[00:00:00] Zack Katz: WordPress started to undergo a fundamental change with a block editor. That change continues full steam ahead with full site editing and a proposal for a brand new admin interface. It's more important than ever before to think about the future when designing your WordPress product. Let's dive in. This is WP Product Talk.

[00:00:23] Matt Cromwell: This is WP Product Talk, a place where every week we bring you insights, product marketing, business management, and growth, customer experience, product development, and more. It's your go-to podcast. For WordPress product owners buy WordPress product owners and now enjoy the show.

[00:00:49] Zack Katz: Hi everybody. I'm Zach Katz, founder of Gravity Kit and Trusted Login. And

[00:00:54] Amber Hinds: I'm Amber Hinds, CEO of Equalize Digital.

[00:00:58] Zack Katz: And today we're gonna be talking about designing your product for the future of WordPress.

[00:01:02] Amber Hinds: Hi. And that is why we have invited Tammy Lister to be with us on WP Product Talk. Hi Tammy. Hi. Do you wanna introduce yourself?

[00:01:14] Tammie Lister: Yeah, so I'm really pleased to be here. So I'm a product creator and I do lots of different things, fractional work. I both work on. WordPress products and also with product creators on a project called Gilberg, helping them with distribution and growing. And I sit across many disciplines. I kind of call myself lovingly a hybrid, and really my interest is in how to navigate and use WordPress today and in the future.

So that kind of brings me awesomely to the conversations I hope we're gonna have today.

[00:01:45] Zack Katz: And so, uh, for this topic of designing for the future, mm, it's, it's kind of vague, but I wanted to leave it vague, um, because I think that the future of WordPress, for me, at least right now, is so uncertain. And I'd love to hear, uh, what you think the topic of designing for the future of WordPress even means.

[00:02:07] Tammie Lister: Mm. Yeah. So I think it's gonna mean something very different to every person. So, um, there's that old fable of people trying to describe an object and everyone describing something differently. Um, it would be the same future, and your future will be different because your products are gonna be different as well.

So the future of WordPress, I think, also should be different. And I'm gonna clarify that, um, before WordPress. Was kind of, it did one, it didn't just do one thing, but it was particularly, you had to do certain things. I kind of call it the WordPress way. You had to work with it in a particular way. It was extensible to a point.

So the future has really been able to take what you have in WordPress and then make it your own and adapt it. And that's quite a big statement to say, but that's kind of. A lot of the work that's been going on with you see with the editors is putting the foundation into having the basis of. Causes always gonna be the middle point, right?

Causes always gonna have to do that. But then having the extensibility and the ability to build on top of that. There was a lot I said there, but kind of we can dig into that as well.

[00:03:16] Amber Hinds: So I, I'm curious, um, for product owners, how much you feel like they should be. Tracking what's happening in WordPress core and really involved on that front, which can sometimes be a challenge when you're trying to run your own business, develop your own products.

Yeah. Um, and, and how do you feel like people even know what the future of WordPress is?

[00:03:42] Tammie Lister: Oh, there's so many words there. So first of all, should they be following? It should be easier for them to follow than it is and I think that, that a lot of work is going on for that to happen. Um, but it always can be easier because you pointed out a really good point.

People are busy surviving this world is I. Business is hard, right? But you're trying to build your product, you're trying to do everything. Um, but you do need to know, and you need to know because, uh, both if you have a roadmap for a year and you are building something, uh, mid throughout the year, and you, it's going to either have something, um, you know, a hook or something dropped, uh, and that's gonna impact you.

Or maybe it's gonna be a feature that doesn't. Completely ruin your business plans, but could really change your business plans. You need to know that. So really having a big road mapping session at beginning of the year as much as you can, but it's very difficult when you're trying to, uh, guess or you don't know.

So part of it is it's both sides. Both sides have to meet. So you as the product owner and core, and I, I really hate kind of third person in core like that because Core is a lot of different people and a, um, they're not just full-time contributors. They are fractional different contributors as well. Um, I.

Having better communication methods for what is going on. So there are a number of ways. There are a number of different boards, there's been outreach programs, there's been an extensibility triage, uh, which has been really good. I always kind of point to that one. In Gutenberg, um, sensibility is basically things that you, uh, find useful to extend with the editor.

That's the loose term of it. But things like that, yes, you really need to know, but you cannot monitor it 24 7. And a lot of companies, uh, particularly when they're really small, do not have the ability to fund for a five for the future until that becomes a certain point. If you do have the capacity to do that, someone on your team doing five for the future and being that conduit and being backwards and like.

Bringing that information in and be having that, uh, work out is really, really important. So there wasn't a straight answer for you, but as much as you can, I think, um, it is not perfect. I think over time, you know how to. You know, people say drink from the fire hose. I think that's, that's a little bit harsh.

Uh, but you learn to process vast amounts of information because that's what core is, right? Uh, but you can't do that when you're processing the vast amounts of information that are your products, as well as you are trying to process core. At the same time, I find that myself, like I'm trying to do one thing over here.

