 I've been working in tech fees for the past seven years. We've been expertly, traditionally we have an experiment with you, but today we will be talking about evolution of UI-UIs in WordPress. How many of you know what UI-UIs actually is? Hands up please. Wow, nice job. Can somebody tell me how do you define UI and how do you define UIs? Anyway, please put your hands up. I believe we have high cameras around the hall. Why are you on a microphone? Somebody, oh, no worries, I'll tell you, is UI. And you're pretty, right? Okay, I'm pretty. Yes, but the way you come and interact with me and the experience you get while talking to me, that's UX, so that's overall experience. So whenever we talk about UI, UI comes into the part about how the system actually looks, how it looks, what are the colors, the fonts that we've been using, and many other elements. But experience is all about what happens when you click a certain button. Where does it take you? How do you feel while driving throughout the process? And this combination of UI and UX is something that has to be balanced whenever we are developing a system. Because just imagine, would you prefer look or feel? Like when you look at me, I might look pretty, I might not. That's different. But when you come and talk to me, if I do not talk back to you, how would you feel? Not a right balance, right? Also, if you are going for a date, imagine the guy or a girl that you're going on a date looks amazing. Now you'll get excited, right? The UI is amazing. The appearance of the person actually looks very handsome or very beautiful. But you go and sit down on a table, you have a conversation, and then you feel okay, the experience with this person is actually not very good. Would you prefer to go back on a date with that person? No. That's same with software systems as well. Whenever we use softwares or mobile application, what happens is it might look amazing, but it might not feel good. And creating a right balance is something that actually is needed. Now, let's look at this example. You can see it on the screen. Would you, how many of you would prefer the right side? So what our system says is, it says share or tweet. So major action here is we want to share a tweet. Now while sharing a tweet, we have two buttons. One is cancel, another one is retweet. And in the same one, we have buttons on both of the side, right? How many of you would prefer right? Put your hands up. We have few. How many would you prefer left? Okay, we also have few. What about rest? You don't want to tweet? Okay, with that, make sure that you tweet about WordCamp today. But let's go back to what design actually is. For the people that select what's on our right and for the people that would select on left, there is a process. So on the picture that was on our right, what did we have? Let's get back there. What did we have? Retweet was on this side of the hand. And on the picture on the right, we had retweet on the right side, right? So in design, what happens is, if you look through that in first image, when we click, our eyes moves from one to two. And quickly you would retweet. But in the other image that's down there, our eyes will go from one, it goes to two. Then again, it comes back to one. Why? Because that's how human psychology actually works. It works in the pattern of Z. And whenever designing any elements or any system or any website in our entire process of development or in design, that this is something that we need to think about. Usually, being a developer, I have been a developer myself, but the buttons are actually placed. Why are we talking about this? Are we from Twitter? No? I believe most of you have Twitter, don't you? But we are not for Twitter. However, we're talking about this because WordPress has been a platform which has been very easy to use and very convenient for many business houses. And whenever we talk about experience building or designing an amazing product, especially in WordPress, we're trying to solve a business problem. You might be developing a WordPress website for your customer. You might, we have very easy to access or develop e-commerce platforms and whatnot. So many things. And we're trying to solve the business need of the particular client that we're working with or even if we want to build a website, we want to deliver it out to our customers, right? So when we talk about customers, the customers would return if the experience that you built in your website would be very smooth and very easy to flow. Had WordPress not considered this today, we would not be at this conference and I might not even know many people in this hall because WordPress would have died out. To understand that, I'll run through a history. How many of you started WordPress development back in 2003? Anyone? Very less. So initially, when WordPress was started, it was very simple, very simple to use. Only like we used to directly write posts. There was nothing that we can see right now in WordPress. It was just a click and go. And installation method in the whole was very tedious. With release of WordPress 1.2, there was major introduction. We had introduction of plugins that has made life very much easier. Subcategories were introduced and there were so many other elements which would help us to enhance the experience of the customers as we go through. With introduction of WordPress 2.0, before 2.0, there was release of dashboard in WordPress 1.5 and with 2.0, the release was made very appealing. If you've seen the previous slide here in the image, you just see two colors, like very much dead and I don't think most of the people would be using it had it just been like this right now. But in 2005, WordPress introduced colors and more effectiveness like uploading images and it had not to be hard-coded. Moving to WordPress 2.5, there was a major redesign in entire dashboard as we see now. And it started giving opportunity to one click plugins. So uploading a plugin used to be very tedious previously which now would be done just with a click. How many of you inside this hall have had experience with this particular WordPress back in 