		-&gt;toBeArray()
		-&gt;toHaveKey('book');
});
</code></pre>



<p>Running <code>vendor/bin/pest --group=integration</code> gives us the following output:</p>



<pre class="wp-block-code"><code>Installing...
Running as single site... To run multisite, use -c tests/phpunit/multisite.xml
Not running ajax tests. To execute these, use --group ajax.
Not running ms-files tests. To execute these, use --group ms-files.
Not running external-http tests. To execute these, use --group external-http.

   PASS  Tests\\Integration\\BooksCptTest
  ✓ Books custom post type is registered

  Tests:  1 passed
  Time:   0.14s</code></pre>



<h3><strong>Conclusion</strong></h3>



<p>And just like that, you have the ability to run WordPress integration tests in your theme or plugin. Tests are amazing because not only are they safeguarding us from mistakes, but they also force us to write clean and testable code. This is especially true for plugins that have complicated logic or are communicating with third-party APIs.</p>



<p>Writing tests for such a codebase will force you to think about what your code architecture looks like so you can easily write automated tests &#8211; not to mention the time and money you’ll save from not having to manually test everything.</p>



<p>If you think this is something you might benefit from, feel free to use it, and <a href="https://github.com/dingo-d/wp-pest-integration-test-setup">star the repository</a> on GitHub.</p>



<p>Hopefully, this will encourage more WordPress developers to use tools that will enhance their coding skills.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 May 2022 18:25:19 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Denis Žoljom";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:43;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:125:"WPTavern: Online Meetup: WordPress NYC to Host Series on Modern, Privacy-Respecting Analytics and Leveraging First-Party Data";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=134464";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:134:"https://wptavern.com/online-meetup-wordpress-nyc-to-host-series-on-modern-privacy-respecting-analytics-and-leveraging-first-party-data";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:3125:"<p>One of the positive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is local meetups are more frequently broadcasting their events online, giving people outside the immediate area the opportunity to attend and learn new skills. <a href="https://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=wordpress&source=EVENTS&eventType=online&sortField=DATETIME">Searching meetup.com for WordPress</a>, filtered to show Online Events, will show upcoming events that anyone can attend.</p>



<p>WordPress NYC is hosting an interesting new six-part series on analytics beginning this week on Thursday, May 19, at 7PM EDT. Co-organizer Victor Ramirez will kick it off with a workshop titled &#8220;The Product &amp; Marketing Data Landscape.&#8221; Attendees will get an overview of  the current WordPress analytics landscape. Subsequent events will cover how to make a tracking plan, how to migrate to open source tracking options (while respecting privacy), and  how to leverage WordPress data to improve user experiences.</p>



<p>Ramirez is the lead product analytics engineer at <a href="https://www.theknotww.com/">The Knot Worldwide</a> and also runs a WordPress agency on the side. </p>



<p>&#8220;I was inspired because product analytics has been my job for two years,&#8221; Ramirez said. &#8220;It&#8217;s one of the hottest roles in technology everywhere except WordPress.&#8221; </p>



<p>During the workshop he plans to demonstrate the benefits of using <a href="https://www.rudderstack.com/">Rudderstack</a>, an open source customer data pipeline tool, and <a href="https://www.avo.app/">Avo workbench</a>, a data governance platform, comparing those to private enterprise options. The schedule for the series includes weekly presentations through June 23:</p>



<ul><li>May 19: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813151/">The Product &amp; Marketing Data Landscape</a></li><li>May 26: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813159/">Tracking Plans as the Lynchpin for Success</a></li><li>June 2: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813166/">Goodbye Google, Hello 1st Party Data</a></li><li>June 9: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813170/">Privacy, Performance, 3rd Party Integrations</a></li><li>June 16: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813176/">Build Dashboards &amp; Reporting in Minutes not Weeks</a></li><li>June 23: <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813178/">Leveraging Data for Enhanced User Experiences</a></li></ul>



<p>The series will introduce attendees to the concept of collecting first-party data (as opposed to third-party data) and learn how to create better, privacy-respecting experiences for consumers, instead of &#8220;targeting&#8221; them with unwanted messages.</p>



<p> If you&#8217;re using WordPress for a product or service, this workshop may give you a new way to think about consumer data collection for your business. The event is free and the link to attend online will be visible for those who <a href="https://www.meetup.com/WordPressNYC/events/285813151/">sign up to attend</a>.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 May 2022 17:34:44 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:44;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WordPress.org blog: WordPress 6.0 Release Candidate 3 (RC3) Now Available for Testing";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://wordpress.org/news/?p=12866";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:99:"https://wordpress.org/news/2022/05/wordpress-6-0-release-candidate-3-rc3-now-available-for-testing/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4194:"<p>WordPress 6.0 is scheduled for release next week on May 24, 2022! This RC3 release is the final opportunity for you to test and help contribute to making the 6.0 release great.</p>



<p>You can view changes since the RC2 release via <a href="https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/commits/wp/6.0">Gutenberg</a> and <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/query?status=accepted&status=closed&changetime=05%2F10%2F2022..05%2F17%2F2022&resolution=fixed&milestone=6.0&col=id&col=summary&col=status&col=milestone&col=owner&col=type&col=priority&order=id">Trac</a>.</p>



<h1>Installing RC3</h1>



<p><strong>This version of the WordPress software is under development</strong>. Please do not install, run, and test this version of WordPress on production or mission-critical websites. Instead, it is recommended that you install RC3 on a test server and site.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You can test WordPress 6.0 RC3 in three ways:</p>



<p><strong>Option 1: </strong>Install and activate the <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/">WordPress Beta Tester</a> plugin (select the “Bleeding edge” channel and “Beta/RC Only” stream).</p>



<p><strong>Option 2: </strong>Direct download the <a href="https://wordpress.org/wordpress-6.0-RC3.zip">release candidate (zip)</a>.</p>



<p><strong>Option 3:</strong> When using WP-CLI to upgrade from Beta 1, 2, 3, 4, RC1, or RC2 on a case-insensitive filesystem, please use the following command:</p>



<p><code>wp core update --version=6.0-RC3</code></p>



<h1>Plugin and Theme Developers</h1>



<p>All plugin and theme developers are encouraged to complete testing of their respective extensions against WordPress 6.0 RC3 and update the “<em>Tested up to”</em> version in their readme file to 6.0 this week. If you find compatibility problems, please be sure to post detailed information to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">support forums</a>, so these items can be investigated further prior to the final release date of May 24.</p>



<p>Review the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/03/wordpress-6-0-field-guide/"><em>WordPress 6.0 Field Guide</em></a>, for more details on this release.</p>



<p>Review additional information on the full <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-0/">6.0 release cycle</a>.</p>



<p>Check the <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/">Make WordPress Core blog</a> for <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/tag/dev-notes+6-0/">6.0-related developer notes</a> in the coming weeks which will detail upcoming changes.</p>



<h1>Translate WordPress</h1>



<p>Do you speak a language other than English? <a href="https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp/dev">Help translate WordPress into more than 100 languages.</a></p>



<h1>How to Help Test WordPress</h1>



<p>Testing for issues is critical for stabilizing a release throughout its development. Testing is also a great way to contribute to WordPress. If you are new to testing, check out this <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/04/12/help-wanted-test-wordpress-6-0/">detailed guide</a> that will walk you through how to get started.</p>



<p>If you think you have run into an issue, please report it to the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/forum/alphabeta/">Alpha/Beta area</a> in the support forums. If you are comfortable writing a reproducible bug report, you can <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/newticket">file one on WordPress Trac</a>. This is also where you can find a list of <a href="https://core.trac.wordpress.org/tickets/major">known bugs</a>.</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<h2>RC3, An (Almost) Final Haiku</h2>



<p>It’s near time for six<br />The reward is the journey<br />Just one week to go</p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity" />



