Teamwork Makes the Website Redesign Dream Work

Throughout the project, our team was emotionally invested in the work because we understood the importance of the final product to The Toy Insider team. There were undoubtedly many challenges along the way. Still, our engineers approached each positively, drawing on their expertise and experience to craft customized solutions that best achieved this website redesign’s success.

Developed in collaboration with the Adventure Publishing Group, The Toy Insider project was ambitious. The goal was to combine three separate websites into one cohesive, user-friendly platform for editors.

Considering this challenge, the strategy, design, and development teams worked diligently to create a WordPress Multisite project to meet client expectations. Here are a few of the features we developed for The Toy Insider.

Page Building Flexibility with ACF Gutenberg Blocks

The Toy Insider team is not your typical client who gets a website built and forgets about it for five years. This publishing group comprises an ensemble of writers and editors who create daily content.

If you are familiar with writing content or creating pages, you know that not every page has the same needs. Yes, templates are great, but having the flexibility to add new or remove unnecessary sections is priceless.

Our development team created a list of 25+ blocks. These functions gave The Toy Insider team the flexibility to create different pages precisely as needed without a developer’s assistance.

This, combined with the latest WordPress features such as theme.json file and new block pattern templating, has given the team more control over Gutenberg’s default and custom blocks. As a result, creating content has become faster and more customizable.

And the excitement from The Toy Insider team was loud and clear.

They can now create a page using WP Core Blocks and combine them with the custom-made blocks we made for them using their brand guidelines and colors.

All Import Export Pro to Bulk Upload Products

The Toy Insider provides reviews and articles about, you guessed it, toys. This means their database is humongous. Managing such a large amount of data can be a considerable challenge. So they relied on a plugin to import and update their toys database on their old site.

However, with the updated functionalities of their new site, The Toy Insider needed a plugin that could support advanced features, including ACF. We recommended using All Import Pro, a trusted plugin WebDevStudios (WDS) uses with various clients to handle migration needs.

Our team met with Adventure Media’s Operations Manager, Bill Reese, to discuss the data structure required. Together, we created a template allowing the Toy Insider team to easily bulk upload products, including essential information such as product name, image, taxonomies, price, age range, and more.

With this database management solution in place, The Toy Insider could seamlessly manage their extensive collection of toys and make updating their database more efficient.

Gift Guide Taxonomies

The gift guide sections are another element of The Toy Insider website crucial to editors and readers. Every year, the Toy Insider editors curate gift guides for the different seasons their readers eagerly await.

On their old website, building each gift guide was an activity that required a lot of work—outside of selecting the toys that would be featured. WDS engineers crafted an architecture with taxonomies that allow the Toy Insider editors to easily choose the taxonomies they want to feature on each gift guide and tag the products to be featured. This, combined with the Gutenberg blocks I mentioned earlier, means that creating a gift guide can be done with a few easy clicks.

Data Migration and Mapping

Data migration was a critical aspect of the Toy Insider project, given the team’s extensive content catalog that included hundreds of articles per year with multiple authors, tags, images, and other related elements. Our data architects did their magic, utilizing their vast experience and expertise to ensure seamless migration to the new website.

The migration process was complex, but our team worked diligently to ensure that all the valuable data was transferred accurately and with the utmost care. The data architects carefully mapped out the new structure for the Toy Insider site and created a plan for moving the data according to that structure. They also worked closely with the Toy Insider team to identify any required modifications to the data import process, ensuring that nothing was lost or altered due to the migration.

Once the plan was in place, our team worked tirelessly to execute the migration, handling each element with the utmost care and attention to detail. Ultimately, our data architects’ magic touch ensured the migration was a complete success, and all the valuable data was migrated to the new website without any hitches. At WebDevStudios, we take data migration very seriously and have extensive experience handling even the most challenging projects.

Reliable Partners for Website Redesign and Rebuild Projects

As a project manager at WebDevStudios, I take pride in seeing a project through from start to launch. The recent development of Toy Insider’s website was no exception. Our team worked diligently to create a platform that would make the everyday activities of the editors easier.

We developed features such as flexible page building with ACF Gutenberg Blocks, the use of All Import Pro for bulk uploading products, and gift guide taxonomies to streamline the process for the Toy Insider team.

WebDevStudios becomes your partner when we work on your website project. From our strategists, designers, and project managers to engineers, we like to understand the ‘why’ behind what we’re trying to accomplish to provide the best solution to solve your problem.

If you’re looking for a reliable and experienced team to partner with, don’t hesitate to contact WebDevStudios to achieve your dreams of website redesign success.

The post Client Success Story: The Toy Insider Website Redesign appeared first on WebDevStudios.

I have been working remotely for six years now, but I remember how hard it was when I decided to make the shift. That’s why I feel it’s important to share these communications tips for remote work.

Originally, I had been working with my team for a little over a year when I decided to move to another country and continue with the contract remotely. Communication with everyone at the office was the hardest part.

I felt alienated and like an outsider. The company was not used to having remote workers, even when it was a global company with offices in more than 14 countries around the world. I lasted less than a year at that big company after going remotely.

