A website has another audience after launch: the people who update it.
They need to recognize a page’s sections, find the right content and understand what a change will affect. If the editing screen requires the developer’s memory to operate, part of the product is still missing.
ACF 6.5’s August 2025 release puts attention on that experience, including improvements to its Flexible Content interface.1 Editors can rename layout instances, disable layouts without deleting their content, see an active layout more clearly and collapse or expand layouts in bulk.
Those are useful tools. A custom theme still needs field labels, content rules and previews that make sense to its actual editors.
Begin with an ordinary update
For a fictional professional-services website, ask the editor to update a service description, replace an image and temporarily remove an outdated promotional section.
That task tells us more than a tour of every field the theme contains.
Can they identify the correct section? Do they understand which image to select? Can they tell whether a change is local to this page or shared elsewhere?
A Flexible Content field can organize repeatable layout types. The custom theme determines what those types mean and how their content is rendered. A collection of fields labeled “Block 1” and “Media alt 2” may be technically complete while remaining a fairly private conversation between developers.
Make the controls match the decisions
An editing interface resembles a set of labeled storage containers. The labels matter most when the person opening them wasn’t there when everything was packed.
Give editors choices they can understand and enough guidance to use them confidently.
Name sections for what they help the page do
A layout type such as “Image and text” describes its structure. A meaningful instance label can distinguish the service introduction from another use of the same layout farther down the page.
ACF 6.5’s renaming feature helps with that orientation without changing the underlying layout key. It does not remove the need for clear field names inside the section.
Use labels such as “Section heading” and “Main image” where they accurately describe the role. Add concise instructions for requirements that aren’t obvious, including image proportions or a content limit the design genuinely depends on.
Avoid making every field a long instruction manual. Explain the unusual decisions and let familiar ones stay familiar.
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Show the result at the moment it helps
A layout preview or a representative example can help an editor choose the right section. A page preview helps them inspect the result after changing content.
Those experiences need to be implemented and tested for the custom theme. The presence of ACF does not automatically create an accurate visual preview of every bespoke layout.
For our service page, the preview should reveal a long title, an image crop and the effect of hiding the promotion. It should be clear when the editor is viewing a saved change, a draft or the public page.
That distinction prevents an update from becoming a guessing game about which version everybody is looking at.
Disabling a layout while preserving its content can be particularly handy for a temporary section. Pretty cool, provided the editor understands that hidden content is still retained and knows how to bring it back.
Worth reading next: WordPress 6.6 makes reusable sections more useful to editors.
Rehearse the handoff with the person doing the updates
Let the editor complete the sample task without coaching them through each click. Watch where they hesitate and what they expect the controls to do.
A question may reveal a missing label or an unclear relationship, rather than a need for another training video.
Then check the boundaries. Some decisions should be centrally managed so the site remains coherent. Other choices belong to the editor because the content changes regularly. The right balance gives people useful control without asking them to rebuild the design on every page.
WordPress’s guidance on curating the editor offers a broader perspective on shaping available controls. It should support a considered experience, rather than hide unfamiliar buttons and hope the remaining ones explain themselves.
Document the small set of tasks the team will perform most often. Keep the instructions close to the current implementation so a future editor can rely on them.
I would consider the handoff successful when someone can make a routine update, preview it and publish with a clear understanding of the result.
The customer-facing website may get the applause. The editing experience decides how comfortable the business feels looking after it next month.