Welcome to the official home of the WordPress Documentation Team.
This team is responsible for coordinating all documentation initiatives around WordPress, including the handbooks and other general wordsmithing across the WordPress project.
Want to get involved?
Start here to find out more about what we do and how to contribute:
Documentation Issue Tracker on GitHub: Submit any Documentation Team-related issues on GitHubGitHubGitHub 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/
Weekly meetings
Join our discussions of documentation issues here on the blog and on Slack.
Don’t use UIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. to generically refer to UI elements. Instead, use the specific UI element term.
Examples
Not recommended: In the LinkUIUIUI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing., enter your sitemap link.
Recommended: In the Link box, enter your sitemap link.
For more information about spelling out abbreviations, see Abbreviations.
For more information, see UI elements.
In general, don’t hyphenate words beginning with un- such as unable and undo, unless absolutely necessary, to avoid confusion. For example, hyphenate in cases such as un-fitting, or where un- is followed by a proper noun such as un-American.
For more information about hyphenation, see Hyphens.
Use to describe a UI element such as a menu item, dropdown list option, or button that the user can’t interact with due to certain conditions. Also, use unavailable to describe the unavailability of a product or service.
In general, describe how the user should interact with the UI rather than describing the state of the UI. Use appears dimmed for describing its appearance. Also include how the user can enable it and interact with the element.
Examples
Recommended: If the editor permissions are unavailable, contact your site administrator.
Recommended: The Update button is unavailable unless you change the post contents.
Use rather than UNIX time or epoch time to refer to a point in time represented as a number of seconds since the UNIX epoch (00:00:00 UTC on January 1, 1970), ignoring leap seconds.
Use as a verb to describe installing a version of a product with a newer, minor version of the same product, but not upgrading it to then next major version. Use as a noun to describe the process of updating software.
Use as a verb to describe replacing an installed version of a product with a newer, major version of the same product. Use as a noun to describe the process of upgrading software.
Not up-grade or up grade.
Don’t use upgrade as a synonym for update. Do not use to mean migrate or port.
Use as a verb to describe the action of transferring files from a local device to a website, server, or to the cloud.
Describe what the customer is transferring and where the customer is transferring it to. In grammatical terms, use both a subject (the thing to be uploaded) and an object (the thing the subject is uploaded to) with the verb upload.
One word. Not upper case or upper-case. Don’t use uppercase as a verb. Don’t use uppercased.
When using both uppercase and lowercase together as a noun or to modify a noun, spell out both words. Don’t use a suspended hyphen (as in upper- and lowercase).
Hyphenate as adjectives. Use instead of top left and top right.
Example
Recommended: The upper-left corner
In general, avoid using directional language such as left, right, up, down in instructions to locate UI elements or other content. Directional language proves to be difficult for accessibility or for localization. People with cognitive impairments, as well as people using assistive technologies such as screen-reading software might have difficulty interpreting directional language. If a particular UI element or other content is difficult to convey, include a screenshot or illustration.
Initialism for Uniform Resource Locator. Use uppercase. Plural is URLs.
Write a URL instead of an URL, as the most common pronunciation starts with a consonant sound. For more information, see Articles.
For more information about spelling out abbreviations, see Abbreviations.
For more information about styling and formatting URLs, see the Linking section.
Use you when addressing the reader instead of user. If your documentation audience consists of users, avoid using this term. It is OK to use user in developer documentation and for a technical audience.
Examples
Not recommended: The user can click the Save button to save changes.
Recommended: You can click the Save button to save changes.
