Last week, WP Engine employees from all over the U.S. came together at our Austin headquarters for the first biannual All-Hands event of 2019. All Hands is a two-day event in which employees from other offices and teams around the country get the chance to collaborate and strategize with one another. This year’s theme was “Boldly Go” in honor of the famous sci-fi saga Star Trek. This event agenda was full of events to help nurture growth at both the individual level as well as company-wide. Not to mention, we got to have some fun!
Events on the agenda included team lunches, information sessions, inspirational speeches, a Hackathon, advice panels, trivia, and...
I had never experienced a work culture as wonderful as the WP Engine culture before,” said Darren O’Dwyer, a Senior Talent Advisor at WP Engine’s Limerick office. “I love it here, the people genuinely enjoy working here, which makes the work environment a great place to be, and we have
As we continue to showcase a sample of the amazing StudioPress themes now available to WP Engine customers, we’re shifting our focus to food with this new StudioPress Theme: Daily Dish Pro, which is designed to make your content just as appetizing as the best meal at your favorite four-star
Academy Pro will help you showcase your authority as an educator and content creator. For site owners who might not be as technically inclined, Academy Pro is a great option to easily customize your website. Even if you are curious about enabling a certain feature of creation, as a StudioPress
How Blockchain Can Solve Major Problems for Gig Economy Freelancers
The modern workplace includes a ridiculous number of freelancers and third-party service providers. Despite this prevalence, a survey by the Freelancers Union shows that 50 percent of freelancers have trouble getting paid for their work. Delayed payments are the main issue, though one-third of
Stop Focusing on Cryptocurrencies Problems. Consider its Future.
People remembered the big bitcoin crash early in 2018, and they’re now wary of thinly veiled cash grabs hidden behind initial coin offerings (ICOs). Businesses seem to have followed suit. With last year’s market collapse, large companies that previously dipped their toes into the
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
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
Take Uber for example. While the experience is hugely popular and generally pain free, there is room for enhancement — especially for large groups travelling together. Currently, a group must problem-solve in order to figure out how many “ubers” to call and and how many passengers can fit in
wp engine all hands spring 2019: us
Brand Vocabulary in the Context of UX: Key Terms Defined
At first, brand promise in the context of UX may seem abstract. However, think about using brand promise as a metric. Before release, return to your stated promise and compare the experience. Is your brand fulfilling its promise to its users? If not, how can you use your role as a designer to
Large Devices Preferred for Important Tasks
Although many mobile operating systems now offer a split-screen mode, the small screen size limits its usefulness. The fact is, in most cases, users on mobile devices must focus on one window at a time. This limitation means that it’s difficult to combine multiple sources of information and carry
Overloaded vs. Generic Commands
For mobile apps, it's usually a good idea to have an "application home" that users can return to as a safe base after exploring the apps various areas. This is particularly important for content-rich apps, such as magazines or newspapers. Used this way, the "home" button serves as a generic
Wireflows: A UX Deliverable for Workflows and Apps
However, many modern webapps and mobile apps have few overall pages, but change the content and layout dynamically through AJAX (or other technologies), based on interactions the user has with the product. They can range from ecommerce products in which selecting facets or filters changes the
6 Tips for Successful Personalization
Personalization is based on system’s assumptions about the users’ needs based on past behavior. Users rarely have any control over these assumptions. As we move into a world with more and more “smart” devices, we need to make sure that users can override these personalized settings if they
8 Steps to Prepare for the Holiday Shopping Season
A website is like a house with a thousand front doors: visitors can enter anywhere. The homepage is typically the main entry point, so you should definitely check to ensure that you don't commit common mistakes in homepage design. But users arrive at many other pages as well, and even if you've
wp engine all hands spring 2019: us
Visual Design Terms Cheat Sheet
When overall brightness is increased, all colors, foreground and background, are made lighter — that is, closer to white (complete lightness). When brightness decreases, all colors are darker and closer to black (complete darkness). Manipulating brightness in any visual can influence how easy it
Tips for Better Product Descriptions on Websites
Both product descriptions began with a bulleted list of features, but even here there was no consistency between the listings. Descriptions did not focus on the same or comparable features, and details that were similar, such as the number of sheets that could be shredded at one time, and size of
The Two UX Gulfs: Evaluation and Execution
When multiple switches are visible together and some are off, some are on, it’s easy to understand that the labels refer to the current selected state rather than to one specific position of the switch. (Additionally, in this screen, the fact that the Hide notifications switch is Off causes
Facilitating an Effective Design Studio Workshop
With a variety of ideas on the table, the facilitator needs to lead the group through some sort of convergent activity that solidifies the design direction resulting from the workshop. Otherwise, individual teams might walk out with the incorrect assumption that the concept they created is the
What Is Design Thinking, Really? (What Practitioners Say)
Some participants defined design thinking primarily as a mindset shift or “changing the way you think.” The words associated with this mindset shift were “new, out of the box thinking” or “different way of working.” Unlike those who defined design thinking primarily as a process
The future of tokenization and blockchain is not just ICOs
For this technology to be industry changing, more companies like FundersToken must come forward and include the nontechnical. As a technology evangelist, there is a duty to be patient with the ignorant and help encourage productive uses of new technology. The worst thing that could happen for the
Internet of Warnings: How Smart Technology Can Threaten Your Business’s Security
Science fiction technology may not be as far off as we believe. The Internet of Things (IoT) uses the powerful combination of Wi-Fi and cloud technology to send information and perform actions through devices with Internet capabilities. This advance stems from the use of telemetry, decades-old
CRM and GDPR Compliance in 2019 for Startups
You can also add opportunities to let subscribers choose what kind of content they choose to receive from you. It’s obvious that people won’t unsubscribe from valuable newsletters and content. But your customers and clients will be gone in a snap if you turn your emails into spam and send them
The Freelance Entrepreneur’s Guide to Surviving In The World of IoT
When dealing with clients, communication skills are gold. Clients are notorious for having unrealistic expectations and making difficult or impossible requests from techies. If you want to survive as a freelancer, you will need to communicate with those types of clients in a non-threatening way
wp engine all hands spring 2019: us
The 4 Critical Challenges of Tech Startup PR
Investors, stockholders, and consumers all around the world have a voracious appetite for the latest and greatest in technology news. Still, the one thing that’s you’ll notice about technology news coverage is that it has little to do with technology. Instead, much of the coverage centers on
You Have a Great Tech Idea. Now What?
If you do find that your idea has already been taken, all hope is not lost. You can still create a business if you’re able to develop a variation of that idea that distinguishes your work in some way. For example, you may be able to offer it better, cheaper, faster, or in a way that caters to
WP Engine All Hands Spring 2019: US | Top 10 Enduring Web-Design Mistakes
Top 10 Enduring Web-Design Mistakes
Maplin.com: Users could not easily locate Bluetooth speakers from Maplin that cost less than £50. There was no way using the site’s filters to see all items matching their price criteria; instead, they had to run separate queries for several price subranges. Users had to select each price range
The Fold Manifesto: Why the Page Fold Still Matters
A second set of data comes from Google’s analysis of display advertising (PDF) across a huge number of websites. The study looked at how “viewable” an advertisement was, with viewability defined as 50% of the ad’s pixels being on-screen for one second. Advertisements just above the fold had
University Websites: Top 10 Design Guidelines
A 22-year old user was not impressed by this video from Glasgow Caledonian University: “This is annoying … It seems a little bit unintelligent for a university ad. You want something inspiring, showing how it’s better than other universities. That ad would not make me want to go to this