<p>Thank you to the following contributors for collaborating on this post: <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dansoschin/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>dansoschin</a>, <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/webcommsat/" class="mention"><span class="mentions-prefix">@</span>webcommsat</a>.&nbsp;</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 May 2022 16:39:51 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:11:"Dan Soschin";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:45;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:82:"Do The Woo Community: WordCamp Europe 2022 with Takis Bouyouris and Taeke Reijenga";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:28:"https://dothewoo.io/?p=71671";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:32:"https://dothewoo.io/episode-223/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:396:"<p>Takis Bouyouris and Taeke Reijenga, part of the organizing team for WordCamp Europe, joins us in a conversation all about WCEU.</p>
<p>&gt;&gt; The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io/episode-223/">WordCamp Europe 2022 with Takis Bouyouris and Taeke Reijenga</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://dothewoo.io">Do the Woo - a WooCommerce Builder Community</a>	.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Tue, 17 May 2022 09:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:5:"BobWP";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:46;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:85:"WPTavern: How The Welch News Uses WordPress To Keep Local News Alive in West Virginia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=134197";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:96:"https://wptavern.com/how-the-welch-news-uses-wordpress-to-keep-local-news-alive-in-west-virginia";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13172:"<img />The Welch News Team &#8211; photo credit: The Welch News



<p>For 95 years, the people living in the McDowell County coalfields have depended on <a href="https://www.welchnews.com/">The Welch News</a> for local coverage of important events. The county sits at the southernmost point of state, with a declining population of <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/mcdowellcountywestvirginia">18,363</a> and a median household income of $27,682. </p>



<p>In the 1950&#8217;s, at the apex of the mining industry&#8217;s economic influence, McDowell County had close to 100,000 people living there. They mined the coal that built much of the infrastructure for American cities. After the industry became more mechanized and many left to find work elsewhere, the community began to deteriorate, drugs got a foothold, and many local kids are now raised by their grandparents. Property taxes evaporated, as a large number of homes are on homestead exemption, which further lowers property taxes for those who are 65+ or considered disabled.</p>



<p>The Welch News remains in the county as a unifying force that the dwindling populace relies on to stay connected and informed. Publisher Melissa Nester often says she learned how to read by reading the Welch News. Three years ago, she purchased her local newspaper to keep it from shuttering. </p>



<p>&#8220;Our previous owner made the decision to close the newspaper at a point we felt we were going strong,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;Revenue had declined along with the business population we used to support our operation over the years, however we felt it was an asset to community building and wanted to use it as such.&#8221; &nbsp;</p>



<img />The Welch News Publisher Melissa Nestor &#8211; photo credit: The Welch News



<p>Nester purchased the paper, with the promised support of her core team members at the time. Most of them are still working with her today.</p>



<p>“The Welch News had been a staple in all our lives,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;When we announced that we would cease to print, the community was outraged. We cried with customers stopping in to see us one last time, most of them sharing stories of their first job being a paper carrier at the newspaper. One of our carriers at the time told us the story of an elderly woman who said all she had at home was a landline phone and The Welch News. It’s all she had. We were absolutely floored as we heard how much our community wanted us to remain.&#8221;</p>



<h3>The Welch News Launches a Digital Publication on WordPress with the Help of the PaywallProject</h3>



<img />photo credit &#8211; The PaywallProject



<p>After purchasing the paper, Nester held a meeting on May 8, 2018, where she invited everyone she could think of to help her plan a path to move forward. Tyler Channell, creator of the <a href="https://www.paywallproject.com/">PaywallProject</a>, attended this meeting and listened to the team&#8217;s goals and concerns.</p>



<p>&#8220;Building simple WordPress-based sites for various businesses is something I&#8217;ve done dating back to 2008,&#8221; Channell said. &#8220;I really started focusing on local newspaper web development in late 2017 after graduate school (journalism) at West Virginia University.&#8221;</p>



<p>Channell began helping local West Virginian newspapers, after they reached out with specific questions about generating revenue from their publications.</p>



<p>&#8220;Digital ads weren&#8217;t cutting it for them (a similar story I hear from publishers across the country),&#8221; Channell said. &#8220;With Facebook and Google owning virtually the entire digital ad market, newspapers must focus their efforts on generating paid digital subscriptions to remain sustainable. People are willing to pay for local content that they can&#8217;t get anywhere else.&#8221;</p>



<p>After helping his first local newspaper find success with a paywall he implemented, he decided to put together a simple ready-to-go website solution focused on growing paid digital subscribers for local newspapers across West Virginia and beyond. He now has approximately 20 local newspapers signed on to the PaywallProject&#8217;s services. The all-in-one subscription platform for local news costs $199/month and includes website development, a flexible paywall subscription platform with no transaction fees, migration, and built-in ad management.</p>



<p>&#8220;I use a number of different themes/plugin-based solutions combined with custom code, payments via Stripe, and hosting through DigitalOcean to bring it all together,&#8221; Channell said. &#8220;The goal for me is to provide all technical aspects so that local news publishers can focus on publishing content.&#8221;</p>



<p>For many small publishers, this is their very first website. Channell said his clients are quick to acclimate to WordPress.</p>



<p>&#8220;I think when you remove the technical aspects of digital subscriptions, it reduces the learning curve dramatically,&#8221; he said.</p>



<p>&#8220;Growing digital subscriptions takes a lot of time and effort. But with each new paid subscriber a newspaper brings on board, local journalism becomes that much more sustainable.&#8221;</p>



<p>The Welch News&#8217; WordPress site helped put the publication on a path to sustainability. Within the first ten days of launching their digital edition, they gained 100 new subscribers, and subscriptions keep rolling in from local residents and people all over the country.</p>



<p>“I believe [Channell] was particularly interested when he learned our newsroom was staffed by millennials who cared deeply about the community they live in and hoped to make a positive change,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;He realized our staff could easily transition.</p>



<p>&#8220;As publisher/owner, at 56 years old, I have probably been the person hardest to train on using the site, but even I am very comfortable posting articles without help.&#8221;</p>



<p>Welch News Editor Derek Tyson is the primary person writing and editing articles, approving submissions, and managing ad design and layout for the front page.</p>



<p>“We really enjoy the ease of access WordPress offers,&#8221; Tyson said. &#8220;I think we all were quite surprised how easy it was to put our articles into the digital format to share with the world at large. The transition wasn’t hard. Changing our office routine after over 90 years of only print publishing was by far the hardest part.  PaywallProject made this transition easy for us.  Trainings happened in our own newsroom, and PaywallProject has always available to help with any issues.”</p>



<img />The Welch News Editor Derek Tyson &#8211; photo credit: The Welch News



<p>The entire publication process is still very much a labor of love, as is evident in this video the PaywallProject created featuring The Welch News. The team managing it is far younger than most of the town but fiercely dedicated to keeping this vital community resource going.</p>



<div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Growing paid digital subscriptions in rural Appalachia is possible! <a href="https://twitter.com/nestergirl2?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nestergirl2</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/thatdamntyson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@thatdamntyson</a> <a href="https://t.co/rpOE8fUEqM">pic.twitter.com/rpOE8fUEqM</a></p>&mdash; PaywallProject (@paywallproject) <a href="https://twitter.com/paywallproject/status/1523755491683631104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
</div>



<p>“Putting ourselves out into the digital world was both exciting and terrifying,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;We were skeptical about our content being capable of generating online subscriptions. But it was the best case of being proven wrong in our lives.</p>



<p>“It does sometimes feel unnerving to move from a local publication that is only read via print media in your community, to a publication with a far greater reach.  Sometimes that brings forth &#8216;internet warriors&#8217; to criticize, as well as &#8216;internet warriors&#8217; to support.  PaywallProject is knowledgeable in the field of journalism, and that makes a great difference.&#8221;</p>



<h3>The Welch News Still Prints and Delivers the Paper Three Days Per Week</h3>



<p>The Welch News is just one of hundreds of publications that have <a href="https://wptavern.com/finding-wordpress-in-the-post-print-news-era">found WordPress in the post-print news era</a>, but unlike many others who transitioned to purely digital publishing, they are committed to keeping their print version going on their 1966 model printing press. They print three days a week and offer home delivery within McDowell County, as well as mail delivery across the nation.</p>




<img />



<img />



<img />




<p>&#8220;We have a high population of elderly residents, and strongly feel that they need the connection with the home delivery drivers three times each week,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;We understand this isn’t the greatest business model, and often hear the advice to move to a weekly publication. Our desire to serve our residents in the best way possible keeps us headstrong about a three-day print publication.&#8221;</p>



<p>Though nearly everyone from his generation has moved away from the area, Tyson&#8217;s commitment to serve The Welch News&#8217; elderly subscribers burns strong.</p>



