Thread by @hashim_warren

My concern with WordPress #Gutenberg is that WordPress core developers don't have anyone to nag them with the authoritative voice of the user.

Let me explain...

Here's what I mean. I've worked at 3 software companies and I've seen a dynamic play out that drives great product development.

Great products are developed when Sales and Support lobby Engineering over The Roadmap.

When Support has to save customer after customer because of the same problem, you best believe they will be in Engineering's ear

When a Sales woman loses a deal (and her commission) because of the lack of a feature, you better believe Engineering will hear about it

#Wordpress

At one company, we were not allowed to talk to the developers. Why? Because we were successfully getting them to prioritize our projects

Of course we didn't listen. We lobbied like everyone else. And somewhere in all of that the Leadership team heard the Voice of the Customer

When Developers make product decisions in a bubble they adopt new frameworks and tools to cure their own boredom, or assuage their own career anxiety #REACT #Wordpress

joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/thi…

#WordPress core development is run by a distributed team.

There is no chance for a Sales guy who missed his numbers to poke his head in the WordPress dev office and ask

"When will the REST API authentification get priority? I got kids to feed!"

And even if Sales can lobby, it's WordPress.com sales. It's WordPress.com Support.

Who speaks up for WordPress.org?

For Wordpress.org the Salespeople are Agencies, and the Support team are web hosts. Are either of them asking for #Gutenberg?

Whether Agencies and Hosts and third-party devs know it or not, support for WordPress is about to get very expensive.

Look at the support forum for Elementor.

I'm sure the code is high quality. But users are running into all sorts of quirks and oddities on an infinite cross section of hosts, plugins, browers, and use cases.

#Wordpress

wordpress.org/support/plugin…

Or use Squarespace for years like I did at my last job.

We quickly learned that contacting support was a joke.

The page builder would just do weird things on random days and no one knew why

Compare page builders like Squarespace to the custom post / field experience in Wordpress.

A client drops in some content in the right places and it looks great, every time.

That's a big deal! That's a wonderful user experience!

Don't get bored by that WordPress devs!

I remember when WordPress chased Twitter with the P2 theme.

Or chased Tumblr with Post Formats.

Now Wordpress is chasing Medium, a platform that's popular in dev circles but NO where else.

If I could nag WordPress core devs with the voice of the customer I'd say fix the forms experience.

I work with too many clients who lose leads because of badly configured forms.

"Where's the Forms API?", I'd ask every day at lunch. 😋