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Role of UI and UX in Designing a WordPress Website

Role of UI and UX in Designing a WordPress Website

Posted on May 10, 2020September 3, 2020 by rosseankofoot

The two of the most popular buzzwords, UI and UX have been in circulation for quite some time already and they continue to play an important role in designing a WordPress website like fuckbook. In general conversation they are often used interchangeably but although compatible, these are two completely different terms. The following sheds some light on the UI and UX difference.

UI is an abbreviation for User Interface. It refers to the tools people use in their interaction with machines. User interfaces come in many varieties – buttons, physical switches, selection switches fields etc. It basically denotes the way in which users interact with operating systems, applications and websites. A good user interface has to be clear, clean, aesthetically pleasing, familiar, efficient, intuitive, forgiving and consistent.

The term UX, on the other hand, stands for User Experience. It mainly focuses on how the user feels when using a product. It concerns all the aspects of the interaction between a user and a computer system. Apart from the physical interaction, it includes what people think about the user interface, the graphics they observe and their emotions and attitudes when operating the system. UX usually includes things like the look and feel of a button and the action necessary to reach a button, the user’s emotional responsive to having to click to button and how he felt afterwards, whether these actions worked the way he expected, etc.

There have been a lot of great design improvement in the UI and UX of WordPress-based websites during the years, not only for the end users but also for the site admins. The goal of these improvements was to build an effective and efficient UI, which at the same time ensuring great UX.

It is also interesting what the future holds for the role of UI and UX in a WordPress design. I believe that while some things will continue the way they are heading currently, other will improve and become more prominent.

Scrolling, for example, will be more widely-used and dominant in designing WordPress themes because of the high number of people using mobile devices. Users find it easier to scroll than click. Apart from improving the load time of a site (a key SEO element), scrolling is also more intuitive than clicking.

User interfaces will be flat. 3D buttons and shadows will become a thing of the past. Flat designs are simpler and more intuitive. They also work better for mobile devices.

Navigation will be faster and more efficient. Accessibility will become an increasingly important issue and there will be support for both standard gesture and mouse-free navigation. This means more focus on the needs of the end user. Navigation will use larger fonts with higher contract and specific colours to provide clues.

The minimalistic approach to design will take firmer roots. The screen will no longer be clutters by flashy things. Future layouts and designs will adopt minimalism.

Mobile devices will rule the market. The OS of Google also came from mobile devices.

There will be a wide use of dynamic backgrounds as background video is much faster in conveying a message. It also does it in greater detail than text. This is the reason why high-quality background visuals will be used often.

Tiles and cards have functional layout and an uncluttered look that quickly becomes standard for WordPress design. Ever since Pinterest made cards popular, they have transformed into a web design trend.

There will also be a greater need for typography customization in WordPress themes. Fonts will be chosen based on image, style preferences, mood, etc.

UX will have to be more personalized. On many retail sites, content is already personalized to the tastes and behaviour of customers. Analytics provides information on how visitors consume content. This kind of information is useful for websites to offer information the way the user intends to use it. One such example …

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WordPress Database Cleanup for Increased Website Performance

WordPress Database Cleanup for Increased Website Performance

Posted on January 25, 2020 by rosseankofoot

There is a good chance you will need to clean up your WordPress installation if you have been using the CMS for some time. WordPress website speed optimization allows you to significantly reduce the size of your database, resulting in a substantial speed improvement and allowing for smaller backups. Below we outline the ways in which you can achieve this.

Using WordPress over long periods of time piles up a lot of data like data from no longer used plugins, trashed comments, spam comments, post revisions, etc, which begs for WordPress database cleanup. By disposing of this type of no longer needed data, you can bring down the size of your database significantly, which will speed up your WordPress website.

Don’t let the phrase “database cleanup” frighten you. The procedure is not as complicated as it sounds.

Backup everything before you begin

Ensure you have a complete backup of your WordPress website before you begin. The changes you make using a cleanup plugin are irreversible, which requires from you to stay on the safe side of things.