<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re here to serve a very vulnerable population that I feel like the modern world is pretty quick to sweep under the rug,&#8221; Tyson said in a recent <a href="https://vimeo.com/495924832/492e92a96f">documentary</a> about the county. &#8220;I see elderly people suffer, feeling like they&#8217;re not important and nobody needs them anymore. That&#8217;s just awful. They&#8217;re not as strong, they move a little slow, they&#8217;ll talk your head off but they&#8217;re living human beings that matter, and I&#8217;m going to fight for them.&#8221;</p>



<p>Local news stands as a guardian for small, economically vulnerable counties like McDowell. In an area that is frequently cited among the five poorest counties in the US, the people still have their own voice through The Welch News. This publication finding sustainability is like a flower growing up through the concrete.</p>



<p>As we witness the slow death of the American newspaper, these little newspapers staying alive to keep the public informed offer a ray of hope. Small publications continue to contend with <a href="https://wptavern.com/more-than-200-local-newspaper-publishers-are-suing-google-and-facebook-for-damages">the greed and corruption of the advertising industry</a>, tech giants that have <a href="https://wptavern.com/amp-has-irreparably-damaged-publishers-trust-in-google-led-initiatives">willfully eroded publishers&#8217; trust </a>through collusion and manipulation of the digital ad market. With affordable publishing tools like WordPress, The Welch News and its contemporaries can have a fighting chance.</p>



<p>&#8220;This is very much a heart project to serve and better our community, and we aren&#8217;t sure how long we can sustain it,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;I&#8217;m certain we wouldn&#8217;t have survived the income loss from COVID without our website. </p>



<p>&#8220;I often say I quit my job every morning, but go anyway. I quit again by nightfall, and the email comes showing the income from online subscriptions and I decide to try again.&#8221; </p>



<p>Tyson and his small team of journalists believe the best hope for keeping local news alive, when many small outlets have shuttered or consolidated, is maintaing a hyperlocal focus.</p>



<p>“Our strategy has been to shift our content priorities from broad coverage to a hyperlocal focus on issues within McDowell County’s borders,&#8221; he said. &#8220;With so many forms of media coverage available today, we decided to focus on what you couldn’t find anywhere else and in turn, showing that important things happen in small towns that deserve media attention.&#8221;</p>



<p>WordPress and the PaywallProject helped introduce a new stream of revenue for their century-old business. As the subscriptions continued to flow in, Nester said they realized &#8220;hyperlocal content did indeed have true value and would not be found anywhere else.&#8221; It&#8217;s one of the reasons <a href="https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2022/the-pulitzers-still-value-opinion-writing-and-so-do-readers/">many of the 2022 Pulizter prize winners have won for local stories</a> that would never be covered in the larger news market.</p>



<p>“Citizens near and far should understand the need to fund local newsrooms, and the important work they do,&#8221; Nester said. &#8220;Understanding that without supporting local journalists, a large sense of community will be lost with each news desert that comes.  If newsrooms are funded through community support, it is a better representation of that community and a means to bring forward local issues for resolution.&#8221;</p>



<p></p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 16 May 2022 15:16:18 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:47;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:147:"WordPress.org blog: WP Briefing: Episode 31: Open Source &amp; Accessibility– Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day With Guest Joe Devon";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:53:"https://wordpress.org/news/?post_type=podcast&p=12855";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:140:"https://wordpress.org/news/2022/05/episode-31-open-source-accessibility-celebrating-global-accessibility-awareness-day-with-guest-joe-devon/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:33186:"<p>In the thirty-first episode of the WordPress Briefing, GAAD Co-Founder Joe Devon joins WordPress Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy to discuss Global Accessibility Awareness Day and the role of open source in accessibility. </p>



<p><em><strong>Have a question you&#8217;d like answered? You can submit them to <a href="mailto:wpbriefing@wordpress.org">wpbriefing@wordpress.org</a>, either written or as a voice recording.</strong></em><br /></p>



<h2 id="credits">Credits</h2>



<ul><li>Guest: Joe Devon</li><li>Editor:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/dustinhartzler/">Dustin Hartzler</a></li><li>Logo:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/beafialho/">Beatriz Fialho</a></li><li>Production:&nbsp;<a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/santanainniss/">Santana Inniss</a> and <a href="https://profiles.wordpress.org/cbringmann/">Chloé Bringmann</a></li><li>Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod</li></ul>



<h2>References</h2>



<ul><li><a href="https://accessibility.day/about/">About GAAD</a></li><li><a href="https://gaad.foundation/gaadpledge/">GAAD Foundation Pledge</a></li><li><a href="https://www.who.int/health-topics/disability#tab=tab_1">World Health Organization on Disability  </a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dress">The Dress Phenomenon</a></li><li>The Guardian on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X_WvGAhMlQ">Yanny or Laurel  </a></li><li><a href="https://josepha.blog/2019/05/24/empathy-vs-altruism-in-modern-leadership/">Empathy vs. Altruism in Modern Leadership</a>, Josepha Haden Chomphosy </li><li><a href="https://webaim.org/projects/million/">The WebAim Million 2022 Report</a></li><li><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/6-0/">WordPress 6.0 Development Cycle </a></li><li><a href="https://europe.wordcamp.org/2022/">WordCamp Europe 2022</a></li></ul>



<h2>Transcript</h2>



<span id="more-12855"></span>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:00:00]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Hello everyone. And welcome to the WordPress Briefing. The podcast where you can catch quick explanations of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project, some insight into the community that supports it, and get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I&#8217;m your host Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go!</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:00:40]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Y&#8217;all, we&#8217;ve got an absolutely jam-packed couple of weeks in WordPress. We&#8217;ve got events happening and releases shipping and contributor days being coordinated (I almost said contributor days being contributed). That&#8217;s also what they&#8217;re doing. I&#8217;ll share some of those highlights in today&#8217;s small list of big things, but I did want to specifically call out something that&#8217;s coming up this week on Thursday (May 19, 2022), and that something is Global Accessibility Awareness Day.</p>



<p>The team of contributors over on the Accessibility team has participated in the Global Accessibility Awareness Day in the past. So I thought it would be interesting to hear from one of the co-founders of this particular day of awareness.</p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:01:27]&nbsp;</p>



<p>All right. And with that, Joe Devin, would you like to tell us a little bit more about yourself?&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:01:34] </strong></p>



<p>Sure. So I am the co-founder of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which is a day that goes viral every year on the third Thursday of May. We typically have the Twitter reach on the GAAD hashtag on Twitter of 200 million users, which is, I think, pretty much their active user count. We stopped counting once we hit their daily active user count. </p>



<p>And then, I am Chair of the GAAD Foundation, which we launched last year. And then I have a day job too, where I&#8217;m CEO and co-founder of Diamond, which is an inclusive digital agency that builds software accessibly by default. </p>



<p>[<strong>Josepha Haden Chomphosy </strong>00:02:15]&nbsp;</p>



<p>Wonderful. Well, we are so excited to have you today. I said we like it&#8217;s me and the mouse in my pocket—we in the WordPress community that&#8217;s going to listen to this. Super excited to have you today. So you mentioned GAAD, Global Accessibility Awareness Day. Last year was your 10th anniversary, which is very exciting, but like with so many good things, I hear it all started with a blog post and a blog post on WordPress, no less.</p>



<p>So I&#8217;d love to hear about how GAAD evolved from that, with, as I understand it, your co-founder of Jennison (Asuncion). That must be where you met him, I assume.</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:02:51] </strong></p>



<p>Yes. Yes. So what happened was I started a WordPress blog called <em>My SQL Talk</em>. So it&#8217;s a database blog, and I just thought it was a brilliant name. I mean, My SQL Talk, like that, should be super popular.</p>



<p>And it probably had maybe ten people who ever looked. Um, and then my dad was getting older, and my dad was a survivor of the concentration camps, and he was a genius. He spoke ten languages. It, he was one of those people. That, when he walked into a room, he just commanded respect. You knew that there was history. I don&#8217;t know how to explain it really, but it was special when my dad walked into the room. And considering all of this that he suffered in his life, watching him get older and struggle, particularly with his banking, was very painful to see. And the bank wasn&#8217;t accessible, so I wrote this blog post proposing that we create a Global Accessibility Awareness Day.</p>



