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...
Austin’s Annual PRIDE celebration is one of the largest opportunities for local non-profit organizations, social groups, and causes to gain exposure in the LGBTQ community. This year marked 28 years of Pride events in Austin. This year’s parade emphasis was awareness, equality and
WP Engine was proud to take part in this event sponsored by the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion. Each company was encouraged to customize the events during the day according to the needs, nature, and geography of its workplace. At WP Engine, multiple company-wide workshops were held in
Widgets are the content that sit around, above and below the post content. Phase two will be transitioning these widgets, written in PHP, to blocks you can implement in the sidebar and other areas of your website. This will address a whole in the Classic Editor to Gutenberg transition because many
Past Bitcoin to Making Money from the Blockchain
As the cryptocurrency bubble has gone up and down, there have been other developments in blockchain technology that warrant our attention. According to the Brookings Institution, blockchain based voting can reduce fraud significantly while increasing voter turnout thanks to the ability to vote from
5 Tips for Protecting Your FinTech Data Assets
Coinbase cryptocurrency VP of Operations Dan Romero recommends disabling SMS account recovery as an additional defense against phone porting attacks. He also recommends using a coin vault and enabling two-factor authentication for sending funds off of the exchange. When it comes to discussing
When Will You Be Able to Use Cryptocurrency to Buy a Pack of Gum?
When it really started to come into the public view about 10 years ago, blockchain seemed to promise an alternative currency, one that offered secure, online transactions with no need for a centralized third party. However, crypto’s reality is a far cry from its promise. Merchant adoption is
Brand Is Experience in the Digital Age
Brand is a tool for influencing choice. Brand is not made of visuals or words alone — it’s not a logo or a slogan. Nor is it a figurehead, such as Steve Jobs. Those things are simply ways to communicate the brand. Although a figurehead such as Elon Musk or a logo such as McDonald’s golden
a wordpress for good: the price of water . in
When and How to Create Customer Journey Maps
Journey maps should result in truthful narratives, not fairy tales. Start with gathering any existing research, but additional journey-based research is also needed to fill in the gaps that the existing research won’t cover. This is a qualitative-research process. While quantitative data can help
Visual Design Terms Cheat Sheet
The wireframe on the left is symmetrically balanced because the elements are similar and are evenly distributed across both vertical halves of the page. The wireframe on the right is asymmetrically balanced because some elements are not the similar to their counterparts on the other side of the
Customization vs. Personalization in the User Experience
Personalization and customization should enhance an already good experience, rather than try to fix a poor one. They should be used thoughtfully, with a clear purpose. Consider that both customization and personalization require work and maintenance over time. Personalization requires regular
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
Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful
On simple, frequently used forms with one or two fields, such as a search box or login form, the strain on memory is less of an issue than with complex or rarely used forms. That is because with simple, familiar forms, users can guess what they are supposed to enter. Although, on even a simple
The New Ecommerce User Experience: Changes in Users’ Expectations
Think about the changing landscape of ecommerce and how these changes affect how your customers expect to engage with your website and services. Assess your overall customer experience based on the large themes discussed in this article. Think about whether you’re delivering on expectations, or
compassionate wordpress for good: the price of water . european
Good UX: What I Learned While Working in Restaurants
Don't be quick to assume anything based on customer appearance or demographics, because assumptions offend, and people tend not to be WYSIWYG. Hungry people are often irritable, but when satisfied, they can transform into your happiest customers. People who are used to bad service may arrive with
The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think
You might say that you’re not designing for the whole of the OECD. You’re only designing for the rich and privileged country in which you most likely live. Fair enough, but the conclusions don’t change much, even when we look at the richest countries, as shown in the following chart (which is
Test Paper Prototypes to Save Time and Money: The Mozilla Case Study
The designer made the prototypes using OmniGraffle, and we printed them onto tabloid paper and cut them to size. Because there was no code to change, this prototyping method allowed us to make design changes quickly during testing. Firefox users helped progress the designs rapidly toward better
The Magnifying-Glass Icon in Search Design: Pros and Cons
And yet, some patterns emerging today break these fundamental guidelines. The magnifying-glass icon saves space, so more websites use it. It’s OK to be flexible with previous guidelines, so long as we acknowledge that the users’ needs remain unchanged. People don’t care what the search area
Instructional Overlays and Coach Marks for Mobile Apps
Users cannot be expected to read a manual before using your app. People do not launch an app to spend time learning how to use the interface, but rather to complete a task in as short an amount of time as possible, using the least amount of effort possible. This is the paradox of the active user
3 CRM Features You Need to Become GDPR Compliant
GDPR goes into full effect in May, but many businesses and data management tools are scrambling to ensure they meet regulatory guidelines. Rather than wait around until regulators start punishing businesses for noncompliance, it’s better to be proactive and take necessary steps today. Look into a
4 Things Spotify Can Teach You About Data Sharing
The problem isn’t that Twitter lets advertisers target its users via their own data (Spotify does that, too); the problem is that users have little reason to share that data. Spotify, by contrast, leverages user data to deliver multiple personalized features. Using machine learning, it creates
Are AI and Big Data the Economic Levelers We’ve Been Looking for?
AI and big data have also begun to make their mark on another area that has traditionally held women and minorities back from economic prosperity. Even with affirmative action, the fact is that blacks and Hispanics are more underrepresented at top colleges and universities than they were 35 years
Building a Startup Culture that Encourages Wellness
The reason that’s the case is that startups establish much of their workplace culture early on in their development, and there’s a risk that they could enshrine some negative practices into the company ethos that won’t be easy to shake. That’s one of the factors feeding a
a wordpress for good: the price of water . for
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
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
WordPress for Good: The Price of Water . | Working Memory and External Memory
Working Memory and External Memory
While working-memory capacity depends on the individual, it’s likely that many members of your project team enjoy a substantially bigger capacity than found among those in your target audience. For sure, many developers have large working memories, because of self-selection: programming is so
Intelligent Assistants Have Poor Usability: A User Study of Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri
When, instead of a vocal answer, Siri or Google Assistant provided a set of on-screen results, the first reaction was disappointment, as mentioned above. However, if the results on the screen were relevant to their query, people sometimes felt that the experience was acceptable or even good. (This
Beyond Blue Links: Making Clickable Elements Recognizable
With that said, the flat-design trend (a style of interface design that emphasizes 2-D flat illustrations and is well exemplified by iOS 7 and Windows 8) has some website designers taking the minimalist approach to the extreme. The idea behind flat design is to simplify the interface. However