I can't also process everything to do, of course. So I need those summaries.

[00:06:29] Zack Katz: What type of advice would you have for, for two different types of products? We have a preexisting product that's built on old WordPress, let's say, and a new product, uh, that's being developed by somebody, uh, that has, that's starting fresh.

How would you approach these two different starting points?

[00:06:49] Tammie Lister: So, I'm gonna start with the preexisting because, uh, the first with the preexisting is really look at. I love workshops. Uh, I love the concept of game storming and I would say. Uh, really look at what's working, uh, kind of analyze, you know, impact FA matrix and all those kind of fun, the activities.

Do something like that. Uh, because if you do that, then you can decide what you are going to take forward with you and what you're going to, um, not take forward. Review. New is easy because you, um, don't have any legacy to particularly convert. I always fall back with theming, right? If you're gonna do a block theme.

Yeah, you can do one from scratch. That's, yeah. If you can use QuickBook plugin and do it, and I'm kind of paring it down because it's probably like the easiest, the Inal product, it's still an easiest, uh, thing to do. Right? Um, but if you're going to convert a classic theme, uh, there's a lot of complications ethnically, if it's hooked to a plugin, um, or it's a plugin that has a classic theme.

Uh, you have short codes which aren't fully supported. You have this, which isn't fully supported, and that, and then it's like. It's like a jumper, right? You start pulling a thread and then something isn't like, so that's what you're gonna have to unpick, and then you get to the point of. What is native enough, and I'm gonna kind of describe that.

You need to know what is available to you in core to be able to decide what to choose to use or not. Uh, so often people are, I can't use this, and that's totally valid, but. Understanding whether something is there or not. And then you can make that decision. And quite often it's, I can't use this, but you don't understand whether it's there to use or not.

There was kind of like some word soup I got into there a little bit, but you've really got to. It's hard, but really like listen and understand everything and then you can decide what's gonna work for you and what's gonna not. Because for some products, even new products, it's not gonna work being a hundred percent native.

'cause maybe you need to, um, uh, build on top of WordPress or maybe you need to, uh. Build, uh, because you are gonna have WordPress and then you're gonna support another open web framework and you're gonna do this and you're gonna hit this. Or your integration is this or this or this, depending on your business model, right?

Um, your thing, uh, it's first the job to be done by your product. It's not, WordPress is not your job to be done. That's kind of right. Um, we're, we've got this, I go back to that WordPress way concept. We used to have to do things a certain way. Um, I. And we used to go, it's the WordPress way and Mm-Hmm. Yeah.

But it should be the way that our users are successful, not just because of the way WordPress forced us to do things. So there's a lot there. But yeah, I hope that answered. I think

[00:09:42] Amber Hinds: you may have made some people mad. Oh no, we don't need to do things the WordPress way. I, I can only imagine what, uh, some of our viewers are, but it's not.

[00:09:52] Tammie Lister: That we don't have to do it the WordPress way. We don't have to think. We only do it the WordPress way. And I think that that's the thing, or it's not, we never had to do it the WordPress way. Often we, we presume, and I'm gonna unpack this because it's not, I, I never intend to kind of make mad at all. Um, it's more we presume we.

Painted ourselves into a corner, right? We presume this is the only way that you can do something. But now maybe, um, so theming is a good example. We presumed we could only do one things a certain way with theming. 'cause that was the only way we could do it. Now we have options. Uh, and do you choose to use all those options all the time?

Nope. Sometimes those options aren't gonna work for you. Sometimes the, uh, classic way is gonna work for you. Sometimes the non-class way is gonna work for you. Um, and that. It means that the traditional WordPress way of theming is adaptable now. So that's kind of what I mean by it. Not that you're not doing the WordPress way, it's more that you aren't presuming that this is the only way to do something.

That's kind of where, where I'm going with that. The word, just to clarify that a little bit, 'cause I absolutely adore WordPress. It's more really not being so stringent thinking because I've always done, and I do this because I've always done it this certain way. It must be that way. It probably is adaptable now.

And just being able to be open to that, um, and learning and if it isn't raising your hand and saying, Hey, this thing isn't supported anymore and this is really useful and this is actually a foundational part of WordPress. That's also part of the conversation

[00:11:26] Zack Katz: I. When designing a product, uh, the old WordPress way, uh, you have a setting screen.

You use like a form table and you use Yeah. Word WordPress', not very nice. Yeah. Way of saving settings. Uh, that I don't think,

[00:11:39] Tammie Lister: it's not very nice. I think it was the absolutely the paradigm, if you think when the settings page was made.

[00:11:46] Zack Katz: Oh, no, no. That's what I'm, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Not very nice now.

It's, it was fine then and WordPress settings. And unfortunately, the, the setting, there's no settings, framework, uh, or input framework, even though there was a lot of work put into it. And I think that sh should be resumed merged into core. There's no way to not do a nice setting screen in WordPress. The WordPress way right now, it doesn't look good.

