Want to get involved? See the handbook and optionally drop into #design to chat. Most active design work happens in the block editor project, consider dropping into Needs design or Needs design feedback.
There’s a WordPress Component Library in Figma. Duplicate to edit, direct access is reserved for the design team.
These are the results of a user research study investigating mental models related to building and customising a website. Results are split across five posts:
Background | Segments: Bloggers · Small Businesses · Site Builders | Conclusions
The research group grouped participants into three segments, based on their current understanding of how people use WordPress. These segments are based on a handful of data points and warrant further study to confirm the categories. For now, these segments allow researchers to group WordPress’ extensive userbase into behavioural categories and learn characteristics specific to each group.
For this study, we focussed on three segments: bloggers, small businesses, and site builders (people who build sites for others). Let’s learn about bloggers first. (Hat-tip to @jarahsames who studied this segment!)
Bloggers wear many different hats: they are the writers, admins, and IT for their websites.
Bloggers are generally self-taught and look online for answers to their technical questions. This can be a pain point when the content they find is either poorly written or too technical for them to understand.
Most of the WordPress controls are very simple and easy to figure out.
Bloggers don’t have a full staff to help with their websites. Instead, they are writing, editing, marketing, and acting as their own IT. They need to be very organized if they want to be successful.
[Do you post daily?] No. I wish I did. I only have time for about one post a week at the moment because it takes a bit of time.
Bloggers want their sites to look good, but the content is more important than format or styling. That said, bloggers spend as much time tweaking the site as they do writing an actual page or post.
I know I’m not going to have a blog that looks as good as Buzzfeed. I don’t want it to look like I threw it together.
A website is an outlet for a blogger to explore or share a hobby. This exploration reinforces their passion and the blogger finds themselves more invested. Many bloggers would like this to develop further into a professional pursuit.
If this was a product that I was starting to sell, I would probably have to hire somebody to market it for me.
