Prototyping web apps with Wordpress

Prototyping Web Apps with WordPress

Blaise Freeman and Ned Lomigora

April 30, 2012

[email protected] www.zeeen.com

@zeeenmedia

•  started with a proprietary platform

•  lacking market validation

•  slow to iterate

•  dependency on others for iterations

•  high cost

Technique: The Lean Startup Loop

Prototyping Tool: Wordpress

first version of zeeen book microsite

what customers said it felt like

what customers wanted

user feedback

and after many iterations... One stop login

Intuitive easy-to-edit admin interface

1. Zero Out Extraneous “Features”

add_action( 'admin_menu', 'wpzero_hide_menus' ); add_role( 'defaultuser', 'Default User'...

hide menus and widgets with a simple plugin

http://themble.com/bones/

strip out unessential theme elements

jQuery("#media-upload #save").click(e){ ...

if all else fails, hack things with jQuery

2. Use Existing APIs "Bad artists copy. Good artists steal." Pablo Picasso

3. Hack Core Responsibly-ish

Conclusion

•  use other people's code

•  speed trumps doing it "the right way"

•  WP core is useful for building Web applications

Thank You!

For plugin source code please email us at

[email protected]

www.zeeen.com @zeeenmedia