I started volunteering with WordPress in 2014 as a plugin and theme developer. By then I’d spent years teaching myself how to build websites. Volunteering gave me a reason to think beyond the site I was working on. If somebody else installed something I wrote, could they figure out what it did and make it work on their own site?

What themes taught me about handing over a design

When I’m building a site for myself, I know what the page titles look like and which images I’m going to use. A theme has to work with whatever someone brings to it. A long title can wrap onto a third line. A post might have no featured image. A menu that looked fine on my screen can run out of room on a phone.

Those details are part of what I enjoy about theme development. I like getting a layout to look right, then trying it with content that gives it a harder time. It’s a different way to judge a design. I want it to look good with the words and photos someone actually has.

What plugins taught me about keeping things simple

With a plugin, I think about what someone wanted to do when they installed it. A setting can make sense to me because I know how the feature works. The person looking at it for the first time needs enough information to know what will happen when they turn it on. Sometimes the best thing I can do is give the option a clearer name. Sometimes I can pick a sensible default and spare them a decision altogether.

Becoming a WordPress theme reviewer

I later became a theme reviewer for WordPress. As a theme developer, I was used to looking at a design and thinking about what I wanted to change. Reviewing someone else’s theme asked something different of me. I had to understand what the author was trying to do, check it against the directory’s requirements, and explain any issues in a way they could act on.

I think a good review gives the author somewhere to start. If a menu is hard to use with a keyboard, for example, I can describe where focus gets stuck and how to reproduce it. That’s more helpful than leaving a broad comment about accessibility. It also makes me think about the feedback I’d want to receive if the theme were mine.

Reviewing themes gave me another way to contribute. Writing a theme lets me share my own ideas about how a site could look and work. Reviewing gives me a chance to help someone else get their work ready for people to use.

That’s one of the things I still value about volunteering with WordPress. It gave me a place to put what I was learning to use beyond my own projects. I started in 2014 writing plugins and themes, and I still like the thought behind it. Something I build in my spare time can make it a little easier for someone else to build their site.