The WordPress 6.1 release consolidates and expands the customization tools—e.g., an improved block editor—introduced in recent versions of the world’s most popular CMS. 

Yes, “usability and refinement” are front and center, but that description doesn’t do this release justice, in our view. 

And here’s why.

Our top 3 “What’s-in-WordPress 6.1?” themes to pay attention to:

• Ensuring better design consistency
• Creating richer, more engaging experiences
• Enjoying a better, more powerful block editor

Let’s dive in. 

Ensuring better design consistency

WordPress 6.1 continues to up its game when helping make your site stay consistent with brand guidelines and requirements.

For example, more control over content locking means less chance of someone accidentally “going rogue” or violating established brand design guidelines when interacting with content in a pattern.

To further ensure consistency, it’s also easier to lock non-content child blocks, containers, spacers, columns, and more. Finally, starter patterns—another improved 6.1 feature—also helps content creators stay on the right track when producing new content.

Our hot take:

Your brand is the most valuable asset you own and deviation from design standards can erode your brand equity. Sites need to ensure stellar design and consistency for readers. But good content creators can sometimes make bad decisions. The last thing visual brand guardians want to see is wonky layout, sloppy gutter spacing, and other common design faux pas. As such, we consider the improvements above as essential design guardrails.

Learn more here. 

“We have improved the locking tools a lot. [If I have] a full block that’s a full pattern, I can’t really do anything to mess up the design. I can only replace the content from my media library—I can’t get rid of stuff.”

—Matías Ventura, 6.1 Lead Project Architect

Creating richer, more engaging experiences

WordPress 6.1 comes with a host of improvements to build richer, more interactive experiences across screens.

For example, fluid typography support makes it easier to define text size that can scale and adapt to your screen’s real estate. Result? Your content looks great on any display. Related, font families now allow headers to remain in one font style and paragraphs in another, a precise thing for sure (but don’t tell that to your favorite designer).

Improved support for hover and focus functionality within buttons and elements is another welcome WordPress 6.1 feature, improving the level of visual cues that can be added to a digital experience. 

Our hot take:

Digital experiences need to rock on every device and on every screen— and require interactivity to stand out from the crowd. That includes immediate visual feedback, even when button hovering to answer the question, “What does this do?” More importantly, we all flit from big screen to small screen and everything in between on a daily basis as we move between environments. Having a consistent, responsive visual experience—imaging to typography to controls—can’t help but raise content engagement, for creator and consumer alike.

Learn more. 

“I’m really excited to see how creative we can be with style variations, especially fluid typography and spacing presets. There have been lots of calls for responsive design. Combined, these features really unlock loads of responsive capabilities.”

—Sarah Norris, 6.1 Theme Design Lead

Enjoying a better, more powerful block editor 

WordPress 6.1 continues to refine the heart and soul of the CMS, the block editor. 

Several out-of-the-box blocks have seen upgrades:

• Quote block—now supports block nesting, so you can, for example, easily add images or lists within quotes.
• Image block—now supports the full range of border controls, including color, style, and width.
• Button, columns, navigation, and paragraph blocks—now with color, dimensions and spacing, layout, and typography support.

There’s also greater consistency between blocks, including multiple options that improve overall design tools. Template improvements, more template options, and a refined experience navigating it all means it’s even easier to build more parts of your site with blocks.  

Finally, want to use blocks in more places but not quite ready to go all in on full-site editing?

There’s an easy way to start (without starting over, so to speak), even if you’re locked into a classic theme. You can now use block template parts without using full block templates, easing the transition to a block-based system. This allows you to edit specific parts of a site like a header and footer with blocks without having access to edit everything else.

Our hot take: 

Blocks rule! Any CMS improvement that helps put the power of easy, robust content creation in everyone’s hands makes us sit up and take notice—even if it’s as modest as being able to embellish that fancy drop quote with more context and visual appeal beyond slick quote marks. And then there’s speed in the equation. How many times have you wondered, “I wish it was easier to find that template instead of just defaulting to the same old same old look?”

Learn more here. 

“The thing I’m honestly most excited about is consistency… throughout the block editor, like the ability to change the font type on different blocks, paragraphs. It might seem really small, but it’s gonna have a huge impact.”

—Nicholas Diego, 6.1 Co-Editor Triage Lead

Find out more about WordPress 6.1

Dive deeper into WordPress 6.1 features and fixes in Chloe Bringmann’s 6.1 Product Walk-Through post, including a summary, video, and transcript.

Already a WordPress VIP customer? Be sure to reach out to your account team to learn more about this new release.