WordPress · Website building · Web development
Your site broke.
Here’s the fix.
Practical guides for the problems that actually stop a WordPress site: white screens, broken updates, themes that fight back. Written against a current install, tested before publishing.
Examples of WordPress theme layouts: a journal, a storefront and a studio site.
Topics
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WordPress Tutorials
Step-by-step guides for getting things done in WordPress.
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Troubleshooting
Fixes for the errors that take a WordPress site down.
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Themes
Choosing, customising and replacing WordPress themes.
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Plugins
Plugins worth installing, and the ones worth removing.
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Website Building
Everything around the site itself: planning, launching, maintaining.
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Website Tools
Reviews and comparisons of the tools site owners actually use.
Latest guides
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There Has Been a Critical Error on This Website: Reading the Real Message
The message is deliberately vague because it is shown to visitors. The actual error is in the log, and recovery mode will email you the file and line that failed.
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White Space in Web Design: The Element That Does the Grouping
White space is not emptiness waiting to be filled. It is the mechanism that tells the eye what belongs together, and it works before anyone reads a word.
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Website Style Guide: Writing the Decisions Down Before You Forget Them
A style guide is not a design deliverable. It is the record of decisions already made, so page forty looks like page one without anyone having to remember why.
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Website Accessibility Checklist: The Checks That Catch Real Problems
Automated tools find about a third of accessibility problems. This is the rest — the manual checks that take an afternoon and catch what actually blocks people.
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Mobile First Design: Why the Order You Design In Changes the Result
Mobile first is not about phones. It is about deciding priority while the screen is too small to avoid deciding, then adding space rather than removing content.
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Web Design Principles That Hold Up After the Trend Passes
Hierarchy, contrast, proximity, consistency and restraint. Five ideas that decide whether a page works, none of which depend on what is currently fashionable.