Matt Mullenweg delivered the State of the Word in Nashville, Tennessee this past weekend. The speech was almost immediately following the release of WordPress’ new editor, Gutenberg. The editor’s progress and release have been much anticipated by the WordPress community. This State of the Word was the first time Mullenweg had addressed the WordPress community since Gutenberg’s release just two days earlier.
Mullenweg began the talk by offering the audience a perspective. “With so much going on, I’d like to give WordPress a chance to reintroduce introduce itself,” he said. “WordPress isn’t a physical thing, it’s not a set of code. It’s kind of an idea. It only exists in...
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
Despite concerns that Gutenberg would launch too early, that simply hasn’t been the case, and in recent months a herculean effort has gone into checking a considerable subset of the most-used plugins to make sure they’re Gutenberg-compatible. An equally heavy lift has been undertaken by
In this segment, we highlight Untire, an application that helps cancer patients and survivors reduce cancer-related fatigue (CRF) symptoms and regain life. CRF is a common side-effect of cancer and related treatments; patients describe it as a paralyzing level of fatigue that leaves patients
JS-Kit Score: Turn Your Site into a Localized Digg
Widget provider JS-Kit has released their latest widget this morning, Score. Score adds a thumbs up/thumbs down-style ratings widget to any page content, and then aggregates the data across the entire web site into an info box that can highlight a site’s top content. It can also integrate
What Will Cryptocurrency Be Like in 10 Years?
In 10 years, people across the globe will have a deeper understanding and acceptance of cryptocurrencies. It isn’t going to fulfill bitcoin’s initial goal of completely toppling the financial system, but it won’t ever disappear, either. A decade from now, both digital and traditional will
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
Visual Design Terms Cheat Sheet
Akin to fabric texture, which includes woven fibers and objects laid in the foreground and background, a highly textured digital element also has multiple layers. In an image, texture might be a sense of 3-dimensional space created with shadows and angles, while an interface might use overlapping
recapping the state of the word 2018
UX Research Cheat Sheet
When deciding where to start or what to focus on first, use some of these top UX methods. Some methods may be more appropriate than others, depending on time constraints, system maturity, type of product or service, and the current top concerns. It’s a good idea to use different or alternating
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
While most usability studies should rely more on behavior, methods that use self-reported information can still be quite useful to designers. For example, card sorting provides insights about users' mental model of an information space, and can help determine the best information architecture
A Checklist for Designing Mobile Input Fields
Whether you're designing web pages, web-based applications (e.g., SaaS), or native mobile apps, one of the basic building blocks is the humble text-input field: a box where the user can enter some text. Uses of this widget are plenty and not the topic of this article. We should point out that there
What the Erroneous Hawaiian Missile Alert Can Teach Us About Error Prevention
According to news outlets, the delay was caused by bureaucratic disagreements between different levels of government, because the Hawaiian state agency that issued the (false) alert was not authorized to send anything except alerts. The agency had to secure additional levels of approval in order to
UI Copy: UX Guidelines for Command Names and Keyboard Shortcuts
Equivalent shortcuts should be available for both Mac and Windows operating systems and users should have the ability to define their own shortcuts, aside from the defaults set by the application. Provide quick points of reference; if a shortcut is available, include the function key(s) and
‘Our Users Are Everyone’: Designing Mass-Market Products for Large User Audiences
One big problem with failing to define your users occurs when you evaluate the design. If you plan a research study with no restrictions on who can participate, you could easily end up with all your participants being quite similar to each other. This is no problem if your system is only intended
recapping the state of the word 2018
The State of Ecommerce Search
Over 17 years, search success rates have improved steadily, when counting both the overall successful searches (including search refinements and multiple queries) and those searches that returned correct results the first time when the participants used the search. This analysis comes from more
UX Research Cheat Sheet
User-experience research methods are great at producing data and insights, while ongoing activities help get the right things done. Alongside R&D, ongoing UX activities can make everyone’s efforts more effective and valuable. At every stage in the design process, different UX methods can keep
Iterative Design of User Interfaces
Due to the difficulties of using monetary measures of all usability attributes, an alternative approach has been chosen here. Overall usability is calculated in relative terms as the geometric mean (the n 'th root of the product) of the normalized values of the relative improvements in the
Narrative Biases: When Storytelling HURTS User Experience
When deliberately constructing stories that will be used for UX design, do your homework. Include memorable details, but base them on actual user research, preferably derived from multiple data sources and methods. Even if time constraints preclude full empirical personas, at least check your basic
Date-Input Form Fields: UX Design Guidelines
Date-input patterns are not created equal. Implement design patterns that are appropriate for your context. When designing date-entry fields support text input and consider whether or not you have an international audience. Avoid designs that are ambiguous because they can cause people to become
Remote Access Solutions: Overcoming the Challenges
Client-based remote access management systems may suffer from permissions issues or incompatibility with existing applications or work processes. This could result in lost productive time due to workarounds, retraining, or struggles to access the functionality they need. For example, according to
Five Best Open-Source Antivirus’ for Carefree Cyber-Threat Protection
You can detect a lot of different types of malicious software by using open source antivirus products. Experienced developers in both fields will tell you this is the most secure way to connect to the internet today. These programs simply make their code available for free so you can modify and
In Mark Zuckerberg We Trust? The State and Future of Facebook, User Data, Cambridge Analytica, Fake News, Elections, Russia and You
Even though upwards of 87 million users may have been affected by Kogan’s personality quiz and some of that user information was sold to and used by Cambridge Analytica, and that user data was also compromised in many other ways for years, the #deletefacebook movement had zero meaningful
2 Billion Downloads Later, Apple’s App Store is Still Going Strong
It would be nice if Apple gave us a better breakdown of the kinds of apps it actually delivers (free vs. paid, games vs. utilities, etc.). This kind of transparency is obviously not in Apple’s DNA, so we depend on data from third-party services like AdMob for this information. According to
recapping the state of the word 2018
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
She explained that the original design of the Internet was driven more by considerations of interoperability rather than security, and as a result we are now faced with almost insurmountable issues. Some examples include online criminals who steal our information, mass bandits who have the ability
A 60-Second Trailer of the 60-Day Report on Cybersecurity
She explained that the original design of the Internet was driven more by considerations of interoperability rather than security, and as a result we are now faced with almost insurmountable issues. Some examples include online criminals who steal our information, mass bandits who have the ability
Recapping the State of the Word 2018 | Evolution of a Home Page Design: Article by Jakob Nielsen
Evolution of a Home Page Design: Article by Jakob Nielsen
The main goal of this design iteration was to try out ways of making the design look simpler, more unified, and more approachable. We were running on a very tight development schedule with user tests every second day, so we did not have time to redesign the icons for this iteration. We did try a
Changes in Web Usability Since 1994
There are still a few users who rarely scroll. Even those users who are willing to scroll may be tempted to choose one of the initially visible options when it seems to match their goals. Such users will never see an even better, but invisible, choice that would have required scrolling. Therefore
Login Walls Stop Users in Their Tracks
Another subterfuge that sites and apps use to force people into registering is to hide access to the functionality deep in the interface and place all the focus on the login and signup options. Yelp is guilty as charged: the alternative of using their tablet app without logging in is hidden under