<p>Sometimes I get these visions, and they never turn into anything. But while I think about it, I&#8217;m like, &#8220;all right, let&#8217;s write this blog post and this can definitely work. Right?&#8221; And then you finish the blog post to hit send, and you&#8217;re like, &#8220;this is not going to work.&#8221;</p>



<p>But I wasn&#8217;t even smart enough to do social media on it. But fortunately, WordPress had an auto-tweet feature, and it tweeted it out, and Jennison Asuncion, my co-founder, happened to be around and not out that Saturday night. And he read the blog post, and he said, &#8220;this is a great idea. Let&#8217;s make it happen.&#8221;</p>



<p>And we had two busy people, but we both had a community. He had the accessibility community, and I was building a tech scene in Los Angeles. And what I discovered is if you combine a great idea with the community, great things can happen. </p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:04:49]</strong></p>



<p>Oh man, you&#8217;re speaking my language over here, helping people find their communities, knowing that community is the thing that is the lifeblood of society.</p>



<p>That sounded like a tautology. It is not a tautology. You can have a society with an attempt to not have any sort of community around it, but I bet it doesn&#8217;t work very well. Well, that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s very interesting. And so you all just kind of talked through what that would look like, I assume in confidence, or that would have to take place, right? Or was it on Twitter in those days?&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:05:24]</strong> </p>



<p>Oh, you could still look in the comments and see the back and forth of Jennison and a bunch of other people that got pretty involved with GAAD that are some legendary folks in there. It&#8217;s kind of mind-blowing because I dunno how, how you feel, but for me, when I used to code, uh, three months later, I&#8217;d look back at old code and be like, &#8220;oh, I suck,&#8221; you know, or write an email even and you look back on it a day later and are like &#8220;what a stupid email, how stupid am I?&#8221; You know?  But I look back on that one after ten years; I was scared to look at it because I&#8217;m like, it must&#8217;ve been really bad. But you know, it kind of held up, and exactly what I wrote in there happened &#8211; to my utter shock.</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:06:06]</strong></p>



<p>But also, it&#8217;s kinda nice, though, to look back and be like, &#8220;oh, I used to be much dumber.&#8221;</p>



<p>Cause then you&#8217;re like, look how far I&#8217;ve come. I&#8217;m no longer that dumb. I&#8217;m a different kind of dumb now; good for me. I always hope to be a different kind of dumb as I go forward. </p>



<p>So then, okay, so that was your ten-year anniversary last year. GAAD, in general, now has been going on for 11 years, and at the time of this recording, in a couple of weeks, but then probably a week when it finally publishes, you have your next, your next round of that going.</p>



<p>I think it seems safe to assume that awareness of the need for accessibility has increased during that time, but we all know that the work of accessibility is ongoing. And so, I&#8217;m just curious to hear from your perspective if the awareness of the need for accessibility has generally started to permeate developer communities.</p>



<p>And are you seeing more developer awareness around the need for accessibility in tech in general?&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:07:12]</strong> </p>



<p>Yeah. You know, it&#8217;s not enough. It&#8217;s certainly improved a lot.  I keynoted a conference probably four years after GAAD started, maybe five, and I kind of assumed nobody would have heard of accessibility, and I was taken aback when I asked who had heard of it, and a good chunk of the room had. So even then, there had been a difference, and I&#8217;d say now I see accessibility mentioned a lot more in conferences and stuff. But when it comes to actually building it, there&#8217;s a tremendous amount of ignorance. There, there still needs to be a lot more awareness.</p>



<p>And I think partially people are a little bit scared to dip their toe because they&#8217;re scared that they&#8217;re going to be told that &#8220;no, it&#8217;s not accessible,&#8221; or that they&#8217;re going to say the wrong word or offend somebody. So I&#8217;d say that there&#8217;s some degree of trepidation, but also developers, and it&#8217;s not just developers, designers, and product people. There&#8217;s so much to learn, and it&#8217;s like, &#8220;oh God, there&#8217;s another piece that I have to learn.&#8221; </p>



<p>And I&#8217;m so glad that you invited me on this podcast because it&#8217;s the developers that, you know, I am a developer, not anymore, I haven&#8217;t touched code in years, but that&#8217;s where I came from. Right? This is my peach, right? Particularly WordPress folks, because I had done a fair bit of WordPress before I moved on to some other things. And, I think we have to talk about usability and understand that accessibility is so much more than how we look at disability.</p>



<p>And if you don&#8217;t mind, I&#8217;m going to ask you a question. How do you think the typical WordPress developer or designer would define disability? </p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:09:05] </strong></p>



<p>in the kinds of conversations that I&#8217;ve had over the years, it frequently has to do with visual things. Because it&#8217;s just screens all day, right? And that&#8217;s a primary area where our designers and developers really have made some effort.</p>



<p>But my personal favorite sort of, of example, for like, when you&#8217;re looking at how to make sure that your products are accessible is, what, if you have to use your website, or you have to build your website using only one arm. Because that gives you an opportunity to kind of look at disability from a permanent standpoint.</p>



<p>Like if you have lost permanent use of one arm, but also gives you an opportunity to look at the temporary options for that sort of lack of mobility. Like you&#8217;re a mother with an infant, and so you have to be able to, you know, get your stuff done with one arm. And so I know that we paid a bunch of attention to screen readers and what works in not way back in 2018 and 2019 did a lot of work with. Literally zero screen. And can you still do the thing that you need to do, which was incredibly difficult. And I was really excited to see what our developers came up with around that. But I think that that is quite a bit of that discussion as we&#8217;re going through it from the beginning to the&nbsp;end.</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:10:27] </strong></p>



<p>Yeah. I mean, that&#8217;s a great answer, and you definitely understand some of the nuances way better than I think that the average creator, digital product creator, I&#8217;m including the, you know, the product people, the designers, and the developers.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:10:42] </strong></p>



<p>We&#8217;re very fortunate to have more than just developers in WordPress.</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:10:50]  </strong></p>



<p>The reason I bring this up is that the WHO (World Health Organization) had to; they&#8217;re the ones that did massive research across the globe. And they had to, they had to come up with a definition, and in their definition, they needed to draw a line. Typically, I don&#8217;t remember the exact thing cause it&#8217;s a 350-page report, and I kept looking for where they defined it again.</p>



<p>It was a little hard to find, but essentially it&#8217;s if there&#8217;s a major disability or a disability that impacts some significant portion of your day-to-day activities. And that&#8217;s really great when you&#8217;re trying to do a report on how many disabilities there are out there; what percentage of the population has a disability?</p>



<p>And their figures are something like 15% of the population has a disability, which is a huge number. But at the same time, they also mentioned that 2.2 billion people have a visual impairment. And we also know that over 33% of the population is over 50, and I&#8217;m included in that population. And I can say that when you&#8217;re over 50, you know, I&#8217;ve got clouds in my eyes.</p>



<p>I don&#8217;t know where they came from, but they definitely make it harder to see. When I&#8217;m in a restaurant, I can&#8217;t focus on the person across from me the same way. My hearing is not the same, and anybody over 50 is going to have certain impairments and won&#8217;t see as well; color contrast issues are a big deal.</p>



<p>Being able to raise the font is a big deal. And I think that accessibility is connected in most people&#8217;s minds with disability. And they&#8217;ll attach that to something like being blind or being deaf or hard of hearing or having a missing limb or having some other kind of disability. </p>



<p>And, as a result, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;well, I don&#8217;t even know any people in that category possibly,&#8221; and as a result, they&#8217;re like, &#8220;well, how important is this?&#8221; Yes. They might feel guilty. I should do the right thing. This is the right thing to do. But honestly, like how much money should I spend on it? How much, what percentage of my time should I spend on it?</p>



<p>And it&#8217;s because they don&#8217;t realize that everybody has different abilities. And so, I&#8217;m starting to go away from even talking about disabilities and asking people to remember that all of us perceive things differently. </p>



<p>Do you remember the gold dress where they were trying to say, what color is this dress? Is it gold and white or blue and black? And it is blue and black, but to me, all I see is gold and white. And then there was Laurel or Yanny. Do you remember that?. And some people heard it, and typically older people heard it as Laurel, and I&#8217;ve, and I do this in some of my presentations. I play that, that sound. And usually, it&#8217;s Laurel for me, but sometimes it&#8217;s Yanny. Even personally, it changes. </p>



