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Maria Scarpello
Lessons Learned Teaching Usability Testing with Gutenberg
As you might have read in previous flow posts, last week ended Automattic’s 8th annual Grand Meetup, where 600+ of us made our way up to Whistler, Canada for a week packed full of conversations, meetings, food, drinks, and an endless amount of opportunities to never stop learning. Automatticians have the option to chose to…
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Ola Bodera
From a marathon to a sprint
Developing and launching a theme on WordPress.com is a long, multi-step process that can take weeks, if not months in some cases. We would typically do it all alone, working in relative seclusion, sharing our progress only at certain points. This approach has a few drawbacks — it limits the potential for synergy, it makes…
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Ola Bodera
Cool Designs, and Flow
When I first started in design, I had this morning ritual where I’d go to a few sites that posted “daily design inspirations” (a long scroll of different work) to get into “flow”. What is flow? Flow, also known as the zone, is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed…
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Mark
Scrappiness is Happiness
Recently a design colleague suggested to “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution” and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Falling in love with the solution is easy because we had everything to do with it — it came from us. But when this happens, it’s difficult to see anything else. Our solution…
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Mel Choyce
Building 10 non-profit sites in 8 hours on WordPress.com
This past weekend, a few of my colleagues and I participated in Out in Tech‘s Digital Corps hackathon in NYC. Along with about fifty other volunteers, we worked to create websites on WordPress.com for ten international organizations fighting to protect LGBTQ+ rights. Because participants were constrained to building sites on WordPress.com, it was a great…
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Gary Murray
Designing for the minority
What do you see? What can’t you see? What does it feel like? Can you see any colors? Is everything just black and white? These are some of the questions I get asked when I tell someone I am color blind, or if they finally figure it out :) Being color blind is something I…
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Tammie
The benefits of establishing a feedback ritual
For the past few months, my day has started with going through the reviews and support forums for Gutenberg (the new editing experience for WordPress). When I started, I wasn’t aware of what benefits this would bring to me. I began out of a need, there were reviews and requests not being answered. The project was…
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Filippo Di Trapani
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…
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Ballio Chan
Computer, do my design work.
Imagine you step into your car for your morning commute, then the car starts driving itself. You realize you need to make a stop at the cell phone store, so you tell your car. You walk into the store where you’re greeted by a shiny humanoid who offers you the latest model of its product.…
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Kjell Reigstad
I will never stop learning
Last week, everyone at Automattic got together for our “Grand Meetup.” This is the only occasion each year that all 600+ of us are together in one place. With such a large group, there are many different things going on: meetings, projects, bonding activities, support rotations, and savoring amazing pastries. While there, we also have the…






