a <code>theme.json</code> generator, which could come in handy building new block-based themes. It looks like it's packed with features comparable to its predecessors but updated for the Gutenberg era.</p>



<h3><a href="https://www.briancoords.com/wordpress-secret-world-of-javascript/">The Hidden World of Javascript in WordPress</a></h3>



<p>Post Status member <strong>Brian Coords</strong> shares <a href="https://www.briancoords.com/wordpress-secret-world-of-javascript/">his journey into the JavaScript maze that is contained in WordPress</a>. He explains how we can use it to its full potential, especially when we accept the fact that understanding <strong>Redux</strong> and <strong>React</strong> are super-important to work with the future of WordPress.</p>



<div class="is-layout-flow wp-block-group has-theme-palette-8-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<h2>Cool Tool</h2>



<p>Each week we feature one cool tool that can help make your life easier as a WordPress builder.</p>



<h3>Grab Those Things After The Question Mark!</h3>



<p>This week I found myself in a sticky situation where I needed to show the parameters from a URL in the block editor. I really didn’t want to have to create a whole new custom block or a page template, so I searched for a plugin that could help. My discovery landed me on this little gem of a plugin called&nbsp;<a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/url-params/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">URL Params</a>.&nbsp;It gives you the ability to add shortcodes to display the parameters from a URL. Short, sweet, and it works!</p>
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<p>This article was published at Post Status — the community for WordPress professionals.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 21 Oct 2022 18:02:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Daniel Schutzsmith";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";O:42:"Requests_Utility_CaseInsensitiveDictionary":1:{s:7:"*data";a:8:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Tue, 08 Nov 2022 00:02:06 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Mon, 07 Nov 2022 23:45:31 GMT";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 1";s:16:"content-encoding";s:2:"br";}}s:5:"build";s:14:"20211220193300";}