Yeah. So everybody's going to be, everybody's been rolling their own settings, framework. Yes. And setting screens, uh, to recreate the wheel. Because you said, like you said to me, uh, what is native enough? Uh, doesn't always align with what is good enough and what is, uh, what people, what your customers expect for user interaction and user experience.

So, um, where do you draw the line? Moving forward between recreating the wheel saying WordPress isn't moving fast enough for the needs of my product. Uh mm-Hmm, and I'm gonna have to do it myself. Or waiting for looking at track and seeing, waiting for core to catch up.

[00:12:53] Tammie Lister: Well, you need to deliver your product. And I think that, that, that there's, there's, there's two things. One, being vocal about when something doesn't work, and I don't think there's enough of that. Um, uh, uh, and that's because both sides, um, I think it's equally the people who are making the product. When I've made a product, I maybe I thought, oh, I, and I'm, I'm just gonna speak for myself 'cause I should never speak for anybody else.

Um, I thought, oh, I, I'm just gonna continue on and I've, I've not made that issue, or I've not made that GitHub, um, ticket, or I've not done this thing because I've just thought, oh no, nobody's going to want to. Turns out they probably, there's a lot of other people who are also experiencing that. Or even if I have an idea that I don't think is gonna get in.

It starts a conversation, um, or it tells me that this thing is never gonna get in core and I've gotta work around it to be honest. Um, uh, and if some buts and thinking it might get in core that don't help me with my roadmap. But there comes a point where I. You know what the job to be done about your, I love that framework, but you know what has to be done with your product.

You know what has to be done with your business model. You know what has to be shipped and holding up, waiting for a track ticket to get in is probably not gonna work for you. It's not gonna work for you. So you have to find the balance. And the balance is gonna be, do you put a A training wheels solution in, or do you do a full solution that works around it?

And that really is just gonna be down to. Some little, some testing finger in the air and a little bit and temperature change. And, uh, core people are pretty open to some conversations, more open than, um, I would always recommend not just Twitter X or whatever we're calling it today as the conversation means.

I don't always find that that's the, the best. It's sometimes it's where we do the conversation. Um, but. Asking on the ticket and saying like, Hey, literally what is the timeframe on this? And just being honest, I, I don't see that enough. Um, and I think we need to talk. Sorry.

[00:14:59] Amber Hinds: Oh, well I was just gonna, I, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I, you know, that's interesting because I do feel like there have been multiple tickets.

I've seen that in fact, impacted plugin developers where people literally said, what is like the. Okay. What we've, the 18 months that we've been waiting to get an answer on whether or not we'll get our plugin active install accounts back. Right. And, and people have said that and there just isn't a response.

I mean, okay. Yeah. I, I kind of

[00:15:26] Tammie Lister: mean on, on plugins. Yes, I see it, but on features you don't see it so much. Mm-Hmm. Um, uh, so if someone's like, I really need this hook, or I really need this feature, you don't set so much. If we are not getting the answers, that is a completely different conversation and I'm not everywhere.

Um, so, but I, I think it really is part of, if you come up with a solution and you have to get the job done, and you have to ship it. Write about that solution and then share about that solution if you can as well. That's also part of it because raise, Hey, I had to do this to get around it. Um, I've seen a few people do that quite successfully and then get something put in, um, to core as well.

So there's, there's a couple of. There's no good answer because mm-Hmm. If we could have a magic bed and then everybody would have what the WordPress they want today, right? We could all have everything we ever wanted in and it would be amazing. It would also be weird because I'd log on and it would be my like Tam, Tammy Press, and then it'd be Amber Press and Zach Press and it would be, uh, but Core has to find that middle that mean throughout everything.

But if it's absolutely something that is gonna prevent your product from being successful, I'm pretty sure that there's a job to be done there, that other products need it to be done. If it's something like make everything flash silver, just because one client happens to like it flashing silver and being flippant on purpose, then I'm probably sure that that's not gonna get in core, but.

You know, there, there's kind of like a scale of things, of usability. Um, yeah, yeah.

[00:17:05] Amber Hinds: I think, I think to your point, Zach, about, you know, where, where do we recreate the wheel or things like that is, I think one of the things that we have to think about as product owners is, um, where do we, you know, like you were saying, Tammy.

Write about it or where do we open source what we've done so other people can use it, so maybe they don't have to recreate the wheel. And I think that's sort of the spirit of open source, which isn't just WordPress, but also what we're building. I mean, we saw that with Yost Publishing about how they redid their settings.

Screens. Yeah. And saying, and here's the library or whatever resources that we can make available. So other plugin developers don't have to do that. And I know that can feel hard sometimes, especially if you are a small developer, you make crowded space. Like, I don't know, you make forms and you know, there's a lot of forms, plugins.

Maybe you're like thinking I don't wanna help my competitors. Right. But, but I think in the spirit of it, I think there's a way that we can do that. Um. Grow our product, help other products. But in a way that, you know, either brings attention to our product, like maybe we get good pr, which will make more people aware that our product even exists, or you know, just like positively builds reputation for our product as someone within the community.

