Challenge
A need for Docs-style collaborative commenting in WordPress.
Solution/Impact
Block-level comments shipped in WordPress 6.9.
Role/Timeline
Product design, 2024-2025, ongoing.
Challenge
Attaching a comment to a shared document is one of the most basic aspects of digital collaboration. This has long been a highly requested feature, and is a key part of the WordPress roadmap.
The challenge: ship something useful now while building toward a larger vision, in close coordination with a distributed group of open source contributors, all working asynchronously across time zones, most of which I’ve never met in person.
Approach
The first version that arrived with WordPress 6.9 focuses on block-level comments. Demoed here using a carefully tailored story about a book that is meaningful to me, with special appearances by close friends and collaborators, Francisco and Bea.
The long-term vision is more ambitious: real-time collaboration, multiple cursors, threaded discussions, inline text selections, but shipping everything at once would mean months without feedback.
Collaboration
This collaboration was particularly enjoyable, thanks to outstanding work by Aki, George, Jeff, and Adam—just a subset of the 900+ contributors to WordPress 6.9.
One of my favorite conversations explored how notes integrate with the editor. Most docs apps treat comments as a simple sequence, but WordPress’s block editor supports complex layouts: galleries, columns, nested structures, where that connection isn’t always obvious. This led us to develop a spotlight focus that clarifies the relationship between a note and the block it refers to. The spotlight effect not only improves clarity in complex layouts, but also strengthens accessibility by ensuring clear contrast between active and inactive notes.
The design process is documented in a public Figma file (working file, not polished).
Vision
Version 1 is the foundation. Next, hopefully: presence indicators, multiple cursors, inline text selections, if possible the full collaborative suite. This is the phase 3 of the WordPress roadmap.
A single note
Note itself is focused.
Multiple notes
The paragraph is focused.
The benefit of the iterative approach is that each version builds on what we learn. V1 validates the technical approach, and establishes patterns for what follows.
Vision
A what-if of future progress.
Outcome
Notes shipped in WordPress 6.9. It’s intentionally simple: block-level comments that work. The foundations need to be put in place in order to support what comes next.