As a premiere platform, WordPress is constantly evolving with new features that expand its capabilities and improve the experience for users. That’s good news for WordPress developers like us and for clients who are updating content and building new pages throughout their websites.
There are three core releases expected for 2024 – we’ve already seen the release of WordPress 6.5 earlier this year with two more on the way. In the article, we’ll take a closer look at what’s new in WordPress land so far this year and explore some of the exciting features that are on the horizon.
Gutenberg gets more golden.
If you’ve read our article on Gutenberg, you’ll be up to speed on why it’s an exceptional block-editing tool for creating supremely adaptable websites. Now it’s about to get even better. Considered to be “Phase 3” of the Gutenberg project, WordPress’ three releases in 2024 are mainly focused making page-building a more immersive, collaborative, accessible, and better performing experience. Let’s get into why.
Revisions in stunning detail.
Say goodbye to “who did what revisions when?” Gutenberg is now equipped with features that allow you to track revisions more easily. This is especially useful for teams who are collaborating on content. New features like timestamps, summaries and a list of all page revisions give you a full picture of what’s been updated.
Have revision regrets? If you’re working through some changes and realize you actually preferred a previous iteration, now you can go back to that version with ease. Thanks to the enhanced style revisions panel, you’ll be able to see a detailed log of the changes you’ve made. And with a quick “restore”, you can jump right back to where you left off.
Accessibility on the up and up.
With web accessibility being a major focus for many organizations, it’s no surprise that WordPress is tackling the issue head on. According to WordPress themselves, their latest release includes “more than 65 accessibility improvements across the platform, making it more accessible than ever.”
Some of the key highlights are a better experience for those who use screen readers and keyboards, colour contrast and focus fixes, and more.
Ready to respond to many voices.
It is estimated that more than 50% of adults worldwide use voice search – with the most popular platform unsurprisingly being Google Search. This percentage is only expected to increase, and rapidly. So how will WordPress respond?
WordPress plans to add compatibility for voice-activated searches. With the addition of voice recognition technology, your users will be able to search for information throughout your website as easily as a Siri or Alexa shoutout.
Multilanguage that’s more manageable.
We’re especially excited about this feature here at TU. Working with a range of national organizations and associations, we’re often required to use a plugin called WMPL for language translations. Let’s just say this plugin has its limitations and can be pretty cumbersome, especially when it comes to large sites with a robust amount of content. This process also often requires hiring a translator to further optimize the language.
By incorporating AI functionality, WordPress is striving to make website translation much more seamless. This year, they plan to introduce new plugins that provide better translations, along with local SEO insights – making your site instantly more accessible to more people across different languages.
Hello dark mode, my old friend.
Dark mode has been a trending topic in the web design world for a number of years. Ideal for those who are working late, dark mode has been found to cause less eye stress when the lights go down. While plugins are currently available for dark mode, WordPress is planning a built-in solution. If you’ve read our article on plugins, you’ll know fewer plugins is more when it comes to optimal performance and security. So having this functionality within WordPress is a win for those who wish to go over to the dark side.
Better, faster, stronger.
It seems the folks at WordPress are channeling their inner Daft Punk as they aim to make advancements to overall performance including processing, speed and efficiency. As WordPress specialists, we can’t wait to see how all these new upgrades and features will elevate the development process for us and our clients.