So I think that's something we sort of have to think when we encounter these spaces where there isn't a good solution and we have to create a better solution. Um. Is, is maybe this is an opportunity to give back to the community. Um, you know, or maybe we can submit a pr Now of course you then you have the frustration of what if they don't accept it?

And then, you know, I've seen that happen with stuff and then somebody was like, well, this didn't get accepted, so I just turned it into my own plugin and now it's on.org and anyone can install it.

[00:18:54] Zack Katz: Right. And the problem is the job to be done is very different if you're doing it for your own plugin versus making it generalizable.

Yeah, that's true for the entire 43% of the web.

[00:19:04] Tammie Lister: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:06] Zack Katz: It's a lot more, it's, it's an order of magnitude. More work to make a library that is used by the public than it is to make a library that's used internally. Mm-Hmm.

[00:19:16] Tammie Lister: And my, my, my thinking now, I. I'm doing very specific to when I was working on the editor is so different and it took me quite a while to sh do that shift like I know the gear shift.

Um, so when anyone is ever saying about the difference, I feel that gear shift and I, I dunno how to vocalize that gear shift to someone. But when you are working full-time on something that literally is the middle, which is what you're trying to find, it is very like, and I've. Turned down tickets that I now would want in because now I, but I know they shouldn't get in, is also if I put that perspective on, it's, it's interesting in my head.

I'm just gonna say,

[00:19:59] Zack Katz: so Tammy, let's, let's, let's go into story time, because this sounds great. I'd love to hear more about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, story times where we, uh, talk about our personal experiences with, uh, the topic, including, uh, today's topic of product design and. Tammy, please tell us more.

[00:20:16] Tammie Lister: Yeah, so I guess when I worked on the, kind of the first phase of Gutenberg, it was always about like, how do we get the editor, like how do we get the, the kind of first pancake, the first editing experience out?

Um, and then it was getting rid of, not getting rid, but saying no to. Things that couldn't be included. Right. And a lot of things have been added since then. Um, but now I definitely have more perspective on say, agency is a good one. Um, and from observing that, and as I was saying, there's definitely tickets.

I'm now like, uh, so a good example is short codes and aisha's, like nobody will use short codes. And I'm like, everybody. Classic themes because classic experiences. So if we actually want people to convert, um, and it's not the. People aren't, people are using them, is the, the reality. And there needs to be, and I have no answers.

So I, I, I don't have the answers. I just have either questions or some pretty hacky suggestions at this point. And I'm trying to navigate it with everybody. If we are saying, this is the way that we are kind of suggesting you should go with block themes, that's great. Um, but that then if we wanna do things like styling, you then have a problem with things like short codes.

So having these. Uh, kind of converting paths. I don't wanna call them upgrade paths 'cause they're changing, right? Um, whether they match or whether you change 'em for blocks, you don't always have that. So we have to think about those conversion paths and those changing paths. Um, I also always think of the times when I did usability testing.

Uh, and every single time I've got to see someone use the editor, I, I got to see a lot of it. Um. It really changed from seeing, we did it in actually Japan, and I got to see people just using simple notes so much. For some reason that app just was used so much and understanding why that note app was used and then understanding different paths and then really.

Every single time I see someone use the editor that's not me, or see someone use WordPress, that's not me. I learn so much and then I'm able to also take that experience when I use the editor. Um, and I'm not role-playing them 'cause that's peculiar, but I can kind of detach my. All my experience a little bit and see a little bit from their eyes when I'm creating as well, and, and understand that I'm creating for them.

So yeah, that's a lot of stories, but really it's the stories of everyone I've ever got to see. And, and that's been something that's really been great to go on a journey, seeing different experiences. So

[00:23:07] Zack Katz: thanks for sharing. Uh, and Amber, do you have, uh, experiences with designing for the future and product design?

I.

[00:23:14] Amber Hinds: Yeah, I mean I, you know, we were pretty early to decide we were gonna start doing blocks 20, like back in 2018. We're like, all right, we're going to get on with this. So our first plugin that we sold, WP conference schedule, we built with both a short code and a block, even though it was very early, because we were like, we need the short code for all of, you know, the other, or the thing.

The thing about short codes, right, is. Elementor can't use your Gutenberg block. And, and if you wanna recognize, I mean, talking about designing for the future, this is a conversation that we've had, like designing for the future is not just the future of WordPress core, but the future of the WordPress user base.

And when you see, I mean, um. WP Fusion, every year they put out a annual report and they talk about like what integrations they see, which is always really interesting and I recommend looking at it. But Elementor for the, their plugin users is, I don't know, like 25, 30% of the pie are Elementor websites and, and that's only growing.

Right. So we've had a lot of conversations with our particular plugin on. Two things that we think we need to do. Number one is we need to get our reports into Elementor native because so many people use Elementor. And if, and currently what happens is it still works, but you have to go back to the WordPress edit screen to view your report.

