Last week, some of the most progressive marketers and innovative thinkers using WordPress came together at the 2018 WP Engine Summit. Attendees left exhilarated and inspired to push their brands and agencies forward faster. The theme of this year’s Summit was Breakthrough. Insight into the Internet’s most forward-thinking trends like AI, voice technology, AMP, and PWA energized attendees with the knowledge and inspiration to fuel their professional breakthroughs. Additionally, Becky Hammon, Assistant Coach to the San Antonio Spurs, delivered a keynote speech to help ignite personal breakthroughs.
To conclude the Summit, we heard from WP Engine leaders who offered a look into the WP Engine roadmap. This included a look...
Surprisingly, my favorite session of the weekend came from Joe A Simpson Jr who brought a refreshing perspective to why accessibility is important. Imagine a colorblind person watching a football game in which team uniforms were all solid colors. Through a color simulator, we couldn’t tell the
I’m always surprised with how many websites I see come across WP Care Market that aren’t utilizing Google Analytics. I never blame the website owner as the website owner seems to also discover they don’t have GA when we run our website reviews! Don’t let that happen to you and secure
The results clearly showed companies that welcome ideas from all employees have better growth prospects than those with a less-inclusive approach to innovation. In fact, businesses that successfully create an “Innovation By All” culture see revenue growth that is 5.5x greater than others, as
Can the blockchain and IoT solve international freight’s issues?
One team has found a novel way to address these inefficiencies and authenticity challenges through the blockchain. In January Dominik Schiener and his team won first prize at the Shanghai Blockchain Hackathon for their project Cargochain. We saw their work recently here in Berlin where they
Blockchain Success Stories Show Valuable Opportunities
Although cryptocurrencies were expected to revolutionize parts of the global financial system, it’s turning out that the blockchain is the real game-changer in the space. For evidence, look no further than JPMorgan’s Interbank Information Network (IIN), which is a blockchain-powered
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues
Better Link Labels: 4Ss for Encouraging Clicks
The first few words are particularly important due to users’ tendency to scan web pages instead of thoroughly reading every word. To maximize the chance that they will find what they need, frontload links with information-carrying language. Then, the rest of the label text should work to
tomorrows a look back at the 2018 wp engine summit this
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
Why is it important to understand the components of brand, and to differentiate brand from its common misinterpretation as simply a logo, a figurehead, or a website, among other things? Only when all three brand components — visuals, tone, and behaviors — are present and true to the core brand
Why Personas Fail
Not everybody knows why they’re useful and how to reference them. It is up to you to educate your stakeholders, illustrate their effectiveness, and solidify their use on projects. Lead by example: don’t let the personas fizzle out, continue to bring them into meetings to set the stage for
Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful
As we saw, placeholders can be problematic for all users: disappearing placeholders increase the memory load; persistent dimmable placeholders cause confusion when they look clickable but aren’t, and placeholders that do not disappear require more keyboard or mouse interaction to be deleted
Radio Buttons: Always Select One?
The message the site presented--Yes, switch my membership and save up to 83%--may have sold some people on postponing canceling, as did placing the promotion in the first position in the radio-button list. But, understanding that most people really do want to unsubscribe if they have reached this
Indicators, Validations, and Notifications: Pick the Correct Communication Option
Notifications have the design challenge that they are not the immediate and obvious result of a specific user action. On the contrary, the user is likely in the middle of doing something different and may not be thinking about the issue raised by the notification. This requires notifications to
When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps
The entire point of the journey-mapping process is to uncover gaps in the user experience (which are particularly common in omnichannel journeys), and then take action to optimize the experience. Insights and ownership are critical elements that are often overlooked. Any insights that emerge from
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Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
Aggregated empathy maps represent a user segment, rather than one particular user. They are usually created by combining multiple individual empathy maps from users who exhibit similar behaviors and can be grouped into one segment. The aggregated empathy map synthesizes themes seen throughout that
Maps and Location Finders on Mobile Devices
Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf mobile website: The placement of the map caused users to accidentally pan within the map when they intended to scroll the page. The “gutterless” design of this map (the extension of page elements to fill the entire width of the screen rather than leaving whitespace
UX Debt: How to Identify, Prioritize, and Resolve
UX debt isn’t always avoidable but teams can organize and collaborate around how to address it. Include all of the right people as early as possible to discuss the risks of a premature or haphazard launch and develop a cadence in looking for less-than-optimal experience elements. Conduct regular
Killing Off the Global Navigation: One Trend to Avoid | Nielsen Norman Group
As with any popular web-design trend, it’s important to determine if a minimized global navigation is appropriate for your site, given your users, their usage patterns, and your goals. Mimicking mobile design on the desktop is not appropriate for all sites. Approaching this design pattern with
Design Critiques: Encourage a Positive Culture to Improve Products
The facilitator gathers a specific, predetermined number of positive and negative comments from each participant. For example, each participant could share two aspects of the design that seems to accurately meet users’ needs, and one aspect that could be improved. This approach specifically
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues
Is Business Headed for a Cognitive-First Future?
As the world generates more and more data — at a clip of 2.5 quintillion bytes each day — it simultaneously struggles to manage it. With humans unable to manually process such large amounts of data and analyze its implications, the business world has to turn to machines to take on some of the
3 Steps to Stop Unauthorized PHI Access by Terminated Team Members
Whether employees use personal devices or stick strictly to company-assigned laptops and smart devices, it’s important to keep track of them all. As part of your organization’s comprehensive off-boarding process, this will make it easier to collect all company-owned devices and wipe access and
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Finally, Hathaway sees this as a unique opportunity for the United States to work with countries around the world, and with organizations on an extremely local level. “We cannot succeed if our government works in isolation,” she added. It requires “leading from the top” from
social a look back at the 2018 wp engine summit and
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Finally, Hathaway sees this as a unique opportunity for the United States to work with countries around the world, and with organizations on an extremely local level. “We cannot succeed if our government works in isolation,” she added. It requires “leading from the top” from
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
Melissa Hathaway came across our radar recently when President Obama tasked the former Bush administration aide with leading a 60-day review of Bush’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative; a largely classified, purported $30 billion, multi phase plan to address cybersecurity issues
A Look Back at the 2018 WP Engine Summit | Mobile First Is NOT Mobile Only
Mobile First Is NOT Mobile Only
None of these patterns are either common or particularly usable or useful on desktop, yet they often work or are necessary on mobile. These sites found them valuable for their small-screen designs, and thought they should apply them to the desktop. Little did they know that they were throwing the
No More Pogo Sticking: Protect Users from Wasted Clicks
Once pogo sticking has been identified, follow up with qualitative research—usability testing—to determine what may be spurring this behavior. Are people looking for a page or some content that they expected to find but doesn’t actually exist (or at least, isn’t available through that
Responsive Web Design (RWD) and User Experience
Responsive design is a tool, not a cure-all. While using responsive design has many perks when designing across devices, using the technique does not ensure a usable experience (just as using a gourmet recipe does not ensure the creation of a magnificent meal.) Teams must focus on the details of
