WP Builds

The WordPress news from the last week which commenced Monday 31st May 2022.

So you've tried Gutenberg, and you might like to or you might not! But one thing that you cannot really argue about is that it's got some room for improvement. During the last few release cycles there's been more and more talk about block patterns and how they're going to make WordPress website building more straightforward. Block patterns are a collection of blocks that have been built and saved away for future use. So think about a typical use case, you have a hero section of your website that you might use over and over again. You build it one time, adding in a variety of blocks, and once you're happy, you save it and then later you can add it into any other part of your website with the click of a button. But here's the problem. The block editor is still a little but, how shall we say it... fun to use. It's got some quirks and you might not find it as easy as you'd wish to get pixel perfect patterns. Step in Extendify. They have a suite of pre-made block patterns which you can use. It's really all about making life simple. They're all built on top of WordPress Core blocks so there's no lock in and you can use them to learn how to build your own block patterns.

Another episode of the WordPress Business Bootcamp where we try to go right back to the start and unpick the process of building sites for clients. Today we're on to the tricky subject of 'Design Aesthetics'! Aesthetics affect a brand's credibility and perception. The look and feel is probably the thing that first hit us first and is most important to our clients. But the problem is that aesthetics are subjective, there is no agreed way to deliver such things and we have to find some way to avoid design by committee (the client seeking outside parties) or the loudest voice winning without reference to the overall goals. So how we might do this is the subject of the podcast today. Remember that there's a dozen other episodes in this series prior to this, but we'd love to get your thoughts on this one... tell us where you get your inspiration and how you handle this with your clients.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 9th May 2022.

So there's loads of WordPress tools out there that will help you create your WordPress websites. Chances are that you've tried out a few and have some favourite which you use most of the time. New tools are coming out all of the time and this episode is about one of those new tools... Builderius. I can already here you starting to sigh. You're thinking that there's no need for another tool, there's already too many and they all do pretty much the same thing. Well Volodymyr Denchyk is here to try to explain why Builderius is different. And, well, he's got a point. This is not a Page Builder like you might have used before. It's more... what's the word... technical. It needs more from you, the website builder, and it return it promises that it'll give you almost unlimited possibilities back. It's it point, click, drag and save? No. Does that mean that it's not worth looking at? Also, no. I think that it's got a place, especially if you want to make everything exactly as you want it. So, a technical episode, but well worth a listen. I just love it when new things like this come along.

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing Monday 2nd May 2022.

So today we're talking about UI and UX, user interface and user experience, and it's a really huge topic. We start off by what these crucial concepts are and how they differ and then we get into the weeds of how they can be broken down into more manageable components, so that both our clients and ourselves can understand them better. What makes for 'good' UI and UX? How can we test for all of this? Does the client need to be sold all this, or is it just a part of our job? How do we convince them that any of this is even relevant for their, as of now, unvisited website? As always we try to keep it simple and break it down into more manageable parts. Check out the episode and please leave comments to let us know how we're doing...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 25th April 2022.

So online courses are all the rage. We know that. Especially since Covid struck, people have been looking for ways to create extra revenue from the knowledge that they have, and well, courses are a good way to do that. Wishlist Member has been around for years, in fact I think that it's right up there with a few others as one of the oldest membership site solutions for WordPress. We talk about the history of the plugin; how it got started, why they decided to take a punt on a small but growing CMS, and how it's been going for the last decade. We then get into the courses add-on which allows you to create courses and link them to memberships. Check out the podcast...

This week's WordPress news for the week commencing 18th April 2022.