These are the weekly notes for the design meeting that happens on Wednesdays. You can read the full transcript on our Slack channel and find the meeting’s agenda here. You can join the Slack channel by following the instructions in our handbook.
Housekeeping
- We still need volunteers for note-taking
If you’d like to help out, note-taking is a great way to get started. Just ping @estelaris or leave a comment
2. Next Show-And-Tell is on August 26. A Show-and-Tell is where we all get together on Zoom (video chat) to say “hi” and check out the latest design work happening across WordPress.
Updates
Gutenberg
- @itsjonq has been working on
@wordpress/componentsand working to improve them including a guide on how to get started prototyping with them. - @shaunandrews has continued work on the navigation block as well as the navigation page (menus.php)
- @mapk is working on widgets integration and the accordion block
- @noahrshrader is exploring on Global styles and working with developers on the latest implementation of Multi-Entity Saving
- @michael-arestad is starting in on block directory work
These issues could use some eyes and discussion:
- Post hierarchal terms block – could use an in-depth review and guidance
- Cursor doesn’t change to indicate block can be dragged
Figma design libraries
@noahrshrader is also still working on the Figma design libraries. He was busy with other things but plans to tackle Core (WP Admin) components within the next week or so. He’ll keep us updated.
HelpHub
@estelaris brings news from the Docs team. During the selection of the Google Season of Docs, two of the projects from the docs team were selected. One of them is the reclassification of the articles. You can read all about it here https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/08/18/season-of-docs-2020-projects-move-forward/
@estelaris will mentor a technical writer, and they will work with the marketing team to help make a style guide (writing, voice and all that). For the design team can help out with a new navigation in the documentation area. The team will bring updates to this meeting as they start working.
Calls For Help/Feedback
@estelaris is also working on a WP style guide, with a working draft here. One problem is that WordPress.org is built in several systems it is very difficult to maintain the same style. So @estelaris has been looking for elements where we can set some sort of “min/max rules”. like type size for body min 16 px/ max 18 px. If any of you have better understanding of how .org is built, please add comments on what can and cannot be edited.
Main topics
The main topic today was to discuss a strategy for unifiying the design elements of Gutenberg, the rest of the admin, and the Site Health area, into one consistent design language.
This is a big topic, so the suggestion was to start small, beginning with porting over the base components, like how the button was updated in WP 5.4. Then, we’ll need to start looking at specific patterns to update (headings, tables, etc). Some pages will require more extensive work than others to bring them in line. There’s also the matter of Gutenberg being built in React and the rest of the admin being built differently.
@estelaris and @karmatosed are part of the WP 5.6 release, so they will try to already get some components worked in by then.
Picking a page and designing possibilities to align with Gutenberg components seems like a good start. @michael-arestad suggested the pages Comments, Tools and Settings as they cover a wide variety of components.
@michael-arestad and @snaushads will try to bring some early explorations to the Show And Tell next week.
Open Floor
@snaushads would like some feedback on https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/24593.