And if you, and then you'd have to go back to the Elementor edit screen in order to fix the problem and the back and forth, right? Like that's not a great user experience and that's not gonna help us with adoption by elementary users. And then the same sort of situation that, um, I really only seriously played around with, um, 2024 and full site editing earlier this year.

I built like a test site with it because I was like, I just, I need to do it. I need to actually Mm-hmm. Figure out what this is like. And then I realized the whole homepage in 2024, it's not a page, it's built in the full site editor. Our plugin doesn't have any integrations right now, so like if you use our plugin with full site editing.

Building your archive pages or building your homepage, literally that way there'd be no way to scan and test the accessibility of your homepage. Mm-Hmm. So we were like, okay, well we definitely need to figure out what does this look like? How do we get our plugin and our reports into the full site editing?

I don't have an answer to that yet because it's a big thing for us to figure out how to tackle. But I think like as a product owner, the big thing that we've been talking about is what are most people using? So, so like we're talking about these two things, which are both huge. We're going to prioritize probably the elementary, now I'm speaking for our CTO, who's not here, but, but like if I look at the literal numbers and I'm like, where can I make the biggest impact and where can we have the biggest customer reach?

I would choose an elementary integration. Over a full site editing integration because of the literal fact that most people are not using full site editing, and especially people in our, um, our world. And that's where, you know, we've had other WP Product Talk episodes that I highly recommend people go find on our YouTube channel, where we've talked about like doing customer interviews and things like that.

But for us, like a lot of it is higher ed or, um, like government and they're like. Like they use blocks, but they're like, Nope, not doing it. You know? So I'm like, they're late stage adopters. Yeah. Yeah. They're late stage adopters. Mm-Hmm. So I'm like, okay, that buys us a little bit of time. But if you don't know your customers, then you don't necessarily know how to prioritize this designing for the future of WordPress, because you don't know.

If you have early adopters, then you need to jump on these choices right away. But what about you, Zach?

[00:27:00] Zack Katz: Well, it's interesting. Gravity Kit, uh, and Gravity View in particular, uh, gravity View is built on a custom post type you design Mm-Hmm. A view in the custom post type, we've, we have a page builder essentially for gravity forms data, and then you embed that, uh, view into a post or a page using either a short code or a block.

And, uh, we are at the same crossing point where. We are this year going to be working on an elementary integration, a divvy integration. Mm-Hmm. Um, because we need to be where our customers are. Mm-Hmm. Um, at the same time, um, that has led us to have to rethink our entire structure in order to better support.

Customizations that are available now in core, in the block editor Mm-Hmm. Uh, that you can't customize, uh, otherwise like, you know, colors, paddings, et cetera. Mm-Hmm. All this stuff. Mm-Hmm. Uh, that have become. Standard now. Uh, we need to, we are in the process of figuring out the, the structure that is required for us to not only support core, but also the other page builders that are out there.

Um, so when thinking about, you know, how do you design for core plus page builders? It's often not a, or it's for us, not a simple question. No, it's, it, it, it involves understanding at a. Like component level, what Mm-Hmm. You're doing.

[00:28:22] Amber Hinds: Yeah. And I, well, something we talked about on that front is that, you know, perhaps what we're talking about is the baseline plugin works for core, and then you have an add-on plugin, which you don't necessarily have to sell individually.

You could bundle, right? So we've talked about, we'll just bundle when you buy pro. You also have the ability to install the element or add-on, and then that way it allows maybe for some cleaner code because you're not trying to put all of that into the same and then only the people who need that add-on would install it.

That's a thought we've had about

[00:28:56] Tammie Lister: this, and I think one of the, the things with the, kind of the projects that are going on in core at the moment is hopefully in the future some of this portability will be easier and I think. Really we need that, uh, we need that. We need extensibility and portability. Uh, just And what do you mean by portability?

So that you can move across these different products easier. So you were saying colors, uh, um, I don't, in my dreams, everyone supports Jason easily. So we can just, I don't know, whatever format. Right. Let's pick one because I hate to say we're gonna pick one and then. Someone's gonna be, I don't like Jason or whatever.

And then, uh, but we all have a unified format for styling that, that everyone kind of agrees to. We're all human though, and I, you know, um. Or at least we have some easier, one for one pairing that we can do so that it's easier to convert and kind of go across and starting is a good one. Right? Um, because if we're not using CSS or we're using generated CSS or inline CSS, then as you go from.

Different page builders to, uh, themes that are actually frameworks that are actually page builders to different plugins and, and you are trying to create for all these different experiences and have a plugin that doesn't have styling attached to it. Uh, or you are trying to still, then again, you, we kind of mentioned site editing.

Site editing is, is a sliding scale. You can just have a tiny bit or you can have the full support. Um, and again, it's how much do you do? So everyone generally thinks it's everything, but it could just be you just support typography or you just have like a theme, Jason that just happens to have a color palette, right?

