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Dan Hauk
Finding inspiration in the mundane
A few years ago I hit a creative block. Now, I know this is nothing new. Whether it’s a short block specific to a project or a longer period of burnout, everyone has those times where they’re feeling uninspired. I’ve certainly had my share of times where I felt it since then, but this particular…
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Michael Arestad
Let’s meetup
It’s easy to keep adding features to a product based on the instincts or personal desires of the contributors. This usually results in features or flows that no one asked for or particularly needs. Most open source products tend to operate this way. Fortunately, as open source projects gain popularity, the folks building and using…
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sarah semark
Prototyping for empathy
Earlier this month, I gave a talk at Frontend Conf in Zurich about developing and using empathy in the design process. In writing the talk, I came all sorts of wonderful stories of people designing prototypes to allow them to simulate the experience of another person, from Patricia Moore to St Francis of Assisi. This…
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sixhours
The Support Rotation: My Annual Empathy Booster
In addition to doing three weeks of support during our start at Automattic, every employee does an annual support rotation, putting aside their regular jobs for a few hours over the course of the year to join our Happiness Engineers in helping Automattic’s customers. I had the opportunity to do my support rotation at this…
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gareth allison
“I have no idea what I’m doing”
I didn’t go to design school. Truth be told, I fell into this whole design thing by accident.
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James Koster
The risk of homogeny when following positive trends in design
Trends constantly come and go in visual design. Some explode on to the scene and see mass adoption only to fade into obscurity as quickly as they arrived – remember burning text gifs? Others are slow burners that eventually become mainstays once proven to provide a verifiable benefit. Inclusive design is probably the most important…
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raoulw
Intermediate SVG Icons in React
One of the things Product Designers at Automattic get to do plenty of is to tinker with code. Whether it’s prototyping, writing CSS, or even playing with new tools. And that’s what I normally get up to on Hack/Trash Day – our internal day to work on something that’s not you’re regular job – fixing…
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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…
A fully distributed team making the web a better place.
A fully distributed team making the web a better place.
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