Use a plugin such as WP-Sweep to clean up your WordPress database and speed up your website

After installing the plugin from the WP dashboard, just go to Tools -> Sweep to start the cleaning process. The plugin runs an analysis on the content of your database and provides a report on how much clutter you can clean. The Sweep report is nicely divided into sections, providing an easy way for you to determine what you wish to dispose of. The procedure itself takes some time and depends on the size of your database but the plugin updates you on the progress.

The nice thing about relying on this particular plugin, instead of using any other plugin that does a similar job, is that WP-Sweep uses the correct WP-specific function for deleting data from the database instead of relying on MySql queries directly. For example, the plugin WP-Optimize leaves data behind. This is the reason why I use WP-Sweep for WordPress website speed optimization.

Manual WordPress database cleanup

If you don’t want to go on with installing yet another plugin on your website, you can optimize the WordPress database yourself. This is usually done via phpMyAdmin. Many companies providing webhosting services use this software to administer all kinds of database-related tasks.

phpMyAdmin allows for easy database optimization. Just check all the boxes on the left side of your tables, choose “Optimize table” from the dropdown menu and press “Go”. Once the process completes, you will see a confirmation message.

Dealing with website bloat

The next thing you may want to consider is to reduce the so-called “dead weight” of your website.

– Post revisions – While it is great to have as many post revisions as you can have with your WP website, they contribute to the size of your database significantly. The first thing you can do about it is to limit the number of revisions the CMS stores at any given time. WordPress keeps an unlimited number of revisions by default and in order to reduce their number, you can place the following line of code into your wp-config.php file:

define( ‘WP_POST_REVISIONS’, 2 );

The number “2” here represents the number of revisions WordPress allows. By replacing it with the string “false”, you can disable post revisions completely and save the most space occupied by post revisions in your database.

A word of caution – limiting the number of allowed revisions doesn’t affect the number of revisions you currently have in the database.

– Spam comments – the plague of the Internet, the spam comments, also add to the bloat of your database.

Although WordPress deletes spam automatically after 30 days have passed, if you have a lot of traffic on your website, it may significantly affect its speed. You can easily speed up your site in the meantime by going …

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Several reasons to consider using WordPress for business

Several reasons to consider using WordPress for business

Posted on January 11, 2020 by rosseankofoot

Over 35 per cent of all websites on the Internet use the WordPress CMS. This includes the website you are currently on. Although you are presently viewing the blog section, you may take a look at the front page, which is a one-page website featuring my services. Websites powered by WordPress offer much more options and possibilities than we have heard about. Below are the top reasons why you should consider using this particular content management system for business.

Before I outline the main reasons why you should be using WordPress and what are its benefits for business owners, let us define what it is in essence. As a dynamic content management system, WordPress is widely used across the globe for the creation of professional, appealing to the eye and modern blogs and websites. The software is powering more than 75 million websites and its popularity is growing at an ever increasing pace. So allow me list the main reasons behind the growth in popularity of this particular CMS.

SEO friendliness

Because of the ease with which search engines can crawl websites powered by WordPress, they actually prefer them.
Ease of use
The platform is without a doubt easy to learn, friendly to novice users and intuitive. Even if you have no prior experience using WordPress, you can literally dive into it in a matter of minutes.

An outstanding support

The WordPress community is simply unbeatable as a resource and destination where you can acquire answers and solutions for all the issues you might be having with the software.

Scalable

For the reason that WordPress has a vast pool of themes and plugins, it isn’t difficult to develop a website, meeting any and all of the exact specifications of your business.

Mature and stable

Many people wrongly assume that having a WordPress website is unprofessional and only unexperienced individuals use it. In fact, powerhouses like CBS New York, CNN, Sony, Coca-Cola France and eBay rely on the CMS as their system of choice for running their websites.

Interactive

The tens of thousands of available plugins and themes allow you to crease a long-lasting and more connected business relationship with your clients through the use of testimonials, surveys, newsletter signups and share buttons.

Business awareness

WordPress is easily integrated with PayPal and makes it very easy to accept donations or payments on a website of your choice without paying any fees in advance.