That could literally be all you ever do in theme Jason. But that ability to be able to, you know, we've spoken about with themes, changing your clothes without, um, it's a whole analogy I am gonna use, but it's the analogy I use with themes. It used to be that all almost felt like you had to take like a body part off to change your clothes.

Um, content warning everybody. So, uh, but it, but it kind of worked because you'd lose like bits of your content or you'd lose like things, right? Um, uh, and that it should be as easy as changing your clothing. Just changing. Um, themes and the whole thing as well. Just going through your product should be as easy going through different ecosystems.

Should just be, it's still going in the WordPress ecosystem. Um, that's, it's WordPress, so it should all be the same. Language, it should all be the same, uh, conversation. So I think that is part of the problem that, that, that, uh, trans, the portability is, is the problem. I think it's gonna get better. I think it has to get better.

And then the core product has to have more capability to just. Extend and more of the things that you need to be able to adapt and use, um, from components as well. That's kind of a long way around. What do you see? Oh, sorry, Zach.

[00:32:07] Amber Hinds: That's fine. Yeah, I, I'm curious what, um, line. You see between this whole like, right, so we're talking about portability and themes and plugins, and there's always this line.

I know there are some product companies where they've made a theme and then they've also made a plugin, right? To try and I think, help with some of this portability. Mm-Hmm. Um, but how do you see plugin developers or product developers making those choices about what goes in the theme or what goes in the plugin?

Um, or whether they should have one really big plugin, or they should have. Five separate plugins so people can pick and choose. Like do you, do you have any recommendations for that as it fits with like the direction WordPress is going?

[00:32:48] Tammie Lister: So I can reply first of all to how do I see people making the decisions and I see people making the decisions as best they could before where there was very changing information.

So, uh, the information used to be. Uh, try and keep everything apart, but use functions. PP and functions. PHP became this giant file that then hooked lots of different files. Um, I've done, it has a, you know, kind of hands have been done. It's the best

[00:33:15] Zack Katz: file out there. Yeah.

[00:33:18] Amber Hinds: We've been working on removing and making our functions, PHP, and our plugin as small as we possibly can.

[00:33:25] Tammie Lister: So that is more what I say, uh, to me. Um, and this is. Personal opinion corner. Um, I, and if I was kind of putting my future head on, I would say themes go back to being themes. And themes. Always. I, I, Kubrick, right? Theme was a theme. And you could look at it and you could understand it was a theme.

[00:33:46] Amber Hinds: Um, so like only CSS in the theme.

[00:33:50] Tammie Lister: Probably not really CSS if we're talking theme Jason. Okay. So no CSS maybe a little bit, uh, only styles, right? Um, only siding and probably patterns and templates. Right. Um, and uh, I always kind of joke about the side editors Dreamweaver, when you're creating, 'cause it's kind of like Dreamweaver when you're making a site.

Um, but that's. Probably one way of doing it that works for a certain type of themes. That doesn't work. If you think of enterprise agency, that doesn't work, um, that doesn't scale if you are then having to do compiling and doing different things, um, or you're doing different, so. Your use case again, uh, and where you apply it to you.

Um, you mentioned, uh, education establishments. They are probably gonna have very complex themes because those themes are probably gonna hook into some systems. They're also probably gonna have a lot of legacy content. They're gonna probably have some legacy templates as well. Um. They may have some static pages that they need to potentially, um, if they have all of those things, they're definitely probably gonna need mega menus at some point.

Uh, if they have some of those things, core won't have those. So you are gonna have to bring in additional, uh, parts of those. So really as light as possible, I. Um, because the lighter you do in theme, I get quite like the idea of companion plugins to themes. I think we, uh, forgot that plugins are kind of awesome and we thought that we just had to put it all in the theme.

Uh, that does create a little bit of an issue, um, if you are trying to then release the whole thing, um, because. Trying to have a plugin that is dependent, or a theme that is dependent on the plugin, but then I would say it's not a theme. Um, so there is that kind of, uh, middle ground. And also I would say it's a framework, not a theme.

Um, I still, I, I love Page Builder. I think there's totally a place for page builders and frameworks still in the ecosystem because they build on top and they had that place, but. Yeah, there's no easy answers in this. It's really about how can you do the simplest that you need to get the job done and just not overcomplicate.

Start simple, like add complications as you need them. I think before we were like, I'm gonna do a theme, so I need this function, which I've saved in my, I I've done this, I've saved in my template 'cause I've always used it before. And this is my functions PHP file that I've always used. So I always, I repeat using it.

We, no, try and try and think of what you, you were saying, try and think of like, how can I, um, take the new information? How can I iterate each time?

[00:36:31] Zack Katz: Tammy, there's so much that's going on with, uh, WordPress admin redesign talk. Hmm. Um, how does, uh, product owner and plugin owners, including, uh, not just themes, but like plugin owners, uh, how do you future proof your product for all this stuff that's changing right now?

