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 Go” in honor of the famous sci-fi sagas Star Wars and Star Trek. In addition to discussing goals for the upcoming year and new strategies for success, the team took moment to have a good time.
Events on the agenda included team lunches, Q&A sessions with executives, information sessions, and a company party with a talent show. Next week, employees in US offices will come...
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
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
In this panel, Brunner will be joined by popular Austin figures as they discuss who and what has been the major change agent in Austin. Brunner will represent technology while other panelists will represent food and film. Joe Nick Patoski, author of Austin to ATX: The Hippies, Pickers, Slackers
5 Ways Blockchain Startups Can Appeal to Enterprises
Though enterprises see the appeal of using blockchain, companies often don’t want to take on the challenge of working with their business partners to create a new blockchain solution. Last year, 74% of organizations in a global blockchain survey said they felt compelled to use a blockchain
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
AI and Blockchain Tech Are The Future of Successful Trading
For instance, Signals, a blockchain platform launched on the Ethereum Network, seeks to utilize Machine Intelligence in order to enable crypto traders to make smarter and faster trading decisions and maximize trading profits. With the Signals platform, both the experienced and inexperienced crypto
The Four Dimensions of Tone of Voice
A quick Google search for “tone-of-voice words” will surface lists of hundreds of words used to describe literary tones. (Most of them come from websites for undergraduate English courses). You’ll quickly notice that most of those words have very specific meanings and connotations (e.g
wp engine all hands spring 2019: emea
Vanity Metrics: Add Context to Add Meaning
A cumulative curve such as the number of app downloads (red) will always increase, regardless of any other factors. In contrast, a graph capturing a ratio, like that between the number of new active users and the number of downloads within a week (blue) is a much more meaningful measure, as it
Why WSJ Mobile App Gets ** Customer Reviews
Workflow design is a big issue in application usability. In many cases, a tighter workflow best expedites the paths users take to their goals. But in many other cases, it's better to add a few steps to ensure that each step is focused and self-explanatory. What matters to usability is not the
Closeness of Actions and Objects in GUI Design
That mainstream corporate websites make blatant usability mistakes is understandable because most members of their teams aren't grounded in graduate degrees in human-computer interaction. (That's why I have recently added foundational courses, such as The Human Mind, to my usability conference
Group Form Elements Effectively Using White Space
You might be wondering, "if proximity is such a problem, then why not place the labels inside the text fields?". Don't be tempted. When you place the labels inside the text field as filler text, the label disappears when users input their text and they must remember it as they fill in the field
Layered Interaction Analysis of Direct Manipulation (Jakob Nielsen)
A final example of directness cannot be achieved by traditional forms of direct manipulation. Assume that a user of a window system has a large and a small window and that the large window is on top, completely hiding the small window. The user now wants to bring the small window to the front and
The State of Ecommerce Search
An explicit Search label is no longer necessary (though it won’t hurt). Users look for a wide, empty field or a magnifying glass icon. Many sites use just a magnifying glass alone in mobile designs, and that works fine. Others display an entire search field, which is worth the tradeoff of
wp engine all hands spring 2019: emea
Infinite Scrolling is Not for Every Website
The success of infinite scrolling on social media sites such as Twitter have made this technique popular, but that doesn’t mean you should do it too. Continuous scrolling is advantageous for content that streams constantly and has a relatively flat structure, where each unit of content belongs at
Cognitive Maps, Mind Maps, and Concept Maps: Definitions
The idea of cognitive map originates from the work of the psychologist Edward Tolman, who is famous for his studies of how rats learned to navigate mazes. In psychology, it has a strong spatial connotation — cognitive maps usually refer to the representation of a space (e.g., a maze) in the
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
Beware Horizontal Scrolling and Mimicking Swipe on Desktop
Scrolling and “swiping” horizontally on the desktop is a different experience than on touchscreen tablets and mobile devices. This is one more example of why it is important to understand that people use mobile devices, tablets, and desktops differently, and why it’s beneficial to optimize
Adding an Item to a Shopping Cart: Provide Clear, Persistent Feedback
Saks Fifth Avenue showed a nonmodal overlay that didn’t disappear on its own after the user added a product to the cart. While the overlay obscured some of the page content (which we don’t recommend), it still kept the main product information visible. In addition, the nonmodal nature of the
Blockchain Supercharged with AI: The Next Revolution
Artificial intelligence needs vast amounts of data to learn and make insightful decisions; blockchain becomes useful a novel way of storing data securely. As mentioned earlier, blockchain often boils down to being a distributed ledger technology, which means it creates a massive database of every
Groundbreaking Tips for Managing Big Data
Big data is the type of data that is characterized by informational and technical features. A huge and ever-growing data volume, variety of data formats and log of records nature belong to the informational aspects. Traditional solutions were no longer suitable for capturing, storing and processing
Discovering the threats below the surface on the Dark Web
All you need to do is dig a little and you’ll find your niche chat group. More importantly, these are places where hackers can discuss how to carry out attacks and share knowledge. This can be as simple as asking who wants to join in a hack against a specific target. In other cases, they can talk
SEO DIY: Optimize Your Startup’s Website Yourself
Anyone who pays attention to the world of search engine optimization knows that maximizing your company’s search results on Google and other search engines is not something you can do with a quick pin here and a hasty status update there. It’s a full-time job. But if you’re
wp engine all hands spring 2019: emea
4 High-Potential Sectors for AI and ML Startup Success
As the world edges closer and closer to an always-on internet-connected reality with the emergence of IoT technology, businesses everywhere are coming to grips with the fact that there are more marketing channels to manage than ever before. The only feasible solution is to turn the bulk of the work
The Modern Shape and Trends of Employee Culture
Sweetgreen, a fast-casual restaurant chain, ensures its culture is a strong one through such initiatives as its family fund, under which voluntary paycheck donations are used to help out employees in times of need. The fund came into play when someone needed temporary housing following a fire, and
WP Engine All Hands Spring 2019: EMEA | Website Response Times
Website Response Times
In a recent study for our work on Brand as Experience (now a full-day training course on branding and UX), we asked users what they thought about various websites they had used in the past. So, their responses were based not on immediate use (as in normal usability studies), but on whatever past
Website Forms Usability: Top 10 Recommendations
As a taxpayer, it’s comforting to think that my government agency isn’t deliberately using bad design to avoid hearing my comments. But from a UX perspective it’s a painful reminder that despite the buzz and popularity of “UX” in recent years, basic understanding of usability is often
Can Hated Design Elements Be Made to Work?
That said, PDF has its uses — they're just not in the realm of interactive information access. When people want to download a report for later reference, PDF shines. Indeed, I use it myself for this purpose. (As an example, see our report on social media usability, which is available for free