2008? Anyone? I believe none, okay. So let's get to 2008, another major update that was in December with WordPress 2.7. And here, entire WordPress dashboard had arrangement of the pattern, which made user very friendly. Even today if you look at the WordPress dashboard, it's really easy to use, right? So they had this entire change in design and screen option was also introduced. Now let me tell you why. Because with increase in devices that we use right now, just imagine opening up a website and the element does not feel right. So if the adjustment would not be very much friendly, again, the WordPress would have died out. But with this change, it started giving options to screens as well and automation installation of plugins and maybe other things were introduced. Another major update that we had and hit hard is also WordPress 3.8. That was back in 2013. I believe some of us had already started using it. We have a person there. So with 13, it was also made accessible to mobiles because most of us had already started using mobile phone and with increased use of mobile phone, WordPress also did keep in mind that it has to be mobile friendly, had to have more color schemes because the design world was shifting accordingly. And with the shift of design world, WordPress also did make sure that, okay, this is something that we have to introduce to our customers. With Bebo, that was WordPress 5.0, a new, this was again another history that WordPress actually put through. How many of you use blog-based editors? How many of you use editors here? We have a few. Is it friendly? Do you find really useful? Yes, right? Even somebody that's not from a technical background and wants to make their own websites and stuff, they can easily get into the editor and start editing or building the website for themselves. And this was introduced back in 2019. So every time a new release came in, which happens in every other software companies or any other software that we use, every time with new release, there was new experience we could witness overall. And finally, we are here with 6.1 today. And I believe most of us in the hall already know how 6.0 looked like. And today with the release of 6.1, we are going to get more experience-based, more better experiences that we can deliver, not just to ourselves, but also to the customers if we are building websites for them. So usually whenever we design a system or develop a system at WordPress, there are a few things that we need to consider. And actually, we have been blessed with numerous systems out there, numerous features that helps to enhance the entire experience of using WordPress overall. I started using WordPress back in 2015, where I used to develop a simple website, a girl who started her career and I learned how to develop a website. And then I used to go back to my uncle and auntie and say, okay, I'll develop a website for you if you have a business. So that's how I began my journey. And with that journey, what I feel was, I did not know how to code amazingly, but what I knew was WordPress had amazing features that I can utilize to make the user experience of overall system better. So with that, it's been seven years now and the change in WordPress has been tremendous. And there's things like heat maps, which actually helps to enhance your user experience. Also in terms of content design, I think we have speaker here who is going to talk about content as well. And in terms of content design, now, let me give you an example. Imagine you're going to buy a dress, right? And you get into a e-commerce website. Now, you want a dress, but the website is showing you shoes in simple terms. So if content is not planned, would you really enjoy shopping in there? You would look for a search, you would filter out certain things and then find the desired item that you wanted. But had there been the dress on top while you were shopping, would your experience be good? Would it? Yes. Had shoes been there, would your experience be good? Now, there is a controversy here. Now, this completely depends upon what the business is actually for. If the business is trying to sell shoes first and trying to make it as their major product, the experience that you would build would be to see the shoes first because somebody who has come to buy your dress would definitely also need our shoes. So having a content planned accordingly enhances the overall experience that we built with the WordPress. And apart from that, we talked about having a mobile application like today. For example, if I say go to nipal.wordpress.com, many of you would maybe take out your phone, search your word cam nipal, right? And the website opens up in your mobile device. But if that website does not have elements that you want to see or the content is not very user friendly, would you again go back to the website? No. So that's why responsiveness is very much necessary. And in terms of responsiveness, another thing is with so many ideas that are floating around, some of you might even want to start building up a new systems or building up new themes and so many other things. So one of the other very important factor that we need to understand is site speed with heavy plugins that we use in WordPress or with many other hooks and other things that we use there. Site might be very fast or very slow. So maintaining the balance of the site is something that we need to consider for a better customer experience. Just keep yourself in the shoes of a customer. If you're building website for your own business, as maybe I'd like to give example of e-commerce again. So if you want to build a e-commerce website, you want to start up something and have been selling it in Instagram or Facebook, you could easily set up WordPress sites and create the experience there. But there are a few things that we need to consider and that would enhance the overall experience. So while designing a site for e-commerce or you want to start up something, then you would think yourself as a person that would want to buy that thing. But if you're developing a site for your customer, that is somebody else who wants to run their