<p>And so, we have a totally different perception. Now think about memory. There&#8217;s a different kind of blindness. If you try and remember, let&#8217;s say a relative or a friend that is no longer. How well do you see that picture?</p>



<p>Because for me, it is very, very vague, but for some people, they say, and I&#8217;ve been asking people, and I&#8217;d love your answer as well. How vivid is it? And some people say, I can read the, I can see the pattern on the shirt. It&#8217;s as vivid as if I see with opening my eyes, seeing, you know, the regular in front of me, and I can even read a name tag in the memory.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;m like, Woah, so maybe I&#8217;m blind in a way. Right? So how do you see it? How do you remember things?&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:14:42] </strong></p>



<p>Oh, I&#8217;m a, I&#8217;m a real visual person and a tactile person. And so, like if I interacted with someone, I&#8217;m very likely to be able to picture, like, recreate that mental picture pretty well in my mind. I recently, very recently, met some of my first people in that executive leadership space who were like, yeah, I don&#8217;t, I don&#8217;t visualize things.</p>



<p>And I was like, what are you, how do you do this work? Because like, you have to be able to do that. And they were like, no, I don&#8217;t have mental pictures.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:15:13] </strong></p>



<p>Some people don&#8217;t have an inner dialogue.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:15:17] </strong></p>



<p>I don&#8217;t understand that either,&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:15:19] </strong></p>



<p>Me either. So accessibility studies all of these differences with respect to how you&#8217;re presenting all of this information.</p>



<p>And if you don&#8217;t pay attention to accessibility, you&#8217;re really just missing out. And then there&#8217;s colorblindness. If you&#8217;re creating something like slack that has an online/offline indicator, and you only use red and green for people who are colorblind, they see gray and gray. And so what I&#8217;m trying to teach the community with digital product creators is that no, you cannot ignore it.</p>



<p>You can ignore accessibility, but then you&#8217;re not good at your job. I mean, I don&#8217;t mean to say it in an offensive way, but you&#8217;re not good at your job if you&#8217;re unaware. If you break a rule on purpose, great. But if you don&#8217;t know the rule, it&#8217;s just a lack of craft, and you absolutely should make it a priority.</p>



<p>And you&#8217;re not doing it as a charity. You&#8217;re doing it because you care about your users, and you care about your craft, and you want to build things well, and it&#8217;s a necessity. And I think that this is the kind of message that our community needs to hear.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:16:31]</strong></p>



<p>I want to touch on something that you sort of brought up a bit, um, at the start of the answer there.</p>



<p>So you brought up the concept of usability. And in the last time that I did a podcast about accessibility, I defined accessibility as a subset of usability. Do you think that if we were to consistently draw that line for people so that it&#8217;s not just like accessibility is this thing that you should do outside of usability?</p>



<p>If we were to more consistently draw that line, do you think that that would help people to see and understand better that its shades of existence, usability, and accessibility?  &nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:17:10] </strong></p>



<p>Oh, 100%, a hundred percent. And in my company, we kind of realized that that&#8217;s exactly what we have to do. We have to see this as usability.</p>



<p>And I don&#8217;t, we talk about accessibility a lot, but I don&#8217;t want to. It&#8217;s part of the plumbing for us. We&#8217;ve made it part of the plumbing, and I can tell you it&#8217;s a struggle to take accessibility and make it part of an organization, even when you&#8217;re bringing it top-down, believe it or not. For our teams, particularly the designers, they are blown away by what they&#8217;re learning because they&#8217;re improving their craft.</p>



<p>And design is typically where there&#8217;s a struggle to get accessibility accepted because there seems to be a very strong idea of what a design should look like. And I think it&#8217;s really about the approach because UX and design it&#8217;s all about empathy for people. And when you approach it, not as, even though empathy should mean that, that, you know, do the right thing at the same time, it&#8217;s more about empathy for your user, and your user includes so much more than just people with disabilities that you haven&#8217;t run into somebody that has that disability and therefore you build it better, and it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s completely blown their mind. They love it. They love doing it. And I&#8217;m not hiring people with accessibility coming in. We&#8217;re training them to work accessibly. </p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:18:34] </strong></p>



<p>So I think it&#8217;s interesting that you talk about empathy as part of being able to make sure that you&#8217;re creating something that&#8217;s accessible because I actually feel like empathy is. Like it&#8217;s being considered this gold standard for many, many things right now. And I think it actually is more harmful in the long run than instead making altruistic choices.</p>



<p>And so, I have a blog post that I will link in our show notes that will kind of help everybody see more fully my concept there. But when you rely on empathy, you do kind of have to rely on one, being able to run into all of the issues you were mentioning. You have to know people who have problems in order to know that the problems exist.</p>



<p>And then you also kind of have to assume that once you have willingly put yourself into the discomfort of that kind of disability, whatever, wherever it exists on that spectrum, your experience of that discomfort is the same as someone who lives with it. And I just don&#8217;t think that we can necessarily do that.</p>



<p>I always think that trying to do the altruistic thing, like doing your research and figuring out what it is and trying to make decisions on behalf of other people as best you can, which is a terrible thing. Still, like decisions that take into account the experiences that people are sharing with you and then going to them and saying, &#8220;does this make that experience better or worse?&#8221; is the more sustainable option from my perspective, this is specifically leadership. Still, I think it&#8217;s true for accessibility as well, and probably product design as a whole, but it&#8217;s very difficult. Like people really feel like they understand the concept of empathy right now. And I do think that sometimes that leads us down the wrong path for things.</p>



<p>What&#8217;s your thought on that? I think you kind of agree based on what your answer was&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:20:33]</strong> </p>



<p>Oh, no, absolutely. And you know, we, you, can&#8217;t never about us without us, as the common saying, and we&#8217;ve gathered a group of a hundred people with a wide variety of disabilities for research. Whenever we do any UX and research, and sometimes we&#8217;re asked to just do research projects, we go out and ask the users.</p>



<p>We had some really interesting companies approach us to do innovation and accessibility, and they had strong assumptions. We looked at the assumptions and agreed with it, but we&#8217;re like, all right, they were smart. They said, &#8220;vet this with users for us, please,&#8221; because they didn&#8217;t want to gather their own group.</p>



<p>We vetted with users, and we&#8217;re blown away, always blown away because there are so many things you just don&#8217;t know unless you&#8217;ve lived with a particular disability. You can&#8217;t guess, and you&#8217;ve got to speak to your users and a wide variety of them. &nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:21:30]</strong></p>



<p>Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. What role does open source play in expanding accessibility, either in specifically the digital space or just accessibility in general?</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:21:42] </strong></p>



<p>I guess if the question is, what role does it play? I would say the role it plays is it is, unfortunately, it makes accessibility worse because, for the most part open source is not very accessible. And it&#8217;s a personal passion of mine, so I&#8217;m really glad that you brought that up. </p>



<p>You know, it is so bizarre. You write a blog post and then it goes viral, and it goes viral every year to a degree that you can&#8217;t even believe it, that all these companies that you know are running events. Privately, publicly talking about it. And then you get all these people thanking you for what you&#8217;ve done year after year.</p>



<p>And then one year, you read on Twitter, The Blind Onion; I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re familiar with The Onion, the satirical clip, there&#8217;s the Blind Onion. And they tweet out, &#8220;Now that Global Accessibility Awareness Day is over, we look forward to 364 days of global accessibility oblivion.&#8221; And that really hurt at the time, but at the same time, and I was told to ignore it, don&#8217;t worry about it, but I&#8217;m like, no, this is coming from a place of pain.</p>



<p>And the point of GAAD was to make a difference. It wasn&#8217;t too to just give everybody an opportunity to say, &#8220;Hey, look at what we&#8217;re doing,&#8221; and then not make a difference. So, as a result of that, I started to think about, well, where are we with this? And, and so I&#8217;ve created a state of accessibility report that through my company, we&#8217;re able to run for a few years, and it&#8217;s not, you know, the state is not great.</p>



<p>And I&#8217;m like, well, what can we do to change things? So, as a result of all of this, I really wanted to figure out, well, what can we do to make sure that GAAD does make a difference? And so, I came up with the idea of the GAAD pledge, which is specifically meant for open source frameworks. </p>



