Crossing the digital divide

Taxiing home after my first Automattic Grand Meetup in Whistler, I was happy to get to know my driver Mohamed. He has been running his family business for over 20 years and also drives a taxi to help make ends meet. Like me, he has three kids and we spoke about them at length. We also spoke about work and got excited when he heard that I’m designer at WordPress.com. He pulled out his phone right away and told me that he downloaded the app with the intention of starting a new site but didn’t have the time to get to it.

We’re often encouraged to work with people that use our products because it helps us see our product through their eyes. This seemed like the perfect opportunity so I offered to build Mohamed his site on WordPress.com. He was really grateful and humbled me with his response. We exchanged contact info and agreed to meet after I recovered from my trip.

Going into this I thought I was just going to build a site but while prepping for our first meeting I realized it could be a lot more. I had been working on a new post-signup checklist to help new site owners get their site ready to launch. Most of the details were figured out except the checklist tasks which I was still in the process of finalizing. My epiphany led to me drafting up an agenda which basically included latest version of my checklist — what a great way to test it out I thought.

We met at Starbucks, my usual out-of-office meeting place, and he brought a friend along. Mohamed confessed he wasn’t very good with computers and needed someone to help him out with the “technical stuff”. His friend was also a small business owner and managed multiple businesses so he was very interested to learn more about WordPress. After some personal introductions, I asked Mohamed to tell me more about his business and what he was hoping his website would do for him. Within a couple of minutes, I had enough information to start working through my checklist.

Through multiple experiences of my own and hearing about others, I would have to say generating content is the hardest part of building a site. We can help you create a site in seconds and give it a professional look, but without the content, it isn’t very useful. I tried to be resourceful and started by asking if they had any existing social accounts or websites. My thinking was that I could maybe get a logo, a colour pallet, some images perhaps, and if I am really lucky some writing too — but no, they didn’t have any accounts. This reminded me of a poll we once ran where almost 60% of 4400 people signing up said they didn’t have an existing online presence. It was also something really important to keep in mind so we can think of other ways to help people generate content for their sites.

As I went down my list, I would explain why the task was important and how I was executing it. They couldn’t believe how quick it was coming together and they loved the design even though they didn’t pick one. In our time together, we built out the entire architecture for their site, personalized it, set up multiple ways for people to contact them, and added some copy to get them going. The site wasn’t 100% complete but Mohamed was ecstatic that his business was no longer limited to his geographical location. He could now do business with people all over the world. I left them with some homework for next time we meet where we hope to wrap things up.

I walked away from this experience feeling really energized and excited about what I had learned. For one, it was great to see the impact our work has on people’s lives. I also learned a lot about our product and the people using it. My biggest take away was witnessing someone that hadn’t fully crossed the digital divide and how that affects his business. I noticed what a big role Mohamed’s mobile devices has on his work and ability to provide for his family. It’s so clear to me why a mobile-first, or even mobile-only, policy is so important when I see people like Mohamed turning to their phones over desktop computers to connect with the world around them. I highly recommend that people working on products seek out opportunities like these.