Written retrospectively for the 2014 archive.

I started volunteering with WordPress in 2014, writing plugins and themes. When I look back at that decision, I think about the difference it made to imagine someone else installing what I built. They might have longer titles, a different menu, or questions I’d never thought to ask.

That’s still one of my favorite parts of building for other people. Someone can bring a use for a theme that I hadn’t considered. Their site might look very different from my test site, and seeing how it holds up can teach me something I wouldn’t learn from my own example.