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The Definitive Free WordPress Plugins List (2019)
Ever wondered if you can make your car fly? Perhaps, all you need is a set of wings, a new engine, a control stick, and air safety features. While I can’t guarantee that your car will fly after those upgrades, the right set of plugins can definitely skyrocket...
How To Create A Real Estate Website In WordPress That Gets Results
Building a badass real estate website in WordPress is no easy feat. But with the help of a few specialised themes and plugins, along with some knowledge of what makes a winning real estate website… you’ll be well on your way to creating a clean,...
Why Running A University Website Using WordPress Is Not Up For Academic Discussion
An introduction to WordPress in Higher Ed. School and university websites are about as challenging of a web design and development project as you could ever take on. A university website not only has to attract and recruit new students, it also needs to serve the...
WordPress vs. Blogger – How To Choose Which Is Best For You
Most people would think a fight between WordPress and Blogger is just plain unfair… But you might be surprised at just how close it is. In fact, what if I told you that Blogger actually manages to steal a couple of rounds? Stick around to see how the fight goes...
Why is WordPress Free? Who Pays For It? How Much Does It Cost?
Millennia ago, a cool compassionate dude took a few loaves of bread and fish and multiplied them to feed thousands of hungry folks. Or so the myth/belief goes, depending on how you view it. Almost 2 thousand years later, humans would invent technology that would...
How to Build Order Forms with Payments for Free in WordPress
You lose 100% of the sales you don’t ask for, and the same holds true for having a clunky checkout experience. Order forms help you to collect order information and process payments efficiently, thereby increasing your conversion rates significantly. Forminator...
Hustle 4.0: Better Pop-up Design, Analytics, and Privacy
Hustle 4.0 comes with an improved workflow, better design, more analytics, and a slick data privacy upgrade. If you’re looking to increase your following, grow your mailing list, or capture leads with WordPress, Hustle has you covered. Hustle is the WordPress...
How to Update PHP to the Recommended Version for WordPress
Using an outdated version of WordPress core, plugins or themes isn’t ideal. PHP is no different. While WordPress technically works with PHP 5.6 and above, you’re sacrificing performance and compatibility, plus you’re open to security vulnerabilities...
30 Essential WordPress Plugins You Should Install If You Haven’t Already
While WordPress offers a ton of features and flexibility, there is still a lot of functionality missing from the core software. The best way to fill in the missing pieces, of course, is to get yourself the right plugins. WordPress plugins offer all kinds of...
10 Best Image Optimization Plugins for Speeding Up WordPress
There are all kinds of WordPress Image optimizer plugins available in the WordPress plugin repository. They can help you compress images for the web or handle things like resizing images or lazy loading. In this post, we’re going to look at the features of the...
The value of quick visual storytelling
Story telling matters as a foundational part of communication between people. You can tell stories by writing, speaking, filming, drawing, coding, and much more. When dealing with humans, assume miscommunication. If you’re trying to explain something, part of it will...
A widget becomes a block
For the past few months we’ve been converting WooCommerce widgets in WordPress to blocks. Widgets allow you to add a small feature, such as a paragraph of text, onto your website. Widget Block On the left we have an example of where a widget can be placed...
Synthesizing usability test results
This week we got another usability study in the books by testing the most recent iteration of our signup and onboarding flow. Thanks to some help from our design operations team I was able to pull it off without a hitch. All I had to do was fill in a request, slightly...
Offline Principles
Cowritten with Megs Fulton Many of us design and build apps in air-conditioned offices in major cities, using the latest devices with perfect internet connections. We don’t often think about how apps should work without a strong internet connection. ...
What is a Creative Technologist?
Within Automattic Design, we have two communities of practice: “creative technology” and “product experience”. Every designer falls into one of these two communities. Having this distinction helps us to create balanced teams, as well as sharpen...
🌶 Spicy topics
Recently, the design team I lead was going through a period of low morale. I noticed this through conversations in 1-1s, our team Slack channel, and most notably in our team meetings. The designers were all working on some very big product problems and while the work...
Design Collaboration Meetup
Last week we held our first “Design Collaboration Meetup” connecting across product, dev, support, marketing, and human resources. And of course … design! At the gathering we were able to distribute our new playbooks and connect IRL in super...
Product Experience and Creative Technology Design Playbooks
You can visit our two new design playbooks up online over at: productexperienceplaybook.org Product experience design is the practice of creating products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. This practice begins with a deep understanding of user...
On sharing mistakes
At the end of every week, my boss asks us to write down a lesson we learned. Mine are usually due to a slip up I made. Here’s how it goes: I make a mistake, apologize to the person, and end up saying something along the lines of: “I should have done x,...
Accessibility Standards: Defining What Success Means
Announcing the first pass at Team 51 accessibility standards.