<p>And the idea of the GAAD pledge is that an open source framework, when they are ready, takes the pledge to make accessibility a core value of the framework. Now, terms of what that actually entails are different for every single project because every project is unique. We did create a bit of a framework, which had the idea of saying, okay, you&#8217;re going to, first of all, create an accessibility statement that says that this framework is going to conform to whatever, WCAG, which is Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, to whatever WCAG level is decided and is appropriate for the framework. That there&#8217;s going to be documentation for anybody that is downloading this piece of open source project and trying to implement it, that there should be guidelines for them, that all of the examples should be accessible. </p>



<p>It&#8217;s really important because even the frameworks that try to pay attention to accessibility. You&#8217;ll often see that people from the community will provide examples, and they&#8217;re inaccessible. And it&#8217;s really sad when you see that because so many people are just copy-pasting. That&#8217;s typically how it works, and they&#8217;re going to copy-paste something bad. So putting a statement around it, I think, would be really great.</p>



<p>And what we&#8217;re hoping to see is that lots and lots of big open source communities decide to take the pledge. And then it&#8217;ll sort of be table stakes that any new open source projects as well look, all of these frameworks that made it, they took the pledge and therefore we should take the pledge as well.</p>



<p>And so the very first year, we had React Native take the pledge, and they put a lot of effort into their accessibility. The second group to take it was Ember.js, and they always put a lot of effort into their accessibility, and they continued that effort. We&#8217;re about to announce the next one, but we&#8217;re still two weeks away.</p>



<p>So I can&#8217;t say anything yet, but yeah, we&#8217;re, uh, we&#8217;re hoping for a lot more uptake on, on the gap pledge because it, it affects so many people downstream. WordPress&#8217;s what percent of the web right now? 43%? So there you go. That&#8217;s so many people.&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:25:57] </strong></p>



<p>So many people. Yeah, fun fact Gutenberg, our current rewriting of the editing experience in WordPress, primarily uses React. And so, I&#8217;m glad to hear that they have taken that pledge as well. </p>



<p>As with any good cooking, it starts with good&nbsp;ingredients.</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:26:12] </strong></p>



<p>You said it. That was great. I wish I was a cook, though.</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:26:23] </strong></p>



<p>I love it. All right. Let&#8217;s what keeps you up at night when it comes to the state of accessibility?&nbsp;</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:26:29] </strong></p>



<p>What keeps me up at night is how to move the needle. It is such a big thing to change. And there are so many angles that you can approach this with, but at the end of the day, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a monster.</p>



<p>It&#8217;s a monster. There are so many legacy sites out there. If you look at WebAIM, they do a yearly report on the state of accessibility as well. They call it the WebAIM Million, and they&#8217;re typically seeing 97% inaccessible, 98%. It goes up and down a little bit every year. And that&#8217;s, that&#8217;s just a huge boat to move.</p>



<p>I think we need to at least get the newer, uh, newer websites and mobile apps to move. And what we&#8217;ve seen in our state of accessibility report is that only the very top companies seem to put in the effort to make their products accessible. There is a big push with the enterprise companies to do it.</p>



<p>The CEOs are starting to talk about it, but what we need is the entire culture of software development to change. Or I should even say digital product development change and to move that boat is massive. And that&#8217;s I put it in my tagline in my email like that&#8217;s my mission in life, and I hope to achieve it before I die.</p>



<p>So that keeps me up at night.</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:27:52] </strong></p>



<p>I think that would keep me up at night as well. I mean, it seems like you are really just personally mission-driven and impact-driven. Do you feel like, in the event that the work that you&#8217;ve accomplished so far is what you accomplish, you feel still like you&#8217;ve had an impact?</p>



<p>I feel like you have had&nbsp;an impact. </p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:28:13] </strong></p>



<p>I&#8217;m not one of those people that tries to have a legacy or like tries to focus on what my impact is and all of that. I just try and do good work. And hopefully, it just shows at the end of the day. I&#8217;m just trying to have the impact without the accolades.</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:28:34]</strong></p>



<p>I get it. Well, Joe, thank you so much for joining us here on this episode of WP Briefing. You have been a delight to chat with.</p>



<p><strong>[Joe Devon 00:28:42]</strong></p>



<p>Likewise, it&#8217;s really been a pleasure to meet you, and uh, and I appreciate the opportunity.</p>



<p><strong>[Josepha Haden Chomphosy 00:28:54] </strong></p>



<p>And now it&#8217;s time for our smallest of big things. As I mentioned at the start, it is packed. Number one tomorrow, May 17th, RC3. So one of the final RCs that we&#8217;re going to have for the WordPress 6.0 release, unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong, which I don&#8217;t think it will. </p>



<p>And then, two days after that, Global Accessibility Awareness Day, as I mentioned, will be on May 19th. So, this coming Thursday. </p>



<p>And then next week, we have the 6.0 release. We have the WordPress 6.0 release on May 24th. </p>



<p> Three days after that, WordPress turns 19 on May 27th, starting its final teenage year before we turn twenty in 2023. So that was the rapid-fire dance card for the next two weeks.</p>



<p>The stuff that is happening with and around WordPress for everyone to know. As a heads up, also, many people are headed to WordCamp Europe in Porto(, Portugal). The first week of June, I am going to do a live from WordCamp Europe episode. It will not be live. I&#8217;ll just record it live. And so. You know you&#8217;ll get to hear me with my hoarsest voice and maybe singing to my computer. Cause that almost always happens at these things. </p>



<p>And that, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for tuning in today for the WordPress Briefing. I&#8217;m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. And I&#8217;ll see you again in a couple of weeks.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Mon, 16 May 2022 12:00:00 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:15:"Chloe Bringmann";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:48;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:117:"Gutenberg Times: Three Block Theme Generators, Gutenberg 13.2,  Coupons with Blocks and more –  Weekend Edition 215";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:35:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/?p=21139";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:120:"https://gutenbergtimes.com/three-block-theme-generators-gutenberg-13-2-coupons-with-blocks-and-more-weekend-edition-215/";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:16135:"<p>Howdy, </p>



<p>I can hardly wait to be in the same room with fellow contributors across many teams during Contributor Day at WordCamp Europe, collaborate on the open-source project tasks, and meet new contributors in person!  </p>



<p>Next week, my husband and I will fly to Porto for a two-week work-cation prior to WordCamp Europe. We will explore Portugal&#8217;s second largest city and its wider area during lunch breaks, evening strolls and weekend excursions. It&#8217;s a new way of traveling for us and we are grateful for our remote work so we can stay for a longer period of time in a city. </p>





<p>And now back to the topic at hand: News and community resources around the  block editor, block themes, full-site editing and more.</p>



<p>Enjoy the mixture of articles and post. Have a great weekend! </p>



<p>Yours, 💕<br />Birgit </p>




<div class="wp-container-3 wp-block-group has-light-background-background-color has-background"><div class="wp-block-group__inner-container">
<p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p>



<div class="wp-block-sortabrilliant-guidepost"><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#2-this-weeks-releases">This week&#8217;s releases </a><ul><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-word-press-6-0-and-gutenberg-13-2">WordPress 6.0 RC2</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#4-gutenberg-13-2">Gutenberg 13.2</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#0-block-theme-generators">Three Block Theme Generators</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#1-full-site-editing">Full Site Editing &amp; Plugins for site builders</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#3-developing-custom-blocks-and-tools">Developing Custom Blocks and Tools</a></li><li><a href="https://gutenbergtimes.com/feed/#6-upcoming-word-press-social-learning-meetups">Upcoming WordPress Social Learning Meetups</a></li></ul></div>
</div></div>




<h2 id="2-this-weeks-releases">This week&#8217;s releases </h2>



<h3 id="3-word-press-6-0-and-gutenberg-13-2">WordPress 6.0 RC2</h3>



<p><a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2022/05/wordpress-6-0-release-candidate-2-rc2-now-available-for-testing/"><strong>WordPress 6.0 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) Now Available for Testing</strong></a>. It seems everything is on track for the final release scheduled for May 24, 2022. </p>



<p>Curious what WordPress 6.0 looks like? Watch this great video by <strong>Jamie Marsland </strong> with short succinct demos of the most important features for site builders and he asks <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtNgk6pZBqA">WordPress 6: The Most Exciting Update Ever?</a></strong></p>