business with WordPress. So at that stage, what would you be doing? You would be keeping yourself in shoes of that business owner and then thinking about how they want their business to sound like, how they want their customers to have experience for and that's how we would do it. Another thing, plugin has been God for us. We have always found it very easy, very convincing to use plugins, but would you use all plugins that are available? Would you? No? How many of you would? So just imagine setting up a site, then you see recommended plugins for yourself and you add everything. Would you do that? Seems like all of us are confused, should we or not? Okay, so we would not recommend that. Having things that are nicely designed would be something that we would like to do. And on that term, there would be things like customer support if you're setting up e-commerce or in terms of site maintenance, they're very easy to access plugins that we can use and also security options. We have session on security today and having a secure site is something that we would want to do to enhance entire user experience in terms of how we want them to feel as well as how we want them to look. Another thing that we can use as a plugin would be tracking user behavior just to enhance the user experience. Why? Why do you think so? Anybody? Okay, I'll tell you why. I go to a site to buy a dress again. I like shopping, that's why I'm giving example of dresses here. So first time while I go to buy a dress, what I would do is search for red dress, maybe a party gown, and then I check out, right? That's first time that I'm using it. Again, I come back if the site had been capturing my behavior throughout the site, what would happen is the business owner out there would be able to understand what are the maximum number of people coming to their site are going to or what are the struggles. Maybe I add to cart and then I come back again. I search for things and then I go to cart again. So behavior completely depends upon how human wants to work. It completely depends upon what psychology you're sitting at, what kind of things that you want to explore through. So if the business owner tracks that entire process throughout the behavior, what would happen is he would be able to enhance the overall experience because he has data regarding what are the things that my customer want to track. And with that they would also be able to design that entire process accordingly. Now designing that entire process according to what is needed would be something that would add value to their business overall because next time when I go to buy the dress red in color, they would definitely show me recommended ones. So that's something that we as developers or designers in WordPress community have to consider while developing systems in the long run. Now another thing with the increase of technology and developers like ourselves here in the room, we have features that actually enhances the payment option as well. And when it comes to payment options, we can- We can find this video in your YouTube channel. You know, maybe, I'll just imagine. You went to a website- Okay, thank you. And then at the end of the website, what happens is there comes a QR which says, okay scan and send money. Would you enjoy that? Would you? Of course not, right? Who would again want to take out their mobile phones, scan, have a payment, and then enter the code inside the website? What would be good would be having payment option available in the website itself. So while having the payment option in the website itself, there are a few things that needs to be considered and that is considered as a very effective user experience. So if I buy numerous number of products having breakdown of those products and prices would be very user friendly because if I'm paying 10,000, I need to know what I'm paying for which kind of amount. I've seen websites which actually shows the total number at all. So that does not give good user experience in overall system. Another is I'm buying a dress and I want my dad to make the payment. So experience would be good if I would be able to share that payment URL with somebody else, isn't it? How many of you would want that? We have your hands, that's nice. So now customers here want that. That means we need to have it in the system. So now business owner or the designer who has been designing the system would have to consider that entire scenario and having that kind of payment system integrated would be really nice. Another thing is multiple payment system. I go to a website, I just see bank payment but I've not activated my bank for e-commerce platforms. Now for me, payment would be a hassle. We always have payment on delivery options but I would want to sit back at home, have the payment done and the thing delivered to my home. So at that kind of scenario having multiple payment options would be something that we would like to consider. And for that, multiple payment options like in Nepal, we have e-seva, we have Kalki, so many other applications that we can embed as a developer at this point. Another thing that I would recommend as a product designer in itself that we should be considering while designing the entire web applications or web systems while we develop WordPress would be creating a user journey map. Why user journey map? Can somebody tell me what user journey map actually is? Anyone? Okay, while you came inside this hall you were stopped at the gate to buy the tickets or register yourself, right? Then you came in, there was a hall where you had to eat food, right? And there is a hall here. There is a hall down there and there are stalls around. So the experience that you had was walking inside the door and then you see around, you see boards, you see images, like places to take pictures, you see sponsors lined about, lined about. So with that, you would definitely had a great experience and even for our website, it's same. So WordPress had made this entire user experience journey very easy for us and I think it's now our responsibility to make it user friendly for our customers. So thank you very much.