Earlier this year, we honored Webby for Good nominees using WordPress to bring positive changes to the world. On November 15th, 2018 industry experts and technology innovators from across the EU will meet for the Webby’s European sister show, The Lovie Awards. Winners are selected for creating a stunning overall digital experience as well as for excellence in select areas: websites, apps, mobile sites and podcasts, online advertising, internet video, and social media.
This year, WP Engine partnered with The Lovie Awards to bring Lovie For Good, a project highlighting digital experiences bringing positive change to the world. From an algorithm to promote compassionate leadership to campaigns recognizing the importance of...
What is a child theme? A child theme works in combination with the parent theme. With regards to Genesis, child themes serve as a sort of skin that can change the way a theme looks, while relying on the functionality of its parent theme (in this case, Genesis). Child themes offer users the added
This week, we explore the Academy Pro theme, a theme for online course creators, membership site owners, and educational content marketers. In a world where so many schools, institutions, educators and universities are looking for innovative ways to more effectively reach students, the Academy Pro
Because you are in a safe, copied sandbox environment, you can safely test the Gutenberg editor here. Take a look around the new editor and make sure the editing experience makes sense, and that any custom fields your plugins or theme have added to the editor page still appear. After running these
9 Blockchains Transforming the Way We Pay, Play, and Work
Look past digital currencies’ nosebleed pricing volatility, and you’ll discover a robust, decentralized, secure database. Brands and technologists are quickly figuring out how to put this powerful ledger to good use. Here are several real-world examples that demonstrate cryptos’
Blockchain Trends that Everyone Should Watch Out For 2019
In creating markets uniquely — where a significant part of the populace is named “unbankable” because of establishments’ powerlessness or reluctance to associate them to its administrations. New companies are probably going to lead the path with imaginative administrations
Images of Fitbit next smartwatch reveal heart-rate improvements
Fitbit is on schedule, as its boss James Park keeps reminding us, to launch its next smartwatch by the end of the year. We don’t know what the smartwatch will be called, though Blaze 2 seems likely, but thanks to leaks we know its design and some of the hardware improvements. Images obtained by
User Need Statements
In design thinking (as well as in any product-development process), it is important to define the problem you want to solve before spending time and resources on generating possible solutions. (A great solution to the wrong problem will fail.) This approach maximizes resource use and decreases the
wordpress for good: the price of water .
Teenager’s UX: Designing for Teens
Teens are becoming more successful at navigating websites and finding what they need. At the time of the third study, the oldest participant was born in 2001 and the youngest was born in 2005; therefore, all participants in this study grew up with access to computers. Between all three studies
Why Personas Fail
Personas do work — or, more accurately, they often work. But humans have a great ability to generalize from a single observation, so it’s understandable that somebody could sour on personas (or any UX technique) if her one experience was a bad one. You can appeal to the logical side of most
Why Personas Fail
The truth is; Yes, they do already know a ton about customers, so it’s sometimes hard to justify doing research on a body of people you have been working with for years. In these situations, it is beneficial to think of personas and present them as an alignment tool rather than a research
Sliders, Knobs, and Matrices: Balancing Exploration and Precision
Your browser does not support the video tag. Video of GIMP 2d matrix controls (Click to play video.) GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) uses a 2D matrix to control simultaneously several parameters that would otherwise require multiple sliders. In this case, each axis displays a different
Slider Design: Rules of Thumb
When designing a usable UI we must consider the context in which the interface will be used. For mobile design in particular, users often hold their device in one hand while doing other activities—watching television, walking, or even driving. In such circumstances it can be daunting to tap and
How to Display Taxes, Fees, and Shipping Charges on Ecommerce Sites
US customers are accustomed to shopping online or in stores, so their ecommerce mental model includes the addition of taxes and standard shipping charges at checkout. They also know that taxes and shipping rates may depend on the delivery address. If your shipping charges are not exorbitant
wordpress for good: the price of water .
8 Steps to Prepare for the Holiday Shopping Season
Sure as clockwork, every October we get calls from companies that want to improve their site conversion rates before the holidays. Sorry: too late. It is often possible, however, to identify specific violations of e-commerce usability principles, fix them quickly, and boost sales by 10-20%. To
Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
Our users are complex humans. It is natural (and extremely beneficial) to see juxtaposition between quadrants. You will also encounter inconsistencies — for example, seemingly positive actions but negative quotes or emotions coming from the same user. This is when empathy maps become treasure
Top 10 Application-Design Mistakes
Placing actions such as Save next to actions that destroy work such as Discard is a commonplace design decision that causes much grief for users. While logically this placement often makes sense (for example, Save and Delete are related, in that they decide the fate of an item), it also makes it
Dropdowns: Design Guidelines
A while back, as part of a presentation on web-usability methods, we ran a small user test for the audience. When completing a registration page, our test participant had to enter her address on a form with a text field for the name of the street but a dropdown menu for the type of street (Avenue
Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Conscious Mistakes
A lot of user mistakes (but not slips) happen when users do not get enough help in bridging these two gulfs, and the designers’ mental model and interpretation of how the system should work does not match users’ mental models. In those situations, users either form an action plan that is
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
Internet of Warnings: How Smart Technology Can Threaten Your Business’s Security
IoT technology ranges from entire smart cities that streamline traffic to fridges that detect when you’re low on milk and order it for you, among many other products and services. Devices such as Fitbit and Nest are growing in popularity due to their low price, practicality, and variety of
Why the Free Market is our Last Best Hope for Industrial Cybersecurity
We saw this play out in the business domain a couple of decades back. Initially, attackers broke into business networks primarily for the challenge, or to disrupt or vandalize specific organizations. These semi-simple break-ins resulted in some negative headlines, but for the most part, these
How to File an International Trademark When You’re Ready to Take Your Business Global
Whether you are registering your trademark only in the USA or planning on filing internationally as well, the guidance of an intellectual property attorney will help attend to all the details and smooth your trademark application process. Without an attorney, you can find yourself paying a lot of
wordpress for good: the price of water .
You Have a Great Tech Idea. Now What?
If you’re going to pay people to develop your product or hit the ground running with your marketing campaign, you’ll need to have significant initial funding. How you get that funding depends on your goals; angel investors and venture capitalists are typical options, but you could also pursue
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
WordPress for Good: The Price of Water . | The User Experience of Customer-Service Chat: 20 Guidelines
The User Experience of Customer-Service Chat: 20 Guidelines
Several users commented positively when the messages of the agent were shown in a different color than the messages of the user. Dell took this differentiation one step further by using yet a different color for automatically generated messages (labeled as coming from the System — see the
"Get Started" Stops Users
In an eyetracking study, participants had to find information about the service provided by Splitwise.com. Several users looked only above the fold, where a prominent Get Started Now button was featured. Although details about the Splitwise service were listed below the fold, these users were not
Finally Progress in Internet Client Design
Napster connects many users to many servers and basically allows users to view the entire Internet as a collected resource for getting music (or, potentially, other content and services). At the same time, Napster also encourages users to contribute back to the richness of this resource by making