<p>Can you believe, Core Contributors already <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/11/early-bug-scrub-schedule-for-6-1/">started Bug Scrubs for 6.1</a>? I guess you can never start too soon. </p>



<h3 id="4-gutenberg-13-2">Gutenberg 13.2</h3>



<p>For the first time, <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/revgeorge">George Hotelling</a></strong> led the release for the Gutenberg plugin and posted the release notes: <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/2022/05/12/whats-new-in-gutenberg-13-2-may-11/"><strong>What’s new in Gutenberg 13.2? (May 11)</strong></a>. Many PRs were Bug fixes, and not so many new features. Hotelling highlights the new <a href="https://make.wordpress.org/core/#save-editor-preferences">save method for user&#8217;s editor preferences</a>. Now that the preferences (Welcome buide, Full Screen, Top Toolbar etc) are stored in the user meta table of the site, you can now access the site from any computer and it will remember the choices you made. We waited quite a while for this feature to land. </p>



<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/justintadlock">Justin Tadlock</a></strong> took the plugin for spin and he has more details in his article: <a href="https://wptavern.com/gutenberg-13-2-adds-persistent-user-preferences-and-a-visualizer-for-margin-and-padding-controls">Gutenberg 13.2 Adds Persistent User Preferences and a Visualizer for Margin and Padding Controls</a></p>



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<p>Earlier this week, I was part of the <a href="https://wpbuilds.com/2022/05/10/this-week-in-wordpress-208/"><strong>This Week in WordPress #208</strong></a> live show and podcast. with&nbsp;Daniel Schutzsmith,&nbsp;Nathan Wrigley, and&nbsp;Michelle Frechette.</p>



<img />



<p>We talked about FSE Testing Call 14 using the refactored List and Quote Blocks, the new feature to assign patterns to the page creation process, the Artist in Residence program by DigitalCube, introduced by Rachel Winchester and so much more. It was lovely to connect with my friends again. We had great fun. Listen in! </p>



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<h2 id="0-block-theme-generators">Three Block Theme Generators</h2>



<p>Ever we started seeing Full-site editing evolving, community members pushed the envelop and created tools for creating themes. Today, I put three of them in one space. </p>



<p><a href="https://www.themegen.app/"><strong>ThemeGen.App</strong></a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/dgwyer"><strong>David Gwyer</strong></a> was very early and the site provides you an easy way to make all the color and settings choices via a nice web interface and then create a theme.json file. </p>



<p><strong>Carolina Nymark</strong>&#8216;s <a href="https://fullsiteediting.com/block-theme-generator/"><strong>Block Theme Generator</strong></a> makes a few decisions for you. She offers visitors to download a basic block theme, and empty theme and an advanced block theme. The latter is the best teaching tool, as it includes not only a bare bones theme, but also example templates, block patterns and block styles. With help of a bare bones form, you also can select your color palette and some default settings. </p>



<p>While both mentioned Block Theme Generators are aimed at the Theme developers working with code, <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/pootlepress">Jamie Marsland</a> of PootlePress</strong> just built a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbHdSbUFVbnlGNUMtaUNwV010UnlORFN4WXJKQXxBQ3Jtc0trOUozOWRsMWZ2Ym91c25RcVB2bHJVZGlIWmFVaHhjR2lsMncxckIxQnppZlFsQnBmbkJ3aXd2QmtqN2tEbF8wLWJia192cjFSQzBydTBuUGhXTXBWcmFlSnlJbjlxbDVZVEt2OS11SEZ5eUREUS1iSQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pootlepress.com%2Fwordpress-theme-builder%2F&v=mtINY03lycY"><strong>Block Theme Generator</strong></a> that&#8217;s aimed at the #nocode site builder. It&#8217;s fairly new and used out of the box tools and the WordPress site editor to design every aspect of a theme that you then can export. Marsland explains <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtINY03lycY">in this video on YouTube</a>, how he built it, why Theme Export is such a big deal, and how you can also build a theme generator for you team.</p>



<h2 id="1-full-site-editing">Full Site Editing &amp; Plugins for site builders</h2>



<p><a href="https://wptavern.com/wordpress-6-0-to-ship-new-block-locking-feature"><strong>WordPress 6.0 To Ship New Block Locking Feature</strong></a> &#8211; <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> gives you a sneak preview on the new feature. </p>



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<p>Full-site editing experience is not for everyone yet. <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/RuthRaventos">Ruth Raventós</a></strong>, CEO of Nelio, after explaining what FSE entails, walk you through the decision-making process on <a href="https://neliosoftware.com/blog/how-do-i-change-my-website-to-full-site-editing-fse/"><strong>if your site, your online business, is suited to adopt aspects of FSE.</strong></a> It&#8217;s not a technical evaluation, rather than a strategic approach. &#8220;The first task you should do is to understand all the functionalities you want your “new” website to have and see which of them can be provided by FSE. Then, for those that are provided by plugins, evaluate if they are compatible with FSE or what alternatives you have.&#8221; Ruth Raventós wrote. </p>



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<p class="has-drop-cap">4 (<strong>four)</strong> more days, until May 18th, 2022, to heed the <strong><a href="https://make.wordpress.org/test/2022/04/28/fse-program-testing-call-14-rallying-recipe-reviewers/">FSE Program Testing Call #14: Rallying Recipe Reviewers</a>.</strong> It&#8217;s also available in <em>Italian.</em> <em>(<a href="https://it.wordpress.org/team/2022/05/11/chiamata-per-il-test-del-programma-fse-14-raduniamo-i-recensori-di-ricette/">Raduniamo i recensori di ricette</a>)</em>, thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/succoallapera"><strong>Piermario Orecchioni</strong></a></p>



<p><strong>Anne McCarthy</strong>, <strong>Courtney Robertson</strong> and <strong>Sarah Snow</strong> tested all the features mentioned in the call for testing together in a zoom video meeting. If you don&#8217;t have time to do the testing yourself, but want to know what&#8217;s in the pipeline you can watch this on WordPress.TV: <strong><a href="https://wordpress.tv/2022/05/02/testing-wordpress-together-new-interactivity-features-for-recipe-websites/">Testing WordPress Together: New Interactivity Features for Recipe&nbsp;Websites </a></strong></p>



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<p><strong>Vikas Singhal</strong> <a href="https://twitter.com/vikasprogrammer/status/1524633033764184066">announced</a> that <a href="http://Gutena.io">their block theme <strong>Gutena</strong></a> already supports Webfonts API that allows you to host fonts locally, with a single line in theme.json. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p>In his latest Building with Blocks post, <strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> walks you through the process of <a href="https://wptavern.com/how-to-build-coupon-cards-with-wordpress-blocks"><strong>How To Build Coupon Cards With WordPress Blocks</strong></a>. Get ready for the 2022 eCommerce season for Black Friday and Cyber Monday in the fall. Or for any other eCommerce sale you might have in mind. </p>



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<p><strong><a href="https://twitter.com/2ndKauBoy">Bernhard Kau</a></strong>, who is not only co-organizer of this year&#8217;s WordCamp Europe but also a plugin developer, just released a new plugin: <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/campaign-archive-block-for-mailchimp/"><strong>Campaign Archive Block for Mailchimp</strong></a></p>



<p>After adding an API key in the settings, the block displays the latest newsletters from your Mailchimp account. Kau has added some display settings and a control for the numbers of campaigns to be listed. This way, you keep your visitors for one more page on your site before they head off to read you latest campaigns. A plugin that does one thing and only one thing. The best kind of block. </p>



<img />



<p>It&#8217;s a solid first version and if you are interesting in a short twitter exchange between Kau and myself,  on possible improvements, <a href="https://twitter.com/2ndKauBoy/status/1525545215326658561">you can follow along here</a>. </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Munir Kamal</strong>, developer of the EditorPlus plugin, demonstrates in this video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v52gIxyDXzg">How to Create Animated Search Box in Gutenberg</a>. All through the plugin and a short CSS snippet added to the backend for rendering the animation. Pretty nifty! </p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Justin Tadlock</strong> reviewed one of the newest block themes: <a href="https://wptavern.com/catch-fse-is-a-bold-business-friendly-wordpress-block-theme"><strong>Catch FSE Is a Bold, Business-Friendly WordPress Block Theme</strong></a></p>



<h2 id="3-developing-custom-blocks-and-tools">Developing Custom Blocks and Tools</h2>



