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...
Last week, WP Engine employees from our Limerick and London offices came together for the bi-annual All Hands event in Limerick. All Hands is a 2-day event where employees come to engage with, collaborate, and strategize with employees from other offices. This year’s theme was “Boldly
Atomic Blocks is one of the most popular and most downloaded libraries of beautiful, responsive, and customizable blocks for WordPress 5.0. In addition to giving users the ability to quickly add great-looking elements to their web pages without touching a line of code, Atomic Blocks also offers
Almost three years ago, WP Engine expanded its global presence and opened a second international office in Limerick, Ireland (our first was in London). Known as a city where technology and culture collide, Limerick has been the perfect location for WP Engine to grow and evolve. At its start, the
Freewheeling Freelancers will Dominate the Future Jobs Market
Fortunately, as more people turn to this form of work, so too has the attention of regulatory bodies around the world. Writing for Forbes, Abdullahi Muhammed expects to see increased pressure in the coming years on local, state and national authorities to recognize the fledgling form of freelancing
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’
Why Blockchain and Remanufacturing are a Perfect Match
For example, an automotive remanufacturing blockchain could be built, parts could be posted for potential buyers to view, or buyers could post the type, quantity, and quality of parts they require. Payment options could then be automated via smart contracts when parts are shipped. Blockchain would
Typography Terms Cheat Sheet
Before the digital age, serif fonts were deemed more legible, and easier to read than sans-serif ones, but in modern days, sans-serif fonts have comparable and sometimes better legibility, especially on digital screens. (The issue was that the serifs didn’t render nicely on low-resolution
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Centered Logos Hurt Website Navigation
Based on these observations, it’s clear that left-aligned logos are better than centered logos for supporting user navigation to the homepage. Note that the left-logo sites in this study still caused some homepage-navigation errors (although far fewer than the centered-logo sites). This is
The User Experience of Public Bathrooms
There’s an urgent need to improve the user experience of public restrooms. I address this unrefined topic because I am uncomfortable with the persistent delays at any well-attended venue — be it an opera hall, a baseball stadium, or a trendy restaurant — and I know that you are, too. The
7 Tips for Successful Customization
You may want to allow users to select the background color of their interface, but is there adequate payoff or interest in that option to account for the additional cost of implementation? You may want to allow users to move content areas around a page to create a unique experience, but again, it
7 Tips for Successful Customization
Such a “forced” customization in the beginning is more acceptable on an intranet, where site designers and developers know that the user will return over time. For most systems, return visitors are not guaranteed. Therefore, it is best not to interrupt their early interactions by asking
Confirmation Dialogs Can Prevent User Errors (If Not Overused)
Saying these 2 items doesn’t tell users which files will be deleted. In contrast, the single-file confirmation shows the name of the file, as well as some supplementary info that’ll help the user determine whether the right file will be deleted. (For even better usability, display a thumbnail
How to Display Taxes, Fees, and Shipping Charges on Ecommerce Sites
Although, from a design and implementation perspective, it’s easiest to just wait until the checkout flow to tack on delivery rates and fees, this practice is problematic for shoppers. Flex your problem-solving muscles and integrate these charges into the browsing portion of the workflow, so
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Does User Annoyance Matter?
Knowing a better design exists made it painful to sit, day after day, and watch users fight with the mouse to scroll through the huge menu. Sometimes users selected the wrong menu option and then had to waste even more time with the drop-down. And, in this study, we mainly tested young, able-bodied
Don't Force Users to Register Before They Can Buy
This doesn’t need to be the case. When a user is making a purchase, typically all the information needed for registration is already being requested of the user. Sites normally ask for information needed for the transaction, including name, shipping, and billing information. In addition, sites
Empathy Mapping: The First Step in Design Thinking
Aggregated empathy maps can also become ways to summarize other qualitative data like surveys and field studies. For example, an empathy map can be used to communicate a persona, instead of the traditional ‘business card’ approach. As more research is gathered about that persona, you can circle
Fight Against “Right-Rail Blindness”
Banner blindness has expanded beyond the deliberate act of not looking at banners to encompass avoidance of anything that usually signals irrelevant information or advertisements. People disregard colorful boxes in the margin of the page because such graphical treatments are commonly applied to
Top 10 Application-Design Mistakes
This table has meaningless ID information as the first column; the Net Code and Location Code fields also include encoded information that is intended to represent complex information in a compact space. The Location Name is the only column that makes sense to humans; to decipher the others
The Open Data Initiative’s Benefits Go Far Beyond Improved Customer Intelligence
Companies that sign onto the ODI will rely on a common data lake within Microsoft Azure. To help them defend it, Microsoft revealed alongside the initiative that it would be building its cybersecurity reporting feature, Secure Score, into Azure’s Security Center to protect hybrid cloud data
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
29% of Internet Users Have Bought Things From Spam Email?? Say It Aint So!
The announcement of the study concludes with these funny lines, from Anstis again: “The other way to look at this situation is from a spammer’s perspective. There are approximately 250 million people out there who are interested in these kinds of products and have made purchases 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
reality wp engine: 2018 in review developers
How to File an International Trademark When You’re Ready to Take Your Business Global
Oftentimes, one of the biggest issues business owners face when trying to register their trademarks outside of the USA is “brand squatting,” which describes the situation when an unaffiliated third party registers a brand owner’s trademark first in a jurisdiction only seeking to
Fifteen Podcasts You Must Listen to in 2019
This podcast, with host Tiffani Bova, is like listening in on two friends talking over coffee. With her eclectic guest lineup including leading thinkers, Best Selling Authors, an Olympic Athlete, an NFL Coach, and a Grammy Nominated Artist all sharing what they have learned along the way, and
WP Engine: 2018 in Review | Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth
Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth
Nielsen's law is similar to the more established Moore's law. Unfortunately, comparing the two laws shows that bandwidth grows slower than computer power. Moore's law says that computers double in capabilities every 18 months, which corresponds to about 60% annual growth. As shown in the table
Low-Contrast Text Is Not the Answer
A low-contrast design aesthetic is haunting the web, taking legibility and discoverability with it. It’s straining our eyes, making us all feel older, and a little less capable. Lured by the trend of minimalism, sites are abandoning their high-contrast traditions and switching to the Dark Side
Website Logo Placement for Maximum Brand Recall
In a word, no. There were no statistically significant differences (according to a two-sample t-test) in how people rated the hotels with traditional left-aligned logos, compared to the ‘unconventional’ right-aligned logos. In fact, in most cases, the left-aligned logos were rated slightly more
