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...
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
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
In an effort to help the WordPress community grow and prosper as well as expand and add value to the WP Engine Digital Experience platform, WP Engine recently acquired StudioPress. For our customers, this means, in addition to the Genesis framework, they’ll have access to 35 premium themes. All
Cybersecurity in IoT: Achieving Digital Security in an Age of Surveillance
One of the most troubling aspects of government surveillance is their ability to conceal their actions. Without whistleblowers like Edward Snowden or ironic hacks on government databases, the extent of surveillance is rarely known or understood. The blockchain offers a transparent framework that
Cryptocurrency Fraud Is the Exception, Not the Rule
But just because scams may have dominated the news cycle for a while doesn’t mean investing in cryptocurrency is a fool’s errand. The same principles of sound investing — tracking trends, diversifying, and weathering volatility — apply to crypto. And there’s no replacement for due
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’
Remote Ideation: Synchronous vs. Asynchronous
Asynchronous ideation avoids the tricky scheduling issues that synchronous sessions suffer from. People can share their ideas whenever they have time. That means each teammate can work around their own scheduling conflicts and deadlines, while still being able to contribute. Asynchronous ideation
wp engine all hands spring 2019: us
UX Responsibilities in Scrum Ceremonies
If, after all this, you’re still unable to make it to ceremonies, discuss your workload with your manager, product owner, and Scrum master to adjust your time accordingly. Your teammates should be your allies and understand why your presence and participation is crucial in these important events
Beyond Usability: 3 User Experiences Reshaping Their Industries
Unless you have an unlimited clothes budget, it’s unrealistic (and wasteful) to wear a new outfit for every single occasion, yet social media pressures us into it. Rent a Runway solves this tension elegantly by recycling (expensive) clothes across a large set of women. It’s an example of the
Mobile: Native Apps, Web Apps, and Hybrid Apps
As you can see, all these pages are the same, except for the top header, which is platform specific. The Back button on iOS is translated into a caret on Android; the logo is present on the web page, but not in the app. (The designers have correctly assumed that on the web people need the logo to
Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable
In our research on Children on the Web, we saw a lot of interactive tools and games that took a long time to load. In an attempt to make the loading screens more entertaining and engaging, many sites incorporated video content or shorter games for users to play while waiting. Unfortunately, these
Progress Indicators Make a Slow System Less Insufferable
While speedy response times are best, there are simply times when even a server upgrade won’t allow you to comply with the guidelines for system speed. In these cases, you simply must reassure the user that the computer isn’t out for lunch but is working faithfully on their request. If the
Conversion Rate: Definition as used in UX and web analytics
It’s a very safe bet to assume that removing any question from a form will result in a higher completion rate for the form and thus a higher conversion rate for the associated action. In real life, there's a reason for every extra question on the form: somebody thinks that it would be
wp engine all hands spring 2019: us
Wishlist or shopping cart? Saving products for later in ecommerce
Anthropologie.com confusingly offered both a Move to Wish List and Save for Later options for shopping-cart items. Move to Wish List required the user to either log in or create an account, both of which derail the checkout process. Save for Later, however, did not require registration and
Celebrating Holidays and Special Occasions on Websites
Why do websites decorate for holidays? Even more interestingly, why do websites celebrate special occasions that are unrelated to their main topic? For example, many sites having nothing to do with sports featured special recognition of the Olympics, World Cup soccer, and other major sporting
Breaking Web Design Conventions = Breaking the User Experience
The site uses several visual-design trends that are popular now, such as minimal content and a full-width image that fills the page above the fold. Long-scrolling, image-heavy pages feature vertically stacked containers, card, and grid layouts, and mimic horizontal swipe on desktop. While these
Design Thinking Builds Strong Teams
Later on in the process, “Sam” becomes a shortcut for a new user that needs assistance during signup. Note that at this stage “Sam” is not yet a persona, but a specific user in a specific scenario. Personas are user descriptions that can be applied to a variety of scenarios. However, as
Ideation in Practice: How Effective UX Teams Generate Ideas
Among those who reported having a “very effective” ideation process, ideation occurs significantly more often at earlier stages of the design cycle, compared to those with only “somewhat effective” ideation. Most notably, 71% of “very effective” responders have ideation sessions after
Why AI and Viztech hold the key to a safer internet
In the same week in June that German lawmakers passed a bill forcing major internet companies to banish “evidently illegal” content within 24 hours or face fines up to $57 million, a conference took place in Harvard University entitled: Harmful Speech Online: At the Intersection of Algorithms
Data Lake vs. Data Warehouse: Which Is the Best Data Architecture?
But for most companies embarking on big data initiatives, structured data is only part of the story. Each year, businesses generate a staggering quantity of unstructured data. In fact, 451 Research in conjunction with Western Digital found that 63 percent of enterprises and service providers are
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
For Startups, a SaaS Solution is an HR Killer App
That’s part of the reason that startups have been so quick to embrace robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI). In truth, there is no end to the ways that startups can gain an advantage by turning to technology in their daily operations. One of those ways has to do
wp engine all hands spring 2019: us
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
How New Tech Startups Can Differentiate Themselves
Finding a way to differentiate yourself may also hold the key to establishing your brand identity. If you’re struggling to define the startup in some way beyond the technology it produces, this could be your chance to do some soul searching and land on a characteristic or strategy you want at the
WP Engine All Hands Spring 2019: US | Why Personas Fail
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
Finally Progress in Internet Client Design
Napster connects many users to many servers and basically allows users to view the entire Internet as a collected resource for getting music (or, potentially, other content and services). At the same time, Napster also encourages users to contribute back to the richness of this resource by making
Priming and User Interfaces
Another example of priming in usability testing is when the moderator inadvertently makes users behave in a certain way. Sometimes simply being overly friendly can make participants feel that they must live up to that friendship and must reciprocate either by being too positive about the design or
