We are inspired by the digital visions and aspirations of our customers and are committed to helping them win online. As 2018 has just come to a close, we look back on our growth with pride and humility. We are devoted to the success and prosperity of our 90,000+ customers from 140 different countries in 2019.
We love our platform’s ability to scale for any digital experience you can imagine. We scaled internally as well to make sure we were ready for anything. We’ve hired 130 new people globally to join our mission in helping our customers win online—enough to fill a 737 airplane! WP Engine is kicking off 2019...
At the end of September, we held our 2018 WP Engine Summit in Austin, Texas. Last week, agencies, brands, and digital innovators from EMEA came together in London for the WP Engine EU Summit. Attendees discussed the future of digital experiences, Gen Z’s perception of the Internet, and the
Every year it can feel like the holidays sneak up on us. We assemble, we strategize, and we take the necessary precautions yet we frequently feel like we are scrambling. For ecommerce businesses, this time of year is crucial not only for generating revenue but for generating recurrent relationships
In less than two weeks, members from the WordPress community around the world will head to Nashville, Tennessee for WordCamp US. This is the second consecutive year that the event has been held in Music City and WordPress community has evolved significantly since 2017. The most anticipated topic of
Robotics and Big Data are Transforming Nursing: 4 Key Insights
These days, many healthcare institutions are using the power of technology to help patients stay in their homes and out of the hospital. Big data and the Internet of Things have advanced to allow remote monitoring for patients in their own homes. Entrepreneurs taking the helm of app building for
Transparency In The Cryptocurrency Ecosystem with James Giancotti
When it comes to the future of cryptocurrency, Giancotti is looking to the experts for insight: the OTC providers that have been there, done that, and gone through the long, hard slog to get where they are. What he’s seeing is that institutions are buying Bitcoin, but they’re buying it from OTC
FinTech is Transforming the Finance Industry
As the FinTech industry matures, legislators have responded in varying ways. Representatives of the Federal Reserve System (FRS), for instance, have assembled the FinTech High-Priority Initiative to address their concerns about the industry. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has
Banner Blindness Revisited: Users Dodge Ads on Mobile and Desktop
Ignoring ads is a learned behavior — like many other user behaviors on the web (classic examples include seeking the company logo in the upper left corner of the page, or looking for the global navigation across the top of the page). In our latest eyetracking study, we observed that some
wp engine: 2018 in review
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
User Need Statements
As their name suggests, user need statements articulate the end user’s problem we are going to solve, and why it is worth solving. They are a tool to help us stop thinking about users’ needs as nouns and start thinking about them as verbs. When done collaboratively and correctly, they can serve
Help People Create Passwords That They Can Actually Remember
Using chunking with passwords maybe be difficult for some people because there are no standard characters, such as dashes, used to visually separate the chunks or numbers or words. While some people can do fine with no separator (such as, “mypasswordisthis”), others may be stymied. In my
Radio Buttons: Always Select One?
Defaults help users. They are especially obliging in situations where the choices may be complex or unfamiliar. When the labels and descriptions are foreign, a default directs the user to the best choice among ones he may not understand. For example, one of Dropbox's install screens selects the
Wireflows: A UX Deliverable for Workflows and Apps
A simplified high-fidelity desktop wireflow for a configurator webapp demonstrates that not all parts of the screen design must be represented in each step. Due to the larger size of desktop screen designs, showing the full page for each step is not necessary if the majority of the information
Eartracking: A New UX-Research Method
A second technology advance now allows us to turn micromovement video streams into true eartracking and tell where the user’s attention is directed. A machine-learning algorithm has been trained with 10,000 hours of video recordings from our most recent eartracking study, during which we tracked
wp engine: 2018 in review
Ecommerce UX Trends: User Research Update
Though sites may make using discounts difficult in order to increase sales totals, preventing users from being able to use or take advantage of discounts erodes trust and may frustrate users to the point that they no longer want to shop on the site. Further, making it easy to qualify for discounts
Designing for Different Types of E-Commerce Shoppers
A good e-commerce user experience is crucial to all shopper types, but different elements take on significance based on the shopper's goal. Designing with user types in mind improves the overall shopping experience. Following guidelines, such as those in our E-Commerce User Experience report
Decision Frames: How Cognitive Biases Affect UX Practitioners
Psychology and behavioral-economics principles often help designers create interfaces that steer users in a desired direction. For example, prospect theory and loss aversion teach us that allowing users to try a service before signing up for it will increase the number of registrations. For
iOS Design Rules to Break
It can be disconcerting and confusing to people when the same thing, or what is perceived to be the same thing, is used to invoke different commands. If the hamburger menu continues to gain traction, more users will learn that clicking three horizontal lines opens a menu (even if they may still
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
Nearshoring Basics for Software Development
Customer service issues, cultural misunderstandings, and language barriers are just a sample of what can turn people off. It has tarnished the reputation of offshoring. Nearshoring, however, is like Offshoring 2.0. It’s an approach to solving the implicit and explicit problems of offshoring. This
How IoT has Exposed Business Organizations to Cyber Attacks
IoT ransomware attacks don’t contain much meaningful, sensitive data. Traditional ransomware attacks are redundant to mention here. Because usual attacks happen often and are now being guarded against in a better way, attackers are focusing on these attacks to lock you out of your device
3 Areas Where Blockchain Will Propel the Drone Industry Forward
While companies across many industries have invested a lot to integrate blockchain into their offerings, the hard truth is that for many, a decentralized public ledger doesn’t provide any real value add. Just like AI, for many applications, blockchain may be technology overkill. However, just
Your Pitch to VCs is More Than a Deck
There is a difference between your pitch, a distillation of your vision, and the deck, a tool that facilitates your pitch. There’s also a difference between the presenter, the person who communicates the most important points, and the presentation, the cumulative experience that includes
wp engine: 2018 in review
Trademark Protection for Startups
Once infringement of your trademark is discovered you must act quickly to stop the same. There are numerous ways to enforce your trademark depending upon how it is being infringed upon. For instance, if a competitor has registered and is using a domain name that is similar to your trademark, a
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
WP Engine: 2018 in Review | Zigzag Image–Text Layouts Make Scanning Less Efficient
Zigzag Image–Text Layouts Make Scanning Less Efficient
Both the 34-participant heatmap for the zigzag version (left) and the 32-participant heatmap for its aligned variation (right) showed that people spent relatively little time on the information-poor images of HelloFresh.com. (Heatmaps are quantitative visualizations that aggregate the number and
Priming and User Interfaces
The aesthetics and look-and-feel of a page also create first impressions about a website and a business. Below, you can see the websites for two different Chinese-restaurants. You can probably easily identify which of the two restaurants is a chain just by looking at the homepage. Although users
Are Chinese Websites Too Complex?
For example, one Chinese user commented about China News (shown above), “When I’m reading news, I only read through the pages at the top, within these pictures and the links that are highlighted here. I will definitely not scroll down to read anything else. There are so many things happening
