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...
Email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to get readers to take action, investigate a product, or change a behavior. The success of your email marketing, however, comes from your email list. If you need to generate more and better email leads, you need web design that specifically
As Austin’s tech scene has evolved from semiconductors to startups, Heather added that new tech companies have consistently had to define their corporate identities. While some of Austin’s legacy technology businesses have jumped out as philanthropic leaders, she said that new, larger
As Austin’s tech scene has evolved from semiconductors to startups, Heather added that new tech companies have consistently had to define their corporate identities. While some of Austin’s legacy technology businesses have jumped out as philanthropic leaders, she said that new, larger
CSS conversion of my Radio weblog
The hardest thing about the re-design was integrating the tableless CSS design into Radio Userland. I had to do some jiggery-pokery with the Radio Userland templates and macros, and the CSS implementation is not yet complete. I’ve had to temporarily remove my blogroll and topicroll, along
Can the blockchain and IoT solve international freight’s issues?
DS: The main technological innovation of IOTA is the Tangle, which is a completely new Blockchain design that gets rid of the blocks and introduces a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) (NOTE: you can read the whitepaper on this technology at http://iotatoken.com/IOTA_Whitepaper.pdf). The way the Tangle
2 Billion Downloads Later, Apple’s App Store is Still Going Strong
The App Store is obviously one of Apple’s most important assets in the mobile market. While Microsoft’s Zune HD, for example, is getting a lot of favorable reviews, the absence of an application ecosystem makes it a far less compelling product than Apple’s more expensive iPod
Social Impact and Sustainability on Corporate Websites
In our recent usability research with corporate websites, we found that companies that make a concerted effort to give back to society and their communities are perceived as more benevolent and responsible than companies that don’t. Users like to see when organizations care about people and the
wp engine all hands spring 2019: emea
UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet
Think of service blueprints as a part two to customer journey maps. Similar to customer journey maps, blueprints are instrumental in complex scenarios spanning many service-related offerings. Blueprinting is an ideal approach to experiences that are omnichannel, involve multiple touchpoints, or
Popups: 10 Problematic Trends and Alternatives
A popup displayed right after the user logs in is just as bothersome as one shown before the page content loads. When users log in to an account, they have a next step or subsequent task in mind — or else why would they have logged in?! Immediately presenting a popup of any kind will distract and
The Anti-Mac User Interface (Don Gentner and Jakob Nielsen)
Despite its Anti-Mac aspects, Starfire is still a very recognizable computer with many similarities to current user interfaces and research systems. Indeed, there are some Anti-Mac features in evidence in current commercial products. For example, products like On Location and SearchIt show autonomy
Indicators, Validations, and Notifications: Pick the Correct Communication Option
Three common approaches for status communication include validation, notifications, and status indicators. These terms are used sometimes interchangeably in product design, but they stand for different communication methods that should be used in different circumstances. Understanding the
Defeated By a Dialog Box
The lesson from this case study is not how to design a better "Save As" dialog. Depending on the circumstances, you could use any of the four designs I listed, or perhaps even design a fifth that works better for your particular type of data. It's easy enough to find out what's best for your users
UX Mapping Methods Compared: A Cheat Sheet
Low-fidelity maps are unpolished and often created with sticky notes in a flexible, unrefined manner. These maps are best in an early part of the process. Low fidelity means little commitment or creation effort and empowers people to collaborate, revise, and update as needed. Use sticky notes
wp engine all hands spring 2019: emea
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
Modes in User Interfaces: When They Help and When They Hurt Users
For example, I have a pair of Bluetooth earphones that block out most outside sound when I’m wearing them. They have a useful toggle that allows me to selectively pass through some outside sound for situational awareness when I need it, such as when I am walking down a busy street. I toggle
Smart-TV Usability: Accessing Content is Key
Moving through a TV interface and making selections with the remote can be an intensive process. Unlike with a mouse, moving on a TV screen with a remote is a discrete process that involves going through all the clickable screen elements that happen to be on the path to an object of interest. The
Which UX Deliverables Are Most Commonly Created and Shared?
This suggests that noninteractive wireframes tend to be artifacts that UX professionals produce for their own benefit, whether as a natural part of their design process, or for use in usability testing, but those same people don’t frequently share them with others. However, interactive prototypes
Design Guidelines for Input Steppers
Too much clicking and tapping can be irritating. Steppers are not suitable for a large number adjustments. For example, when users need to change a value from 1 to 50, an input stepper is not a wise choice. Thus, steppers make sense for numerical parameters with a clear default that most users are
The Business Benefits of Visualizing Your Data
Because visualizations are easier to read and understand, that means more people can get involved in the analytical processes. More importantly, having access to the dynamic and active systems used in data visualization means much better opportunities for collaboration. You can get more of the team
3 Tips to Convert a Data Science Internship into a Job
Transitioning from an internship into a high-paying career is hard. In the data science world, the competition for employment is intense. While there still are a lot of unfilled roles out there, most of them require something slightly more than just a textbook education. The best way to make the
Smart Hospitals: the Next Step in Healthcare IT
Yet, we already have countless apps and connected devices that collect information about our movements. With the ability to monitor everything from heart rate to the number of steps, blood pressure, and other vital signs, data healthcare providers can make more informed choices about treatment and
Digital Marketing Trends to Drop and Trends to Follow
Lisovetsky claims that marketing is about “how you’re talking about your product, and how you’re exposing more people to your product or service.” On the other hand, growth is where you’re “running a set of experiments, and you’re looking at the entire funnel. From the point that a
wp engine all hands spring 2019: emea
How to Get into Tech Without a Tech Background
If you look at the greatest recent tech companies there are plenty of newcomers that aren’t even considered tech, let alone, high tech. Uber and Airbnb, are less about tech and more about their concept. You can run a tech company without a tech background but find the best tech you can when
Blockchain Success Stories Show Valuable Opportunities
At the time of this writing, the system had already captured close to 254 million unique shipping events, making TradeLens one of the most-used commercial blockchain systems to date. It’s also one of the few blockchain platforms that have seen enough success to have already attracted
WP Engine All Hands Spring 2019: EMEA | Beware Horizontal Scrolling and Mimicking Swipe on Desktop
Beware Horizontal Scrolling and Mimicking Swipe on Desktop
Netflix.com: In its regular state, there are no visual cues to indicate that more content is available (top). Arrows appear only on hover (bottom). Additionally, to see more content within a category, users must hover over the arrow. When they do so, the strip starts to move; if users want to see
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
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
