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…

The purpose isn’t to shock and awe you. You may even guess what will happen next. Or at least, you won’t be surprised. This is okay! It doesn’t mean it was a waste of time. Recently, I was part of two foundational research studies, each for different products. In both, I heard different co-workers say…

Tinkering on websites has been a thing for me since the late ‘90s. The first site I made was an Angelfire powered, unsanctioned site for the local ski hill. (Corel draw, java applets, and embedded weather gifs, oh my!) Over the years I’ve continued to tinker, creating new sites for myself, and friends. Learning new…

I’ve run a few businesses in the past, and can tell you from first hand experience, it is no joke. I ran a physical products business using WordPress, and WooCommerce. I went from focusing on just design (pre business), to focusing on everything (while running business). Before starting the business, I was aware of the…

As designers we often do research or get research insights by a specialized team. This research work is always impactful and can lead to smaller and large changes. Over the years, I realized that one of the challenges of research — especially the kind that is wider, deeper, and richer — is to make it…