Solutions for Ecommerce

A pool of Ecommerce solutions transform WordPress into the Ecommerce solution of your choice if you strive to convert your website into a digital store where you can sell a large range of products and services. The process is streamlined and made easy through popular plugins like WP eCommerce, WooCommerce and Shopp. They make the process of earning money online easier.

Responsive and mobile-ready themes

WordPress easily determines whether an individual is accessing your website via a mobile device or a web browser and configures the content accordingly. This eliminates the need to create a second website for small screen devices.
Also, there is a sea of available responsive themes, both free and paid, that can instantly transform the content of your website and make it look equally well on a wide range of devices using various screen widths.
Having said all this, WordPress is without a doubt an important consideration for your business website. The CMS can ensure the success of your business and transform your business venture into a successful online enterprise.…

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Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch with Underscores

Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch with Underscores

Posted on December 23, 2019 by rosseankofoot

If you are a WordPress enthusiast and wish to learn how to make a WordPress theme from scratch and what are the steps to create such a theme, you may wish to start with one of the available starter themes. This will undoubtedly save you a lot of time and as the folks behind Underscores claim, you will have a head start of approximately 1000 hours if you decide to use their starter theme as a base for yours.
While there may already be several online tutorials on

I urge you to take a look at the one by Web Courses Bangkok. It is a detailed course on creating a simple portfolio theme with _s, consisting of 14 articles that result in the development of a WordPress theme ready to be added to the WordPress.org repository.

While the design of the theme is theirs, I was actively involved in the creation of the theme itself, which also means that should you have any questions about the course, you can ask about it in the comments section below or contact Web Courses Bangkok directly.

If you have never worked with Underscores before, this is your chance to learn how to create your own theme. If you are already familiar with it, you can compare my process of developing a WP theme with yours.

…
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Advantages and Disadvantages of WordPress Frameworks

Advantages and Disadvantages of WordPress Frameworks

Posted on November 14, 2019 by rosseankofoot

Although many people are against the use of frameworks, they are good as they provide a solid foundation developers can use to develop websites. Some rely on front-end frameworks such as Foundation and Bootstrap while others use frameworks like Rails and Yii for developing web applications.

There are also a number of frameworks we can use with WordPress, generally consisting of two types – drag and drop frameworks and option frameworks.

Drag and drop frameworks allow a user to quickly build a website’s user interface. These frameworks often consist of a number of pages accessible through the WP dashboard. They allow pre-defined elements to be arranged on a page in a certain way for the user to see.

In contrast, option frameworks are quite different, are normally used for specific functionality and are closely connected to the WordPress APIs, among these the Meta Data API, the Settings API and some templates related APIs.

However, both types of frameworks exhibit certain advantages and disadvantages, and these are all important when considering whether you should work with a framework or not.

Advantages

The most obvious advantage to using frameworks is rapid development, which allows to assemble functionality at a much greater speed thus increasing the efficiency of your work.

Some people regard this as rapid prototyping but WordPress frameworks have developed so much that, when working with the API, you can create not only interfaces but also applications and sites.

The level of abstraction is yet another advantage to using a WP framework. They tuck away the repetitive code that we otherwise have to write. One such example is the Settings API, which is very cumbersome when we use it to get elements to show on screen. The use of frameworks solves this problem by presenting us with a way to generate options and settings with a much clearer code and fewer calls to functions.

Frameworks also offer the means to melt the difference between what is expected to happen and what happens in reality. The perfect example for this are the drag and drop frameworks. They present you with a number of regions to work with like header and footer areas, content areas and sidebars. They also have a number of containers in which you can place those regions. The end result looks identical on both the front and the back end.

You can do the same with API-specific frameworks. Writing code doesn’t have the visual nature of the drag and drop frameworks but API-specific frameworks come packed with clear function names and classes, as well as other facilities that help understand the way in which all software pieces come together.

