SOTW 2024: WordPress For Everyone

At this year’s State of the Word, Matt Mullenweg handed the stage to Matias Ventura, the lead architect behind the open-source WordPress project, to highlight the pivotal moments in the project through 2024, while looking ahead to to the future of the platform.

Albeit a bit slow moving, the Gutenberg roadmap has unfolded in phases, each tackling a fundamental component of the publishing ecosystem. After laying the groundwork in editing (Phase 1) and broadening site-wide customization (Phase 2), the project is now stepping confidently into Phase 3: Collaboration.

Here’s a recap of what Ventura had to say during the 2024 WordPress State of the Word.

Phase 3: Collaboration

Ventura emphasized that the new era of WordPress centers on enabling teams to work better together.

Moving from single-author experiences to multi-user editorial workflows, WordPress aims to streamline the content creation process. Thanks to new in-editor commenting, multiple collaborators—be they writers, editors, designers, or clients—can leave feedback directly on specific blocks of content. This makes reviewing, refining, and green-lighting changes more efficient.

Alongside these features, the updated notifications framework keeps everyone in the loop. Contributors get real-time insights into changes, suggestions, and pending tasks without leaving the editor. Together, commenting and notifications represent a meaningful shift toward a platform that is not just powerful for solo publishers, but also conducive to seamless teamwork.

“We have a lot to go through,” Ventura said, “and we want to approach this one through sort of four lenses, and that is Write, Design, Build, and Develop.” This holistic perspective recognizes that collaboration in WordPress involves more than just leaving notes and suggestions—it’s about integrating every stakeholder’s perspective into the creative flow, from a writer drafting their first headline to a developer fine-tuning the underlying codebase.

User Experiences that Speak to All

One of the more challenging areas of WordPress is identifying who the perfect user of the software really is. This SOTW firmly plants their desire to be the platform for everyone.

Ventura framed WordPress’ future around four lenses—Write, Design, Build, and Develop—each reflecting the platform’s depth and breadth of functionality.

• Write: Beyond incremental improvements to the distraction-free mode, WordPress now makes it easier to move blocks and images intuitively. Users can quickly rearrange content, experiment with layouts, and see their writing in context within a live template view, removing guesswork from the creative process.
• Design: While the freedom of a blank canvas can be liberating, too much complexity can overwhelm. New design-focused modes let you safely refine site visuals without “breaking” established layouts. Meanwhile, features like the Zoom Out tool and a standalone Styles interface help users see their entire creation at a glance. The concept of patterns, which bundle multiple blocks into reusable sections, is now integrated more seamlessly, making it faster to spin up professional-looking designs from scratch.
• Build: Developers and advanced site builders gain finer control with data bindings and custom fields integrated directly into block interfaces. These features decouple content structure from presentation, enabling more robust content architectures without sacrificing ease-of-use. New Data Views offer flexible ways to manage and preview site content in lists, tables, or grids. And for those expanding beyond basic pages and posts, enhanced handling of templates—now easier to register, activate, and schedule—opens up new possibilities for dynamic site experiences.
• Develop: From a pure engineering perspective, the Interactivity API stands out as a major leap. It brings WordPress into direct competition with modern JavaScript frameworks, delivering instant transitions and even client-side commenting without bloat. Performance wins extend to the server level, with WordPress now rendering only the styles and scripts needed per page. There’s also progress in responsive controls, giving users and developers more nuanced ways to manage content and design across devices.

Lowering Barriers with Playground

The WordPress Playground has been one of the most innovative advancements for WordPress in the last few years. An in-browser WordPress environment that allows anyone to experiment with WordPress instantly—no installation required.

From creating “Blueprints” that quickly launch pre-configured demos to nesting fully functional WordPress instances inside other WordPress sites, Playground sparks new opportunities for onboarding, training, and rapid prototyping.

This technology has the potential to usher in a new era of accessibility for both learning and contributing to WordPress.

WordPress for everyone?

As Ventura emphasized, WordPress aims to be a platform where everyone—from casual bloggers to enterprise-level developers—can “Write, Build, Design, and Develop.”

The interplay of phases, features, and tools aims to close gaps in user experience, streamline collaborative workflows, and reinforce the platform’s standing as a flexible, high-performance CMS for all.

Yet the question remains: as WordPress becomes more powerful and complex, can it still serve the full spectrum of users?

The third phase of Gutenberg focuses on collaboration, but the deeper goal is inclusivity—both in skill level and purpose. WordPress’ evolution is about creating a future where novices, experienced creators, and developers can work together seamlessly.

Can WordPress be for everyone?