<p>Core contributor and Gutenberg developer <strong><a href="https://twitter.com/get_dave">Dave Smith</a></strong>, gave a presentation recently on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqj2J1QYYoI"><strong>Gutenberg Now, Next and How to Use it Better Today</strong></a>. </p>



<p>He spoke to developers at the WordPress agency <a href="https://twitter.com/cornershop">CornerShop Creative</a> who are building sites for nonprofits, small and large. The video description has time stamps so you can jump to the relevant topics. Smith also points out that the second half of the presentation was Live Q &amp; A and he provided answers to questions, you might have too. <a href="https://aheadcreative.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Cornershop-Creative-Presentation-2022.pdf">The slidedeck is available online.</a></p>



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-wide" />



<p><strong>Liam Giddy </strong>ventured into <a href="https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/build-business-listing-acf-blocks-query-loop-block-theme/">building a business listing using ACF Blocks and the Query Loop Block with a block theme</a> and created this tutorial. It&#8217;s great step  on the journey to switch to block theme development.</p>



<h2 id="6-upcoming-word-press-social-learning-meetups">Upcoming WordPress Social Learning Meetups</h2>



<p><strong>May 18, 2022 &#8211; 6 pm EDT / 22:00 UTC</strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/285518331/">Sticky Styling: Getting Colors, Fonts, and Sizes to Stick</a></strong> w/ Sarah Snow</p>



<p><strong>May 19, 2022 5pm EDT / 21:00 UTC</strong><br /><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/285412812/"><strong>Using the Navigation Block</strong></a>&nbsp;w/ Wes Theron</p>



<p><strong>May 19, 2022 &#8211; 2pm EDT / 18:00 UTC</strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/285518331/">Builder Basics: Working with Templates in Full Site Editing (Part 3</a></strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/285518274/"><strong>)</strong></a> w/ Nick Diego</p>



<p><strong>May 23, 2022 1pm EDT / 17:00 UTC</strong> <br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/285798142/">Hello Blocks! Coding a custom block</a></strong> w/ Ryan Welcher</p>



<p><strong>May 25, 2022 &#8211; 7pm EDT / 23:00 UTC </strong><br /><strong><a href="https://www.meetup.com/wordpress-social-learning/events/285577455/">Design With Me: Create a Simple Website for your Small Business</a></strong> w/ Sarah Snow</p>




<p><em>Featured Image: Skyline of Chicago by Birgit Pauli-Haack (Nov 2021)</em></p>





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<hr class="wp-block-separator has-css-opacity is-style-wide" />";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Sat, 14 May 2022 19:47:22 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:18:"Birgit Pauli-Haack";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}i:49;a:6:{s:4:"data";s:13:"
	
	
	
	
	
	
";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";s:5:"child";a:2:{s:0:"";a:5:{s:5:"title";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:111:"WPTavern: WordSesh 2022 Kicks Off Monday, May 16, Featuring a World-Class Speaker Lineup and Hands-On Workshops";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"guid";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:30:"https://wptavern.com/?p=134352";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:4:"link";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:120:"https://wptavern.com/wordsesh-2022-kicks-off-monday-may-16-featuring-a-world-class-speaker-lineup-and-hands-on-workshops";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:11:"description";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:4797:"<p><a href="https://wordsesh.com/">WordSesh 2022</a>, the live, virtual conference for WordPress professionals, is right around the corner. The event runs from May 16–20, 2022. While previous WordSesh events have always been high quality, this particular edition is jam-packed with a diverse selection of industry experts &#8211; many who have been building high impact projects with WordPress for years.</p>



<img />A sampling of the speakers for WordSesh 2022



<p>This year&#8217;s WordSesh will feature 20 sessions, 3 keynotes, and two in-depth workshops. On May 19, at 8PM EDT, frontend developer Ellen Bauer from Elma Studio will guide users in a workshop on how to &#8220;Convert a Classic Theme to a Block Theme.&#8221; If you are a theme developer who hasn&#8217;t taken the leap into block themes, this workshop will get you started:</p>



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Together, we will set up the header and footer in a block theme, learn to work with Templates and Template Parts, set up page contents, and dive into how Styles work.</p><p>Throughout the workshop we&#8217;ll discuss which website projects can benefit from the new FSE features the most, what limitations we are still facing, and how the future of WordPress themes will most likely look.</p></blockquote>



<p>The second workshop will be given by Tiffany Bridge, Product Manager at Nexcess, on May 20. She will give attendees an overview of how to prepare their web properties for a high traffic event.</p>



<p>One of the most exciting sessions on the schedule is the keynote on May 19. The team that rebuilt <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/">WhiteHouse.gov</a> on WordPress in just six months will join the event to talk about the project. Other topics on the schedule include custom block development, headless WordPress, hacking, client services, performance, accessibility, and user experience.</p>



<p>In 2021, Brian Richards, founder of <a href="https://wpsessions.com/">WPSessions.com</a> and organizer of WordSesh, has transitioned the event to be more inclusive of timezones around the world. This year&#8217;s event will happen over the course of four days, with time offsets that accommodate a global audience. The first block of sessions is optimally timed for attendees across Asia and the Pacific. Day 2 is designed for attendees across Europe, Middle East, and Africa, and day 3 will cater to attendees in the Americas, Iceland, and Greenland.</p>



<p>&#8220;In 2019 and 2020 I ran entirely separate events for each region, but in 2021 I brought them back together as a single event,&#8221; Richards said. &#8220;I found it was a lot easier to get people excited about and paying attention to one big WordSesh event.</p>



<p>&#8220;It feels more inclusive this way, even though the separate events were also open to attendees from around the world. I think that’s primarily because there is <em>something</em> that is conveniently scheduled for someone no matter where they live. And with a single event, watching the recordings feels more akin to catching up on the pieces you missed rather than trying to watch talks for an event that was designed for somebody else.&#8221;</p>



<p>The scheduling modifications seem to be working, as the last event in 2021 hosted 3,600 attendees, making WordSesh the second largest WordPress community event behind WCEU 2020. </p>



<p>Richards continues to curate a high-quality speaker lineup year after year, through the help of attendee surveys, which reveal where people are spending their time, attention, and money. WordSesh pays its speakers and Richards also invests time for personal outreach. Through this combination, he said the schedule fills up fast.</p>



<p>&#8220;I think paying the speakers certainly helps with recruiting such incredible presenters, but I imagine that’s more icing on the cake for most speakers,&#8221; Richards said. &#8220;Probably the biggest draw is the history WordSesh now has (this is the 9th year and 12th event, officially), helped by the ever-increasing reach of my own personal network.&#8221;</p>



<p>Until 2021, Richards had been running the events entirely by himself. Last year he hired a part-time assistant and also started contracting out the video editing, which has helped him keep the event running more efficiently. It is quite a feat to have hosted WordSesh so many years running when many comparable virtual WordCamps of this caliber often rely on a large team of volunteers and organizers. </p>



<p><a href="https://wordsesh.com/register/">Registration for WordSesh</a> is still open and it&#8217;s <strong>free</strong> for anyone to attend. The event will be live captioned by real people and all sessions will be recorded for purchase later on WPSessions.</p>";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}s:7:"pubDate";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:31:"Fri, 13 May 2022 19:35:27 +0000";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}s:32:"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/";a:1:{s:7:"creator";a:1:{i:0;a:5:{s:4:"data";s:13:"Sarah Gooding";s:7:"attribs";a:0:{}s:8:"xml_base";s:0:"";s:17:"xml_base_explicit";b:0;s:8:"xml_lang";s:0:"";}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}s:4:"type";i:128;s:7:"headers";a:10:{s:6:"server";s:5:"nginx";s:4:"date";s:29:"Wed, 01 Jun 2022 07:16:14 GMT";s:12:"content-type";s:8:"text/xml";s:14:"content-length";s:6:"571483";s:10:"connection";s:5:"close";s:4:"vary";s:15:"Accept-Encoding";s:13:"last-modified";s:29:"Wed, 01 Jun 2022 07:00:10 GMT";s:15:"x-frame-options";s:10:"SAMEORIGIN";s:4:"x-nc";s:9:"HIT ord 2";s:13:"accept-ranges";s:5:"bytes";}s:5:"build";s:14:"20220512082039";}