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When Chaos Invades: Keeping Your Freelance Business Going During a Crisis

Life is full of surprises. And just when you think you’ve settled into a routine, the unexpected can turn your world upside down. It can happen in the blink of an eye.

As I write this, I’m in the middle of such a disruption. Two members of my family are hospitalized with (non-life-threatening, thankfully) medical issues. With that comes not only worry but a slew of added responsibility.

Suddenly, the web designer who rarely leaves the house is rarely home. The things I typically do each day seem like a distant memory – even if it’s only been a short while since I’ve done them. Nothing feels the way it’s supposed to.

They say the last thing you should worry about in a time like this is work. But when you’re a solo entrepreneur, it’s hard to ignore. There are missed deadlines and projects in progress that have ground to a halt. Even the tiniest of tasks start piling up.

Right now, I’m trying to navigate this new normal. With that, I wanted to share some thoughts on living life and doing business during chaotic times. Of course, I’m still learning as I go. But here’s the good, bad, and ugly of it all.

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Be Honest Regarding Your Situation

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that honesty truly is the best policy. Yet it can also bring conflicting feelings during a crisis. This is especially so for an introvert such as myself.

Your instincts may tell you to keep private matters to yourself. Try and act as if everything is fine – business as usual. But what does that accomplish?

It feels like you’re just burying a situation that should be front-and-center. Some things are simply too large to sweep under the rug. Like it or not, these situations are going to impact your business.

Therefore, attempting to keep a brave face is pointless. If you’re struggling to keep up with projects and answer emails, clients will likely wonder what’s going on.

It’s better to come clean and let them know what’s happening in your life. This way, your clients will know that you may not get things done as quickly as expected. And that your availability will be limited for the time being.

Additionally, it opens the door to a whole new support system. Most people will empathize with your situation and send words of encouragement. They’ll also exercise patience as you try and piece things together. This is something I’ve already benefitted from and it does make a difference.

Prioritize What Matters

When you’re the only one in your office, there’s no one else to pick up the slack during your absence. It can lead to feeling like you’re drowning in a sea of work.

That’s why it’s important to prioritize things. Not every project or task has the same level of urgency. And there are likely things outside of work that require your attention, too.

The key is to focus on the highest priority items – the things that are better done sooner than later. Take care of your biggest clients and the most time-sensitive tasks.

And try to keep expectations (yours and theirs) realistic. That goes a long way towards making peace with whatever you’re facing. Everything else can wait another day or even a week.

Don’t Ignore Your Well-Being

Even if we humans can only be in one place at a time, we still try to do it all. This has been a difficult thing for me to grasp. I want to take care of everyone and everything. It’s like trying to climb Mt. Everest with a donkey on your back.

The burden may be heavy, but you can’t forget about yourself. Because, if you’re not well, how can you help others?

Being a home-based web designer makes this all the more difficult. I’m so used to taking care of client requests as soon as they arrive. Even when dealing with other things, I still have that urge to cross items off of my to-do list. It’s frustrating when that’s not possible.

Perhaps the solution is a two-part process. The first is informing clients of your limitations, as mentioned above. The second part is a matter of putting your phone down and keeping yourself in the moment.

Then there’s also a commitment to doing little things to help yourself cope. For me, a quick workout does the trick. But whatever helps you feel a sense of normalcy, go for it. You deserve the opportunity to rest and reset.

Getting Back to Normal Is a Process

I think it’s natural to want to get back to everyday life as soon as possible. It’s something I’m looking forward to. I’ve found that I didn’t miss the daily grind until it was taken away.

However, getting there can be a process – even after you’re past the initial crisis. A pile of work may be waiting. That can take some time to catch up on. Beyond that, the mere act of reestablishing a routine isn’t so easy.

It requires a lot of patience and a sense of gratitude. Being thankful that you’re through the worst of it and for those who supported you during a tough time.

And, hard as it may be, it’s worth remembering that business is only one facet of life. Whether you’re dealing with loss, an illness, or other difficult situation – use it as an opportunity for personal growth. The possibility of coming back stronger can only help you in both business and life.

The post When Chaos Invades: Keeping Your Freelance Business Going During a Crisis appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

WP Briefing: Your Opinion is Our Opportunity

In this episode, Josepha discusses the importance of co-development and testing for the continued growth and maintenance of the WordPress project. 

Have a question you’d like answered? You can submit them to wpbriefing@wordpress.org, either written or as a voice recording.

Credits

• Editor: Dustin Hartzler
• Logo: Beatriz Fialho
• Production: Chloé Bringmann
• Song: Fearless First by Kevin MacLeod

References

• 2.5 Usability Testing Report 
• WordCamp Europe 2021
• Pune Work Along (Self Study) Meetup
• French Mini-Translation Day, April 30, 2021
• April 14, 2021, Full Site Editing Go/No-Go Demo Recap
• Full Site Editing Go/No-Go Next Steps
• Test WordPress.org

Transcript

0:10

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the WordPress briefing, the podcast where you can catch quick explanations of some of the ideas behind the WordPress open source project and the community around it, as well as get a small list of big things coming up in the next two weeks. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Here we go!

