Big Picture Goals 2023

To round out the excellent vision-setting done in both the State of the Word and Letter to WordPress, here are some goals and projects that we can anticipate in the WordPress project this year.

A Quick Caveat

There are always unexpected projects that arise over the course of the year. And there are big projects to move forward in pieces over the course of multiple years. This project is too big for me to see everything all the time, and I rely on the information from team reps and the vision from project leadership to help navigate any surprises.

If you don’t see a project here, keep in mind that many are still valuable to the overall success of our work. 

From 10,000 Feet

There are three pillars that the year’s projects are focused on:

1. CMS: Complete the Main Tasks for Phase 2 and begin explorations for Phase 3.
2. Community: Re-engage our community through learning, events, and celebrating our 20th year as a project.
3. Ecosystem: Update distribution methods and mechanisms for extenders and CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. itself.

I’ve compiled a preliminary list of individual projects that support one of the above goals and are planned for 2023. This list will be updated throughout the year.

CMS

• APIs:
  • All those related to Phase 3 of the 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/ project
  • Fonts APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.
  • Interactivity API
  • 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. API
• Openverse search in Core
• Navigation block
• Media management
• Simplify the release process
• PHPPHP PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. 8.2 compatibility (Core and Gutenberg)
• Block theme dev tools
  • Custom CSS
  • Custom CSS in Theme Variations
  • Template Content Preservation
  • Starter Content in Block Themes
  • Theme preview

Community

• Community Summit planning and coordination
• Holistic contributor onboarding
• Refinement of Polyglot tools
• Maintain learning content speed to ship Continue to ship learning content at the current pace
• Update content and refresh design across wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/
• Establish contributor and mentor programs
• Develop a canonical 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 program

Ecosystem

• WordPress Playground
• Explore improvements to our contributor tools
• Create a WordPress brand discipline
• Simplify the release process (also in CMS)
• Refinement of Polyglot tools (also in Community)
• Develop a canonical plugin program (also in Community)

How Can You Help?

I know that our code isn’t the only measure of our success. If you already know what type of contribution you’d like to make, you can check out this list of teams (with links to their community sites) and team reps. If you’re not yet sure, here are the areas that each team falls into:

• Development, Technology, Code: Core/Editor, Mobile, CLICLI Command Line Interface. Terminal (Bash) in Mac, Command Prompt in Windows, or WP-CLI for WordPress./Tide, Security, Performance
• Design, Product, UXUX UX is an acronym for User Experience - the way the user uses the UI. Think ‘what they are doing’ and less about how they do it./UIUI UI 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.: Design, AccessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), Test, Triage
• Community, Extending WP, Education: Community, Themes, Plugins, Polyglots, Training
• Contributor Experience: MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., Docs, Hosting, Privacy
• Communications: Marketing, Support, WPTV

A Note on Specialized Groups

A couple of coordinated efforts provide essential support to the progress of multiple teams.

• Triage: The triage effort happens across multiple teams and has two purposes. One purpose is to ensure tickets are sorted and have all the elements needed for someone to work on them. The second purpose is to determine priority. Not everyone has the information to set priority, but anyone can help sort and replicate reported bugs!
• Test: The testing effort also happens across multiple teams and has multiple purposes. One purpose is to validate bugs, bug fixes, and new features before they go to users. The second purpose is to bring continuous, high-quality feedback throughout the release cycle. A lot of that coordination happens on make.wordpress.org/test, but there are also calls to test during various points of the release process in the Core channel.

#goals, #planning