Fast forward five years: I have now worked with two different companies where their teams are 100% distributed. Both have a remote work culture that supports team building and successful communications.

In this time, I have found my golden rules when it comes to communication for remote work. I love remote working so much that I don’t think I would be able to go back to an office five times a week. Here are my tips.

Choose the Right Tools

If we review the basic communication diagram, it is composed of a sender, a receiver, the message, and the channel. While the channel is always a crucial element of every communication, in remote communication, it plays an even more important role.

Nowadays, there are so many digital communication tools. Choosing the right one might seem like a daunting task. From email providers, project management software, ticketing systems, instant messaging, and video conferencing, the list seems never-ending. 

Different Situations Require Different Tools

With all of this, I’m not saying that you should choose only one tool. There’s not such a thing as one size fits all.

What I’m trying to say is that depending on the message, the channel should be different. For example, it is better to use a video conferencing tool such as Zoom when you are presenting a new idea or design to a client.

In another instance, a simple email should be enough for sending an update regarding project status. For internal teams, a quick Slack message is enough for communicating that you are out for lunch, but a ticket is better when you need to assign a task to a coworker. 

My first communication tip for remote work is to make sure you are choosing the right channel for each situation. If you are curious about what we use at WebDevStudios, we wrote a blog post about our communication tools.

Over Communicate

Continuing with the communication diagram, we see that another important aspect of communication is that the message needs to be encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver.

When we don’t know the person we are communicating with, or when we come from different cultures and backgrounds, this is even more complicated. Therefore, over-communication is always preferred. 

One of my favorite ways to over-communicate is to ask questions. Questions allow you to get more information and to make sure that you understand what is being said.

On the other hand, as a sender, you can ask questions or ask the receiver to paraphrase what you just said to make sure you’re both on the same page. A very common mistake is to think we communicated adequately when in fact, the message being understood is completely different.

Another communication tip for remote work is this—add visuals to help. As a project manager, one of my responsibilities is to create and assign tasks to developers. When I’m describing a frontend change, I always like to add a screenshot or visual aid to help my team understand what I’m trying to say. 

See These Scenarios

Scenario 1: I create a task that reads as follows, “Home page: change the color of the CTA ‘learn more’ that is located next to the ‘Get Started Today’ button to orange.”

Scenario 2. I create a task that reads as follows and includes a screenshot, “Home page: change the ‘learn more’ CTA font color to orange #F4713D.”

In Scenario 1, if I’ve been working with that same developer for a long time and this project is all they have on their plate, they would probably understand it.

However, more often than not, our teammates are working on several projects and tasks at the same time. They don’t have the time to invest in trying to understand my instructions.

They might choose the wrong orange or would have to spend time going through the brand’s style guide to find the correct orange. Others might return the task back to me asking more questions.

In the end, that is time that we’re losing. Plus, our working relationship will be affected since they will feel that I’m making them lose their time by sending half-baked tasks.

In Scenario 2, even if this is the first time communicating with this person, the message is easy to understand due to the visual aid included. Over-communication allows us to add more context and information to make sure that the message being sent and received is the same.

Speak Up

One area where I think many people new to remote working struggle the most is speaking up. We all know that micromanagement is never a good tactic. It takes too much time for the manager to do it, and it makes the employee feel like they’re not trusted.

When we are managed in terms of outcomes, there’s no easy way for the rest of the team to know what are we working on and how are we doing until the project or task is finished.

This is why speaking up is a great communication tip for remote work. Let your team and manager know what are you working on. Plus, tell them if you have any challenges or require assistance.

Many teams that follow a Scrum framework, use daily scrum meetings to do exactly this. However, daily scrums are only 15 minutes and many things might be left unsaid.

I encourage you to speak up TODAY!

• Do you think the technology selected for a project is not the correct one? Say it!
• You don’t understand a task you received and have some questions? Ask them!
• Do you have a new idea to save costs on a project your team is working on? Speak up!
• Are you up to your neck and need help to finish on time? Ask for help!

Some of these situations are easier to be solved when we are in an office together. Your team can literally see you staying late at the office and arriving super early. Or, your teammates notice that you’re skipping lunch or not talking to anyone.

It is easy to realize that you might need help if the team wants to finish before the due date. But if they’re not seeing you and you don’t say anything, how are they going to know what you’re going through?

Bonus Tip: Don’t Forget That You Work with People

Something that I’ve seen a lot when working remotely is that coworkers’ communications get reduced to work-related conversations. Make an effort to remind yourself that you are working with humans.

Take the time to know them and how they like to communicate. I find it a lot easier to work with people with whom I have taken the time to connect with. It allows me to understand them, their background and make the proper adjustments to my communications.

Conclusion

Whether you want it or not, remote work is here to stay. One of the best ways to adapt to it is to improve your communication skills.

Are you looking for a team of technologists and project managers who know how to successfully communicate in a remote work environment while building amazing websites? Contact website agency WebDevStudios. 

The post Communication Tips for Remote Work appeared first on WebDevStudios.