Automattic recently conducted extensive research on small business owners (SBOs), looking into their behaviors, preferences, and motivations around both building websites and business in general. The design team was tasked with reading through this research to find something that challenged our previous notions about SBOs. My initial read proved fairly uncontroversial as most of my…

For so long, WordPress.com (and, in some ways, WordPress itself) has been very focused on blogging. But we’ve known for a while (perhaps since the introduction of Pages all those years back) that WordPress can do more than blogs. WordPress is being used by businesses all over the world to help them sell their products…

Alright, yes, as a general rule, you should avoid using jargon as much as possible. However, there are some situations when speaking the jargon can be very helpful. 

Michael D. Watkins wrote about the seven seismic shifts of perspective and responsibility required for how managers become leaders in his piece for Harvard Business Review by the same name. In this article, he shares that “all of the shifts a function head must make when first becoming an enterprise leader involve learning new skills…

There’s nothing quite like finding out you’re wrong. I’ve shared previously about the research I was able to take part in as a designer at Automattic. Meeting Small Business Owners from across the United States on video calls, learning about their lives, their fears, their challenges, and the kind of work they do. I pored…

This quote from a WordPress.com customer caught my eye recently: It just really helped me to solidify what I really want my business to be. I don’t need this big huge gigantic “American dream” of the million-dollar business. It made me really realize what I want for my business — which is I always want…

We’ve been thinking about making the WordPress.com experience more attractive to small business owners for a while. But recently we’ve been learning things that made us question some of the ideas we had about how to do it, and helped us come up with some new ones. We started talking to actual small business owners.…

I’ve never run a business of my own —since I started working for a living, I’ve always done it for other people. Of course I’ve had personal projects, but it never got to the point that I had to deal with the difficulties and challenges of running a business, an actual company. Probably because of…

As a foodie, I’m always on the hunt for the next best food spot in town. I’ve bookmarked a bunch of places and have subscribed to local magazines to make sure I don’t miss new foodie spot announcements and food festivals in my area. The first thing I do before making a reservation or driving…

Websites are important to me. Not only because they’re how I make a living — though that’s a major factor! But they’re also an invaluable tool for me when I’m faced with tackling the unknown. Two years ago now, I bought my first house. Home ownership forced me to navigate information and services that were…