Want to get involved? See the handbook and optionally drop into #design to chat. Most active design work happens in the block editor project, consider dropping into Needs design or Needs design feedback.
There’s a WordPress Component Library in Figma. Duplicate to edit, direct access is reserved for the design team.
This week, the weekly #design meeting was lead by @joshuawold. You can read the full transcript in our Slack-channel, or jump straight to the topics that were discussed by clicking the headings below.
@mapk gives a quick update on GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/ Phase 2. He thanks the accessibilty team for being very helpful with design work being done. There’s a new ticket that directly explores the A11y (Accessibility) tabbing issues in Gutenberg.
Also, the navigation blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. just got a recent Github issue created to gather focus again. If you happen to have some thoughts on that, please join the discussion in the ticket by adding your comment.
There are two calls for design that need help from awesome designers. If you are looking into something tangible to contribute on as a designer, please check out the following calls:
The basis for this discussion is issue 9647 of block icons SVGs not being reusable.
In his comment on issue 9647 Joen says:
For now we have used Dashicons because it’s the WordPress icon set. But this has not scaled tremendously well, and the icons are small and designed for older screens and interfaces than we use widely today. So we eventually adopted the Material icon set for block library icons, to make it trivial for pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party developers to quickly and easily pick a unique and legible icon that fits their block.
There are constant requests for new icons on GithubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/, some more critical than others. But currently, it’s really hard to integrate new icons in the Dashicons icon font.
In the meeting, there’s a brief exploration on where this could go, and moving towards another open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. icon set is suggested. @empireoflight, one of the prominent dashicon builders, says he used to think we could build an icon library for WordPress. But unfortunately, it’s just not happening.
A brief discussion follows on the impact of having multiple icon sets. But it’s good to know people are open to the idea of working with another open source icon set like Material Icons, and have an extended set of specific WP icons on top.
Everyone agrees this will overhaul the admin and will have a big impact. Knowing the logistics, breaking these into steps and setting a timeline would help getting an overview on what’s involved.
@mapk suggests starting with getting buy in other teams first and find people to help on the project after that.
@empireoflight will draft a post on make/design as a starting point for the discussion with other teams.
We’re looking forward on your thoughts on moving WordPress icons forward. Pleas feel free to comment on these notes, or share your ideas in the make/design post dedicated to this topic (which will appear soon on this page for you to discover. You can also subscribe to the design blog in the sidebar on make/design to get instant notifications once the post is there for you to read).