[00:36:53] Tammie Lister: I think that's a really hard question. I think the the biggest one is. If you go near some of those screens, and it's pretty obvious which screens are gonna be attacked at the post the page edit. Um, at the moment they are sectioned off in the editor, so they are in the editor section. So if you turn it on, you will see that they're there.

If you are in there, um, and you at the moment completely take it over and you import a library and you completely, uh, redo, um, you may completely redo so that you, um, uh. Aren't gonna have problems, but you probably are gonna have huge problems because, uh, either something could get removed with, so go as native as possible for those.

Um, and really you probably wanna be doing that anyway. Um, one of the things I'm gonna, I know story time is finished, but, um, one of the things I see a lot of is not using the primary button that is used, recognized throughout WordPress as being a primary button and changing the color. Often to red, uh, which it's a warning color.

It's like star. Yeah. Super scary. Uh, um, or so that, or changing the interface so that someone re has to relearn the interface. That's not useful from a usability perspective Anyway, for people, that's just gonna be super complicated and. Um, probably, um, I would love to see your data 'cause it may be awesome and that that's totally fine because you might be in a niche that that works for you.

Um, and I always love to be wrong, but generally. If those people are experiencing any other sections of WordPress, they're gonna be pretty used to the paradigm of That's the primary button. That's the secondary button. This is what this page does, and if only on your product, that completely changes. It's gonna be sugar, the new, and then they're not gonna be able to find things anyway.

[00:38:49] Zack Katz: So, yeah. Do you think that, uh, like WP List table to output the post table will be migrated over to the new structures? Uh, like I, if, if you're

[00:38:59] Amber Hinds: using native Renderers,

[00:39:00] Tammie Lister: for example. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how that's gonna happen at the moment. Mm-Hmm. And I, you know, I don't have a crystal ball. I think it's gonna be done as gently as possible because it's such a big area.

Um, and I think the fact that it's been done in, we now have, so we always had the plugin for, for the editor, which was always good. We have the plugin and we have an isolated area for it now. Uh, so if you, uh, it is over there, you have to go and editor and you have to go there. So. That works. Um, but I think keeping an eye out on, so there's two, there's a developer blog you can keep an eye on and on the core news and just getting the heads up there is really, really important as well.

I don't have a straight answer, but I do think that it's going to be done as gently and as not scary as possible because it just has to be, it's such a change. But if you are. Doing red buttons, don't do red buttons.

[00:39:55] Amber Hinds: So I, I, I think along those lines, and I think it's helpful that you pointed out, you know, which blogs to follow.

Yeah. What, and what would you recommend, or can you talk just a little bit briefly for plugin developers or theme developers who have never. Gone through the process of trying a beta version of WordPress, right? They just find out what happens when they're, when it releases, which, that's a good point.

Let's be real. I don't, I don't think we've tested on every beta with ours. Like sometimes it just, you know. No. Um, like how would someone even go about finding one? How would they set it up? And I know that's like, is there a good resource you have that you can point plug plugin owners to or product owners to?

Yeah.

[00:40:37] Tammie Lister: So. The core handbook is, is a lot. So, uh, to point someone to the core contribution handbook would be a lot. Um, I actually would probably go really simple, uh, with my first, particularly if we're talking about the future and we're talking about the editor. Um, the editor is a lot of other things, uh, because it's experiments going on there.

But we talked about, um, having, uh, there's experimental features under the gumbo plugin that you can turn on. So I would literally choose whatever. Locally installed WordPress, you have or have a site somewhere that you have on your team, um, put up a plugin that's not gonna be on your main site. Do not do it on your live site.

You can, if you want. Um, don't, and just use it. Just

[00:41:24] Amber Hinds: experiment it. So like the Gutenberg plugin, install that

[00:41:28] Tammie Lister: and turn it on and turn experimental features on and just, um, that's step one. Um, that isn't. All of WordPress, but that starts you seeing the features we've just been speaking about for the editor and it's also the Yeah, for the editor and also the, the pages we've been talking about.

And then there's the beta tester plugin, um, that you can also do for WordPress. So those are the approaches that I would do is just have it. In a siloed space and just, um, don't feel that you have to, oh, his release, I have to test his release. I have to test. I would almost see it as once a month you go and check out what, what it's brewing.

Um, so very English phrase, but that's kind of the approach that I would take, um, if you sign up. Um, so there are really good sites, so Gutenberg chain log is really good. Um, or on Gutenberg times, those kind of quick shots of information, those are the best ways that I think of getting, like, what's the la what's the latest coming out of these things?

Rather than having to draw through masses of information, that's the best way. Uh, you are always gonna get it at the kind of key word camps as well. You are gonna get the, the, the snapshots of information. Um, but really. That's the best way is not to feel that you have to test and you have to do the thing.

Um, just gently take yourself, but have that regular cadence of testing, I think is useful.

