Sauli Rajala

I've built dozens of block theme sites at this point, but it wasn't until *this week* when the ah-ha moment (cliche, I know) really hit me while I was building the new Ollie site with virtually no code. As I was building out page after page, I realized it had been days since I opened the code editor to add a little tweak here and there. I was just designing and building in the editor with blocks and patterns and wasn't even thinking about code, templates, etc. It was all just clicking together. When I needed a new section, I just looked through the pro pattern library and found something very close, added it to the page, customized it, and saved myself probably a half hour per-section of building out all the meticulous little parts of the design and making sure it looked good on mobile. However, to build confidently like that, you do need a block theme that has a solid foundation of fluid spacing and typography — effectively a robust design system. Sure, patterns are awesome because they save you a ton of design time, but the real power is that they all tie into the design system and remove a lot of decision-making that comes with ye olde WordPress websites. The truth is, if you really want to get the most out of the site editor, you have to try like hell to forget what you know about building WordPress sites the old way and rewire your brain a bit. I think that's what trips up sooo many people — they are looking at it as an iteration of WordPress when it's really more like a reboot. It's taken me years to get the hang of it, but I'm convinced with some serious focus on UX, we have the most powerful site building platform on the planet. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. And thanks for building with Ollie!