Woo State of Woo State of Woo

     This talk is the initial installment in a series of talks that will highlight the sessions taking place at the WooConf. The talk can be viewed online or could read a selection of the highlights on this page.

It has had a remarkable growth rate over the past five years. It has more than 32 million downloads. It also has an astounding three million active users as well as hundreds of contributors to the Open Source project. This isn't just an application plug-in anymore. We're a platform, with an active and vibrant community.

Because we've been fortunate to achieve success, we now have influence. In the words of the famous saying:

Powerful power comes with the obligation of a large amount of responsibility.

The team at iSpyder takes their responsibilities very carefully. We've taken seriously a look at the whole platform and are working on methods to ensure it is up to the expectations of its customers.

Since the beginning of this year, we've spent a lot of effort and time making items that can last for a long time and be stable over time for three types of users including store owners, the builders of stores, and extension builders. I'd like to share some details about our research and lessons that we've learned, as well as an details of where we're going.

An emphasis on Design and the user experience

John Maeda joined Automattic in the last year ago. John is in charge of ensuring that we provide the best user experience across Automattic, and that everything that we create is accessible.

The concept of inclusion as a philosophy is essential to us. Our goal is to make the world of publishing and commerce open to all. This is crucial because our work will only get better when it is surrounded by diverse viewpoints. They can enable us to improve our understanding and depth when figuring for the most effective way to solve problems.

The goal of our company is to provide publishing and commerce accessible to all.

To support these efforts, we're spending longer in order to understand the people we work with in the most basic and comprehensive way. We're looking to ensure that we're following the right path so we'll be able to have the maximum positive effect on the people we serve. We're conducting more thorough research across the world, including tests and interviews with almost all people we're able to reach.

This year was one of the best in this regard and helps us to make significant enhancements for each stakeholder in our platform.

A Look at Store Builders

This spring, we released 2018, we released 3.0. The most significant improvements to this release are abstractions like the brand new the"CRUD" (Create from scratch and replace, update and delete) classes and the version 2 of REST API. Abstractions enable us to distinguish the is the most important components of the API in itself, which is essential to scaling and giving clients the capability to customize the various aspects they require in their business.

This is a significant move towards an innovative, abstracted way of development built on APIs. This allows us to benefit from the many advantages that are available with WordPress however, it's done in a different way that is tailored to the needs of the e-commerce industry. It doesn't serve the larger system by allowing anyone to hack at the simultaneously to discover the information they require in a constant manner, and this causes interoperability issues as well as changes. We'd like to see this change and become more rational so that there are no unanticipated conflicts.

Releases

When we first introduced 3.0 it wasn't a smooth launch. The team members of our company were busy aiding users in overcoming issues. Kudos for our Happiness Engineers and the Core development team that did amazing task in meeting the needs of our users.

The lessons we learned through the process have influenced our method of creating . We learned that we're in need of a better updated and up-to-date users' experience. We're committed to making important improvements on a regular basis. It's impossible to introduce new features if users are scared of the thought of upgrading.

It's hard to launch new features if people fear changing.

This isn't just our job but also an essential obligation to our extension builders as and the store builders. We're working on systems that will allow us all to cooperate to achieve this. We're determined to make our upgrade and maintenance experiences the ultimate satisfaction.

We're determined to make our upgrade and maintenance experiences unbeatable.

Our activities here at Automattic include:

• Releases that occur on a regular basis which is usually every quarter (we refer to these in the form of "release trains").
• End-to-end and unit tests for our core as well as all our extensions.
• Testing and manual upgrading with many sites prior to the launch.

Things to look forward to in the near future are:

• Faster database tables designed for ecommerce.
• New event queues.
• Improved checkout procedures.
• There's plenty of data-driven research and information. If the person who runs the business doesn't know the condition of their business it's difficult to make the correct decision on what they can do to improve their operation.

Did you know there's an official-licensed Develop blog? Follow that blog If you're looking for their route map.

Extension Subscriptions

This is a major improvement to the efficiency of our store designers, so we have many stores with a large and expanding customer base. We have realized that we have the ability to provide the store builders with tools that will help them manage massive sets of stores as well as customers.

Concentrate on the Store Owners

We've invested a great deal of time and effort into ways we could make it simpler to store owners with minimal technical knowledge to begin. This is done through an array of the most modern cloud-based services as well as an easy UX for customers (UX). We're offering the entire range of cloud services at no cost to make it easier for stores to get up and running more quickly.

In 3.2 we introduced an onboarding procedure that's based on our cloud-based service. New users can now receive payments, real-time shipping rates as well as accurate sales tax information in 5 minutes prior to creating the first product!

The product we're creating was developed by using Automattic's experience and expertise and the cloud technology infrastructure. Instead of building and maintaining distinct platforms, we're combining all our efforts to create more reliable services, and we're doing it much faster.

We'll also make the most of Jetpack as it is an extremely robust platform that can provide cloud-based services. We're currently working with the Jetpack Jetpack team to add solutions that address the specific demands of online shopping. Expect to see more cloud-based offerings coming out within the coming months.

Focus on Extension Developers

Extension developers' primary goal is to increase the quality of their services. There have been a number of questions over the last year from extension developers who want to offer additional products to the website.

Also, it has been noted that current extension developers want more interaction with their clients and more control over their product pages and documentation. It's logical to believe that creating extensions is an enterprise of software and that the performance of a software business is often dependent on how the developers interact with their clients.

After much research and planning, we've implemented important changes to fulfill these requirements.

• We're offering extension developers more commissions.
• Developers are now in greater control over their web pages and documentation, along with other components of the customer experience while using their product in the marketplace
• Developers now have more personal access to customers through their customer support to develop intimate relationships with their clients and receive firsthand details regarding their requirements.

One of the changes we made to our marketplace that we introduced last year was the decision to extend memberships for a all price (rather rather than at a fifty percent reduction). At the time we made this decision, we had certain adverse reactions. We made every effort to limit the negative effects for the clients who called us. once again, I congratulate everyone on the Happiness Engineers for their empathy and diligence with these conversations.

It is crucial to explain the reason we changed to ensure the safety of our users as well as to ensure the longevity for the users we support. Extensions available on the market are top-quality extensions that will justify paying for on continuous basis. We are convinced that this model of pricing will set the standard for high-quality software and service to both users and developers of extensions.

We are convinced that this price system will establish the proper standards for quality of the software as well as support for both the users that use it as well as the those who develop extensions.

We're also trying to ensure that any profits back into the marketplace through increasing the amount of commissions we pay to developers as well as enhancements to support for the main plugin provided by Automattic. Additionally, we've added live chat support and significantly increased our service's response time.

In conclusion, and looking at the future

The time that passed by was a busy one for the community. The platform is growing and increasing, while the number of users is growing. It's truly amazing and heartwarming to those fortunate enough to be in the midst of all this. This is all happening together, which is a true testament to the potential in open source. Automattic Automattic We're very happy with the results we've achieved and are looking at what's next will bring.

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