How Gutenberg Will Shape the Future of WordPress

I’ve waited a long time to write anything substantial about Gutenberg, the proposed new content creating and editing experience in WordPress. Since work started on the project at the beginning of 2017 I’ve followed its development closely, read most of what has been written about it, and taken part in several public and private conversations, all to get a handle on what this thing is.

In Norwegian we have an expression “noe som skurrer” which loosely translates to ”something is grating/grinding.” It’s used to express a feeling of something not being quite right, of uncertainty or unclarity experienced by the person speaking. That’s what I’ve been feeling when thinking about Gutenberg. Noe skurrer. Or at least it did until earlier this week, and now I finally feel like I’m at a place where I can put my thoughts on Gutenberg and what it means for WordPress and the wider web into words.

This is not a review, it’s a meandering journey through my thoughts on this topic. You have been warned.

Preface: What is Gutenberg?

If you’re already familiar with Gutenberg you can skip this part.

Gutenberg is a comprehensive reimagination of content creation and editing both in terms of user interface design and structural approach. Rather than treating an article as a blob of content where selected segments (words, sentences, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, captions etc) are treated as units of a larger whole, each segment is its own “block” which can be assigned a type, moved around, and handled with relative independence.

An oversimplified explanation would be to say when you create something under the Gutenberg paradigm, rather than adding content to a “blob” you add an a “block” describing the content type and place content within it.

The best way to understand what Gutenberg is is to try it for yourself. The plugin is available from the WordPress Plugin Directory and I encourage you to try it for yourself.

A Revolution

“Gutenberg” is a bold name for a project concerning content creation. The real Gutenberg created a literal revolution which changed the way humans create, reproduce, and disseminate information so the team behind the new WordPress editor set high bar for themselves at the onset. That said, I believe it’s a fitting name for what the project is trying to do. Gutenberg – the WordPress project – is revolutionary, in a philosophical sense.

This is where that grating feeling I’ve experienced, a feeling I think a lot of people are experiencing around this topic, comes into play.

Until recently I’ve thought of Gutenberg as an evolution of the content editor in WordPress, and the content editor as the place where authors create blog posts and pages. I’ve come to realize that’s not what Gutenberg is at all.

To explain why we have to take a trip back to 2013 and WordCamp San Francisco, the setting for project lead Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word presentation which would turn out to set the tone for much of what we are seeing today.

First Mullenweg discussed how we’ve been thinking of the evolution of WordPress as one from a blogging application to an application platform. “I think that’s wrong,” he says: “We’ve been talking about this in a serial fashion, as one thing leading to another (…) I think actually what’s going on is all things have been happening simultaneously.” He goes on to describe how the first version of WordPress looked like an upside-down pyramid with the blog part a large block at the top standing on the teetering point of a small platform and how that pyramid has flipped making the platform the most solid part. Then he introduces the idea of WordPress as a modular framework, using LEGO blocks as an analogy: WordPress is the base block (platform) onto which other blocks can be attached to build whatever you like. The release of the WordPress REST API 3 years later is in many ways the culmination of this idea.

Then, toward the end of the presentation, he goes a step further introducing some design concepts put together by Joen Asmussen and Mel Choyce:

These concepts feature content blocks, inline editing tools, even a plus symbol to add new blocks. This is when Gutenberg started: In 2013, and it was never just about the editor. It was always something much bigger. My mistake in approaching Gutenberg was I firmly anchored myself in the now without considering the prospect of a revolution. Well, the blinders are gone, and I think I’m starting to see what’s ahead.  

A Watershed

Gutenberg is a foundational departure from the traditionalist view of WordPress as a blogging platform. It is a watershed moment for the application, cementing the idea expressed by Mullenweg in 2013 that WordPress is a platform on which anything can be built.

Right now Gutenberg is a replacement for the content editor, but that is merely the tip of a large iceberg. The concept of block level editing will soon migrate to the customizer and eventually to the entire application. We’re already seeing this in Gutenberg in the form of widgets and post objects being included as blocks.

Think of it this way: Right now when you go to WordPress you are there to write / copy+paste content and hit the publish button. In the future, after the fulfillment of the Gutenbergian revolution, you will go to WordPress you’ll go there to create views by writing some content and/or pulling in different blocks of content to form a whole.

“Yes,” the Gutenberg team will say: “this is literally what we’ve been saying the entire time.” Which is true. But the literal meaning does not convey the larger meaning unless both speaker and listener share the same foundation of understanding about the topic and belong to the same paradigm. I didn’t, and I suspect others find themselves in the same boat. What can I say? I’m old. Things take time. But I digress.

This is a revolution. This is a watershed moment for WordPress. This is entirely new and fundamentally different from how WordPress works and how we work with it today. I cannot overstate it enough when I say this changes everything.

A New Reality

What Mullenweg outlined in 2013 and the Gutenberg development team are building the beginnings of today is a fundamental reengineering of how people use WordPress. In simple terms, it is a shift from WordPress as a platform for publishing content to WordPress as a platform for managing views. This strategy is a direct frontal charge at DIY site building services like SquareSpace and Wix which aims to change WordPress from a publishing platform to a Site Building platform. The big question is if this is what the community wants and needs. Only time will tell.

When that Gutenberg switch is pulled, likely at the beginning of 2018, we are entering a new reality for WordPress and the people who use it. With that in mind allow me to ruminate on what that reality may look like and what possibilities lie on and beyond the horizon.