[00:42:51] Amber Hinds: Yeah. And I think this is probably a good time for us to transition and we always like to end with our best advice for product owners. Yeah. So what would you say, I'll let you go first and then, uh, maybe Zach can follow with what's your best advice for product owners who want to design for the future of WordPress?

[00:43:09] Tammie Lister: Okay, I am gonna have a couple of pieces here. Um, if I can, um, iterate and try things and experiment. I don't think it's very hard to experiment, uh, when you are also trying to like build and release. But, but try, um, don't get stuck on perfect. Um, try and be as perfect so that you don't do any harm with what you release.

'cause doing harm with release not good. So make sure that you are not going to, um. You know, do any patterns that hurt people or do anything that causes harm or data loss or anything. But just try and experiment. Uh, create, really lean into others and create more. If you can collaborate, when you're creating, you are gonna be stronger.

You're gonna get that information. You are not gonna know everything. And if you think you know everything, you don't know everything. I don't know everything at all. So. Try and find out what you don't know and collaborate with others so that you do know, because this community is really powerful and has some incredible product builders that are so open with their information, and often there's a simpler way that you can make something.

I kind of use that WordPress way, but we didn't think of the simpler way and the simpler way. It's actually the real WordPress way. We just sometimes get confused thinking. It has to be done a more complicated way, and actually it doesn't have to be in that more complicated way. WordPress is by its very nature, really simple and has some really simple procedures and some really good things to do.

We've just kind of, sometimes I, I know I do overcomplicate it in the things that we do and overprocess it. So yeah, just think of that, you know, just try and be a bit more simple in our processes and in everything that we create.

[00:44:48] Zack Katz: And for, for us at Gravity Kit, um, it's, I find it hard as a. Product owner to come up with solutions.

I, I, I, I have a really easy time of recognizing problems and seeing that in, in five years with the admin admin interface completely changed. We're gonna need to have changed something on our end. Finding the path to that future is complicated for me. Uh. So what I recommend, best advice, chat with somebody.

Chat with a friend, uh, chat with a coworker, chat with a power user, customer about what they envision your future being and have, and then hire a consultant if you're able to hire somebody to help you break it down into actionable steps and put together a game plan if you're not able to do it yourself, which I struggle with.

So. Um, make sure to think about, um, all the ways that your product might be different in the future so that you can accommodate that and won't have to refactor in the future. Uh, because a wrong choice is a lot more costly than a delayed choice. Uh, so take your time, think it through, and then start with, uh, the easiest actionable step and do the testing that Tammy recommended.

How about you, Amber?

[00:46:10] Amber Hinds: Yeah, I think, um, my best advice is I, I don't know. I think, I think try to start doing it because I think a lot of us, I. Are sort of living in our silo, maybe not paying attention to the blogs or not doing the testing. So, you know, starting to think about it. Rip, rip off the bandaid on full site editing if you haven't yet.

Uh, which is funny to say.

[00:46:37] Zack Katz: And then put it back on. Wait, waiting here. I'm sorry, Tammy. Uh,

[00:46:42] Amber Hinds: but yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. I, but I, I think like, at least spend some time playing around with it, even if only to be like, yeah, my product's not ready for this.

[00:46:50] Zack Katz: Yeah. It'll change how you see WordPress. Completely. Mm-Hmm.

[00:46:53] Amber Hinds: Yeah. Yeah. And maybe it won't be all bad. And then there'll be other things that you're like, yeah, this is horrible. And you can go gripe about it somewhere.

[00:46:59] Tammie Lister: Yeah. But I think that's key. You can say, it's not for me if you've tried it. Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.

[00:47:06] Amber Hinds: Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I, I think on that front, you know, like just spending some time.

Thinking about it, doing it, um, you know, try and consider how that might impact your roadmap. Mm-Hmm. And then, as I mentioned before, you know, be aware of who your customers are because that can really impact, you know, how quickly you need to respond to what's happening in core Mm-Hmm. Or in other products that might touch on your product as well.

[00:47:33] Tammie Lister: Hmm.

[00:47:33] Zack Katz: Well those are, that's some good advice. Uh, that's a wrap for our show. Tammy, before we go, I want to, uh, share something from Adam Weeks who is a guest on our show. Uh, previously he said, I think Tammy Press would be pretty fantastic, and I, I agree. I can't wait to see your fork of WordPress, Tammy.

So, Tammy, thank you so much for joining us. Uh, where can people find you online?

[00:47:58] Tammie Lister: So you can find me at carto or the [email protected].

[00:48:03] Zack Katz: Wonderful. Well, uh, thank you. We'll, thank you. Make sure to check out Tammy there. Uh, tune in next week, uh, and, uh, we're gonna be having another great conversation about WordPress.

[00:48:14] Amber Hinds: Okay, and special thanks to post status for being our green room where we prep all of these talks. If you're enjoying these shows, please do us a favor. Hit like, subscribe, all those fancy YouTube things. Make sure you share it with your friends. Reference this show in your newsletter. And most of all, as Zach said, we look forward to seeing you back here next

[00:48:33] Tammie Lister: week.