Automattic Design recently engaged in a “deep dive” customer research project to understand the psychology of small business owners. The underlying reason behind making this work happen has been our knowledge that roughly half the small businesses in the world don’t have a website. And since we’re a company that makes, among many things, website-making…

Recently, the WordPress.com design team spoke to 34 small business owners across the United States as part of a research project. The data gathered was vast, and incredibly insightful, but one thing has been sticking in my head after reading the results; Small business owners want partners more than vendors This goes to a fundamental part of…

For many small business owners, building a web presence is like trying to build a puzzle without knowing what the end result looks like. You can see how a few pieces fit together, but it’s not until you start filling in the edges — building on the work you’ve already done — that it starts…

As someone who spent several years squarely in the Engaged DIY-er camp working hard on my side hustle, I should know them. But I’m starting to realize something that never really fully clicked for me then. I’ll try my best to articulate. A Tricky Name. A Misleading Image.  The name “Engaged DIY” conjures up an…

As a former freelancer I would have been considered a small business owner at one point. I was managing all aspects of the business which operated under my name. There were definitely some areas that I neglected early on and the main one was marketing or “getting myself out there”. Producing the work itself was…

Earlier this summer, the Dotcom Design team performed a quantitative segmentation study on a collection of small business to gain a better understanding of their needs and expectations as it relates to having a web presence. Before joining a8c, I ran a small business offering contract web design and development services. The majority of my…

This past May, the WordPress.com design team set out to undertake the largest research study that the company had ever done. We spoke to 34 small business owners across the United States over the course of two weeks. Now that a few months have passed, the one thing that has stuck with me is the…

I once worked on a project for rebranding a small Japanese baby stroller brand. Considering how difficult and cumbersome it still is to travel with a stroller in Japanese cities, this said stroller brand’s designs were unusually large, and equipped with heavy wheels. There are still many train stations in Japan without elevators and the…