James Kemp

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Helping to shape the future of ecommerce at Woo. Technology enthusiast, photographer, and advocate for seamless user experiences.

  • Jan 10, 2026
    No comments on Launch WooCommerce Playground Sites with a Single Keystroke

    Launch WooCommerce Playground Sites with a Single Keystroke

    If you’ve ever triaged bugs, you know the drill. Someone reports an issue, and your first question is: can I reproduce this on a clean install?

    For WordPress, that used to mean spinning up a site in LocalWP or WordPress Studio. Enter a title, choose your settings, wait for it to provision, then manually install WooCommerce, then install Query Monitor, then maybe a few other plugins. LocalWP has blueprints, but they’re snapshots of existing sites, so they go stale as soon as plugins release updates. And you end up with dozens of unused local installs cluttering your machine.

    Those tools are great for persistent testing sites or local development. But for quick, throwaway bug reproduction, they’re overkill.

    WordPress Playground changed this. Sites are ephemeral (not persistent, just temporary). Use it once and close the tab. No cleanup, no clutter. But the blueprint URLs are long and the JSON syntax is hard to remember.

    So I made a Raycast script that launches a fully configured WooCommerce Playground site in about two seconds. Type “Woo”, hit enter, and you’re in.

    Keep reading
  • Dec 24, 2025
    No comments on 2025: My Year in Review

    2025: My Year in Review

    Think back to how WooCommerce looked at the start of 2025. The accessibility landscape was uncertain, AI felt like a distant promise, and the idea of bringing more features into core was still taking shape. A lot has changed since then.

    This year has been one of the most rewarding of my career, both professionally and personally. I want to share the highlights: what we accomplished as a team and what happened in my life outside of work.

    Keep reading
  • Jun 23, 2025
    No comments on Making WooCommerce Accessible: How We Achieved Full Compliance

    Making WooCommerce Accessible: How We Achieved Full Compliance

    Sometimes the most important conversations start with uncomfortable truths. In early 2024, accessibility expert Amber Hinds from Equalize Digital published an audit that revealed over 50 accessibility issues on their WooCommerce website. The message was clear; our platform, powering millions of online stores, wasn’t serving everyone equally.

    Keep reading
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James Kemp

Helping to shape the future of ecommerce at Woo. Tech enthusiast, photographer, and advocate for seamless user experiences.

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