Let us say you want to create a setting in the dashboard of WordPress and generate a textarea supporting plain text and nothing else. This means you will have to label it, validate, sanitize and display the data. If you use a framework for the task, instead of doing it the way it is described in the WordPress codex, it can be done with a single call to a function.

Disadvantages

When you are using a framework, you are creating dependency between WordPress and a third-party code. If your code is dependant of a framework, which in turn is dependent on WordPress, then what you can do with the framework is limited to the latest WordPress version the framework supports.

Choosing a framework which is often updated to be compatible with the latest version of WordPress is important. This allows you to update your project and sync it with the most recent WordPress version.

However, if the framework is lagging behind the latest WordPress version, your code will only be as secure and updated as the version of WordPress it supports.

Then there is the issue of deprecation. Frameworks often use deprecated functions no longer used by WordPress. This requires from you to wait for the next release of your …

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WordPress Migration

WordPress Migration

Posted on November 2, 2019February 26, 2022 by rosseankofoot

If you own or maintain a WordPress website, there is a very high probability that you have already considered looking for a new hosting company on more than one occasion. This is the reason we put together this tutorial for migrating a WordPress website.

Perhaps you are fed up with the slow performance of your website, failing database connections or less than adequate customer support.

Many hosting companies just fail to put up the necessary infrastructure that could tolerate host failures. They are forced to run at their peak capacity and cannot deal with a single host failure. This in turn is a blatant disregard of the best practices.

Before WordPress migration

Prior to migrating a site, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

  • Are your present and future hosts running the same web server? – If both webhosting companies run an Apache server, you shouldn’t expect complications. If they do not, however, and you are migrating from an Apache to Nginx server, for example, you may need to make certain configurations to ensure your website runs smoothly on the next server.
  • Are your current and destination hosts running different PHP versions? The difference between PHP 5.3.2 and PHP 5.2.3 could have a substantial impact on WordPress or on some of the plugins the CMS uses.
  • Are both hosts running different MySQL versions? Ensure your new host runs MySQL 5.0 or a more recent version. Anything below 5.0 won’t cover the minimum requirements for a successful WordPress migration.

Moving the content

After you have successfully uploaded the wp-content directory, containing the static files of your site, to the new host, you can use the import/export feature found in the Tools menu of your WP dashboards to restore the site’s content.

This is a straightforward task that doesn’t require from you to directly interact with the site’s database.

This is great for a situation in which you already have a WordPress installation on your new host. Because you already have a new and functional WordPress site, you don’t have to overwrite the wp-config.php file in the main directory of your installation. Doing so will break the connection with the database.

This is the simplest method for exporting all types of data from a WordPress site, including pages and posts, comments, custom post types, categories, custom fields, custom taxonomies, tags, users and theme attributes. Be cautious, however, that this method is not the same as restoring a full database backup. While it is true that you may get all your content up and running on the new hosting, you could leave something behind.

Working with the database

As WordPress requires MySQL, it is assumed safe to claim that more than 99% of all WP websites use it, and all hosting companies will provide you with the number of MySQL database you require for a certain price.

phpMyAdmin is the tool which allows you to interact with a WordPress database. This application for managing MySQL databases makes it simple and easy to work with a database through a browser. Exporting the WordPress database with phpMyAdmin is a straightforward task, a part of the migration process, and the web provides countless tutorials on how to do it.

Modifying the wp-config.php file when necessary

After you transfer the static files of your site from your old to your new hosting via FTP, you have to ensure that the database connection is established properly.

If in doubt, examine, and when necessary, update the hostname, the database name, the user and the password credentials with those provided to you by your new host.

A word of warning: If you replace your existing wp-config.php file with the one from your old host, you will break the connection with your new database and render WordPress useless.

Housekeeping procedures

After the migration is successful, it would be great to delete the parts of your old WP installation you no …

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WordPress Theme Customization

WordPress Theme Customization

Posted on October 27, 2019 by rosseankofoot

Have a WordPress theme and need some customization work done? Do not worry, you have come to the right place. We have done a lot of WordPress theme customizations to help customers like you.
Whether you have stumbled upon us thorough one of our partners, or you have discovered us on your own, we are willing to assist you with customizing your theme.