Blog No More

First and foremost, by the time the Gutenberg strategy is fully implemented and every element of WordPress is based on blocks and view building, WordPress will no longer be a blogging platform. I would go as far as suggesting most bloggers will move off the platform and toward hosted blogging solutions or more blog-centric solutions without the complexity Gutenberg will bring to the interface. It’s hard to see Gutenberg resulting in a “just type and publish” experience, but I’m ready to be proven wrong.

Blocks for Building

Blocks open the door to templating and content creation in a way we have not yet seen in WordPress. There are several levels to this:

On the ground-level the content creator will be able to select blocks of content and organize them to be displayed in any way they see fit. Without constraints, this will be the modern-day version of a WYSIWYG design environment, working with live code in the browser. That in itself is a monumental feat if it is achieved, and with modern web technologies like CSS Grid it is not only possible but probable.

On a higher level, theme and plugin developers and site builders will start creating selectable templates that can be pre-, auto- and manually populated by content creators. This expands the choices available to end-users by tailoring the level of user input on things like layout and design to the needs of the individual. Some users will prefer rigid templates where they just slot in content in dedicated regions, others will want flexible layouts or even custom layouts they can populate any way they like.

At the core level, developers will be able to create their own custom blocks and add them to templates etc. This expands the current capabilities of WordPress many fold and opens the door to advanced interactions we cannot yet imagine.

RESTful Modules

Coupled with the other part of Mullenweg’s 2013 vision, Gutenberg’s impact on the REST API will be interesting to watch. At present, it looks like all core blocks added to posts and pages will remain codified parts of the main content table and therefore effectively a single blob. This “blobbiness” is one of the biggest complaints against the current version of WordPress and from my perspective keeping the blob intact in the new reality of Gutenberg is a lost opportunity. Again, I am looking forward to being proven wrong. More importantly I am not sure the blobbiness will be as big of a problem as it seems because Gutenberg opens the door for custom blocks. Once the dust settles I expect theme, plugin, and site developers will embark on wholesale development of custom blocks that make Custom Post Types look like a child’s toy. A few years down the road I expect we’ll see RESTful applications running on a WordPress base where the good old content blob is relegated to a bystander role while new powerful custom blocks tailor made for REST take the spotlight.

Permanent Fracture

The introduction of the REST API and Gutenberg will likely lead to permanent fractures and possibly sharding off between different segments within the WordPress community and user base. There are already strong communities built around specific tooling like BuddyPress, MultiSite, eCommerce, Forums, CRM, etc, and I expect these communities will start building custom solutions powered by REST and Gutenberg that effectively become stand-alone variants of WordPress rather than WordPress + some plugins. Over time this may lead to an actual fracturing of the single one-size-fits-all entity called “WordPress” into multiple custom solutions with a common database and UI interaction base. Such a fracturing of the community would be detrimental, but I also think it is inevitable.

 A New Role

Mullenweg’s long stated goal has been for WordPress to become the leading content publishing application on the web. Currently WordPress powers between 27% and 28% of the 1,000,000 highest ranked sites on the web and many are talking about 50% as an achievable goal. I don’t think this is wise or healthy for WordPress or the web as a whole, but that’s relatively irrelevant to our conversation. What I predict will happen is once Gutenberg is rolled out WordPress’ role will shift from that of the default application for anyone who wants to build some sort of website to the best solution for those who want to build an advanced website. As I’ve said before, bloggers will likely migrate to other (mostly hosted) solutions to avoid the complexity of WordPress, and I expect many smaller sites will do the same. The interesting thing is I think this will happen with or without Gutenberg in core. But I’m just guessing, and I’d love to be proven wrong.

Whatever happens to WordPress’ user base, once Gutenberg is implemented fully, WordPress’ role in the wider web and internet community will change. If all these things actually work, and people find them useful, WordPress will herald in a new age of UI and UX exploration. Applications have followed WordPress’ lead before and will do it again if the new solution works. This will put the application and its developer community at a temporary advantage and position of power, and how we use that position will dictate the future not only of the application but the health and progress of the web as a whole. No pressure, we’re just talking about the future here.

P.t.

And so we find ourselves here, in a place I’m as surprised at being as you probably are. As I started looking into Gutenberg I found myself frustrated at many elements, from how the project was organized to the lack of accessibility features, incomplete user testing, and unclear focus. Some of these issues have been addressed, others I am sure will be addressed in good time, and by the time Gutenberg makes its way to WordPress core I am certain it will meet the standards we expect of all web applications: accessible, resilient, and respecting of the user’s time and abilities.

To the crucial question whether I like Gutenberg, I have yet to find a proper answer. I’m still not clear on who the solution is for or even what problem the solution is trying to solve, and I will spend the next months and probably years trying to answer that question as I create training materials. As a instructional designer and interaction designer this lack of a clear audience and goals is fundamentally upsetting, but this is not my project and my method is not the only method. As I’ve said several times, I’m ready to be proven wrong.

At the end of the day, Gutenberg has for me crystalized a deeply rooted uncertainty about the future of WordPress. People constantly ask me where I see WordPress going and over the past several years that future has become less and less clear to me. With the REST API in core and Gutenberg on the horizon, I am starting to see a new future for WordPress, one that looks nothing like where we are today. But this is true for the web as a whole as well. Non-pointer interactions, AR/VR/MR, AI, content beyond the screen, all these things are already within sight and the web as we know it is on the cusp of its own wave of revolutionary changes. The question I’m left to ponder is whether Gutenberg is what brings WordPress into that future.

--

Morten Rand-Hendriksen is a Senior Staff Instructor at LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com focussing on front-end web development and WordPress and a sessional instructor of Interaction Design at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. He is also a contributor to the WordPress project and works on improving communication between people on the web.