Just contact us via the contact form and let us know exactly what you need done and customized on your WordPress theme so that we can make it happen. Whether you need design customizations for your theme or to customize your code, we will work with you to make the necessary updates to suit your project or business.…

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Blacklist IP Addresses

How to Automatically Blacklist IP Addresses in WordPress

Posted on August 17, 2019 by rosseankofoot

WordPress isn’t the most insecure CMS there is although many people claim it to be so. It is the popularity and the wide use of the CMS that attracts most attention from hackers. The number of brute force attacks WordPress users are subjected to have been on the rise in recent years. We often see websites with more than 10,000 login attempts in just one weekend. Therefore, the need to automatically blacklist IP Addresses in WordPress is obvious.

Because we have to be very vigilant when WordPress security is concerned and for the reason that we are after an automatic blacklisting of IP addresses, we need to consider a plugin adding such functionality.

Although my favourite plugin for WP security is the AIO WP Security & Firewall Plugin and it allows for blacklisting of IP addresses, it doesn’t do this automatically yet. The good news is that there is another, much lighter plugin that does just that. It is the IP Blacklist Cloud plugin and it is available for free download from the WordPress repository at WordPress.org.

Blocking IP addresses automatically in WordPress is necessary because it saves you a lot of unnecessary work of doing it manually and be constantly on the alert for brute force attacks. It is sometimes very hard to block even one intruder as hackers are smart and often use proxy servers with different IP addresses

to try to gain access to your site by hammering it with a combination of usernames and passwords.

Because you may be getting hundreds of failed unauthorized access attempts per site per day, you want to be blocking IP addresses automatically. Blacklisting a lot of IP addresses across a lot of websites each day is a hard and unpleasant task. My way of doing this is by using the IP Blacklist Cloud plugin. It allows you to block certain intruders by IP, instead of blocking a particular user when the failed login attempts exceed a certain number.

Another handy feature of the plugin is the ability to see a number of details for all those who have attempted a brute force attack against your website. If you have questions on how to block IP addresses with this useful tool, just visit the aforementioned plugin page, read its description, go through its documentation and when in doubt, open a support question.

Be careful not to blacklist yourself. Sometimes you also make the mistake of typing the wrong password. It is usually a good idea to whitelist your username. The plugin allows it.

Although there are a lot of WordPress security plugins and IP Blacklist Cloud is neither the plugin that offers the most options and the most comprehensive security nor it is the best WP security-related plugin there is, it is my plugin of choice when automatic blacklisting of IP addresses is concerned.

As it is with all of your websites, you want to prevent hackers from accessing your admin panel and making your life miserable. Be cautious of brute force attacks and if you can’t find a better plugin that does the task of blocking IP addresses in WordPress, give this one a try. It is free, easy to use, and only takes a few moments of your time to set up properly.…

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Web Design Trends to Expect

Web Design Trends to Expect

Posted on August 9, 2019May 27, 2020 by rosseankofoot

With each passing year web design is growing at an ever faster rate and with each passing day there are more and more awesome things happening. It would not be difficult to guess that new and exciting developments are just around the corner in 2015.

Although we have already seen a lot of trends in 2014, and these are likely to continue in 2015 too, it is time to outline the most likely trends to emerge in 2015.

While many people have their thoughts still focused on the year 2014, some are eager to learn what web design trends are likely to dominate in the year 2015.

Lengthier designs

iphone

The majority of new website designs are lengthier today when scrolling down the page than they used to be in past years. As the popularity of mobile devices increases, the need for scrolling, instead of linking, as a way to present content on a page, becomes more evident. This is especially true for homepages.

Users find it easier to scroll down a page instead of clinking to find additional information.

The long scrolling trend is evident not only on homepages though. While sites with long scrolling designs have already won popularity, scrolling has a lot of benefits and is not limited to homepages. Product and about pages also use it as a way to display a range of content in an elegant way.

The iPhone 6 page of Apple, for example, demonstrated the trend towards long scrolling pages outside of its homepage. The main iPhone 6 page has been designed as a long scrolling layout and showcases all of the features and specifications of a product.

Additionally, the site employs a slick animation effect to ensure a visually enhanced scrolling experience.

Interaction and storytelling

Although producing great content is very important for your website, it is a big plus to be able to tell a story. In the year 2015, web design will most likely emphasize on storytelling.

Take for example the website of Space Needle. It nicely conveys the facts around the Space Needle through storytelling and the custom-made design supporting it. What is more is that it is perfectly in line with the aforementioned trend for long scrolling.

SpaceNeedle

The website Space Needle is also an example of another 2015 trend – interaction. The designs of websites are becoming animated and more interactive, with the aim to present particular content in a more appealing and unique way.

The removal of large background images from the header

The past few years have seen the use of large images as header backgrounds with text on top. This was the first element of a website presented to visitors. It quickly became clear that in order to stand out from the crowd you had to do the opposite.
Some websites have decided to do just that with their designs and preserve the large headers but remove background images. However, not following this trend wasn’t the only option for such a consideration. The owners of such sites also tried to optimize speed and performance.
The site of The New Wave Company is a clear indication for this. Its large header and page-centered typography welcome its visitors. What the design seems to “lack” is a large image in the background behind the heading.

TheNewWaveCompany

All this is done with a taste and doesn’t follow the design of other websites that use large images for header backgrounds.

Simplicity and removal of unessential design elements

One of the pillars of web design is that a design is only complete when all unnecessary and unessential elements have been disposed of. As websites are looking for a way to simplify their designs, I trust we will be observing more websites following this trend by abandoning non-essential design elements.
The aforementioned website of The New Wave Company did exactly that by deciding not to have a huge header background image.

Centered, fixed-width

…
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Adding a Simple Gallery to Your WordPress Theme Without a Plugin

Adding a Simple Gallery to Your WordPress Theme Without a Plugin

Posted on June 26, 2019 by rosseankofoot

The gallery shortcode allows you to add a new gallery to your WordPress site’s page or post. However, you often need to style it in a certain way so that it inherits the styles of your existing theme to ensure better user experience. The following code snippet does just that and adds a pleasant hover effect to the pictures in your gallery:

.gallery { margin: 0 auto 18px; }
.gallery .gallery–item {
float: left;
margin–top: 0;
text–align: center;
width: 33%;
}
.gallery–columns–2 .gallery–item { width: 50%; }
.gallery–columns–4 .gallery–item { width: 25%; }
.gallery img {
box–shadow: 0px 0px 4px #999;
border: 1px solid white;
padding: 4%;
background: #f2f2f2;
}
.gallery img:hover {
background: #8a857d;
}
.gallery–columns–2 .attachment–medium {
max–width: 92%;
height: auto;
}
.gallery–columns–4 .attachment–thumbnail {
max–width: 84%;
height: auto;
}
.gallery .gallery–caption {
color: #2d2824;
font–size: 13px;
margin: 0 0 10px;
}
.gallery dl, .gallery dt { margin: 0; }
.gallery br+br { display: none; }

Just add the code above to the stylesheet of your theme and make a new page in your WP dashboard. Then insert the shortcode in its body and add the images you want to have in it, this will also increase your site SEO value. Of course, your theme will be using a different color scheme and you might need to change a color or two.

If you want your theme to support the gallery post format, you should add the ‘gallery’ format to the add_theme_support function in your functions.php file like this:

add_theme_support( ‘post-formats’, array(
‘aside’, ‘gallery’
) );

Now, whenever you start a new post, you have an option to choose a gallery format. Do so and add theshortcode to the body of the post as you did before with the page. Publish the post and it will be automatically populated with a gallery of images.

…
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Recent Posts

  • Role of UI and UX in Designing a WordPress Website
  • WordPress Database Cleanup for Increased Website Performance
  • Several reasons to consider using WordPress for business
  • Create a WordPress Theme from Scratch with Underscores
  • Advantages and Disadvantages of WordPress Frameworks

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