0:39

Prior to Gutenberg, our current multi-year project that is changing the way we see WordPress, another multi-year project changed the way we saw WordPress. Starting in 2008, substantial changes to the WordPress interface came in a series of major releases, starting with WordPress 2.5. That was before my time in the project; I’ve only ever worked with the current dashboard in WordPress. But, from what I’ve read, the user testing that would have gone into it was a huge undertaking and very well coordinated. Now, WordPress has not taken on that type of robust testing project since, but starting around 2014 or 2015, a community testing practice was started. I’ve shared these calls for testing frequently, both on Twitter and in this podcast. But you may not really know why I find the testing program so valuable. So today, I’m going to explore with you the concept of co-developers in open source.

1:52

Open source software, like WordPress, is built by the people who show up. There are a few obvious groups when you think of software, the developers, designers, technical writers, folks who monitor the forums, and really, all the teams you find in our WordPress project. Co-developers or co-creators, if you’ll join me in making our tent a little bigger, refers to the users of an open source product who actively engage and contribute to the work by using the software and sharing any bugs that they find.

2:25

I mentioned this group in the episode about how WordPress improves. Specifically in that episode, I underlined that if you consider users to be part of the collaborative process, as long as people use your product, those people will have opinions about your product’s needs. And today, I’m extending that thought a bit further to say that, as long as there are opinions, there are opportunities.

2:51

When you know what isn’t working, you can focus your attention on a solution, you can focus on making sure that you can make it work. The existence of co-creators is one of the great things about open source. No designer or developer or product owner has to know every sort of user to be able to get feedback from them. If they show up, test the software and get their thoughts written down, then you can start to see patterns and common pain points. It is also, unfortunately, one of the great difficulties of being an open source project. After all, if users don’t show up, or don’t test, or don’t write down their feedback, it’s impossible to know what worked for them and what didn’t. And on top of that, with such a large percentage of the web being supported by WordPress in this case, not every problem is part of a pattern. And not all patterns are part of the current priorities.

3:54

Looking beyond that double-edged sword. Let’s say that this idea of a co-creator makes sense to you. And more than that, you feel like it describes you. What does it mean for you to show up in WordPress? There are lots of good ways to offer this sort of feedback and contribute to those patterns that can help us see through the fog. So I have for you a mini list and, of course, a bunch of links in the show notes for you. 

So some good ways. First, you can participate in any of the dedicated calls for testing. They are short and frequently have a guide. I participate in them and generally find them fun. I say generally because sometimes I also find them frustrating. That’s really okay too; the frustrations helped me to identify that I found a problem. And if I can find a problem, then I have saved someone else from finding that problem in the future. The second thing you can do is file a bug report with information about what happened when you ran into a problem and how someone like me could make your bug happen on their site. Bug

5:00

Reporting is one of the things I’ve grown to really love in my time and open source; I did not love it. At first, I was really scared to do it. I mostly used to send videos of the bugs that I found to other people and ask them to file the bug reports for me. But then, of course, I never knew whether they got fixed or not. So I was scared to do it at first. But once I figured out what makes a “good report,” I felt like I was helping circle hidden treasure on a map or something. I realized also not everyone’s excited about finding hidden treasure on a map. But I play video games and finding hidden treasure on maps is, like, a thing.

5:43

A third really great way to contribute like this is that you can join any community meeting to learn more about what’s happening now and in the future, or just to see what makes WordPress work. As a heads up, these meetings go really fast. And they’re all in text. And there’s sometimes, but not all the time, a little bit of jargon that you have to head to your favorite search engine to find. But I sit in on about half of them myself and get a lot of really good information about things that I’ve been wondering about, things that looked broken, but actually are functioning exactly the way that they should. And I just didn’t want them to function that way. And more often than not, I found out that something that I thought was broken, was already identified and being fixed. Those are three great ways to show up and help give feedback that helps make WordPress better and more functional for more people. 

There are also a few other ways that we see people trying to share that feedback that don’t work quite as well. And I’m going to touch on a few of them just because it’s important to know, as you’re trying to figure out how to get started with this. The first one is just tweeting your frustrations, and I get it like that’s literally what Twitter is for.

7:03

But also it’s hard to create a block from “I am frustrated, behold my hateful rhetoric.” Not that any of you, my dear listeners, ever tweet hateful rhetoric. Still, that is really hard for anyone to figure out what was actually wrong in that moment. Another thing that is not the most functional way to give feedback is review brigading. The Internet rewards this kind of behavior, but I have found at least for WordPress, those false positives and false negatives can be really confusing for our new users. And the third way, that’s not our best way, and probably is the least best way, is just by giving up and not telling anyone what broke for you.

7:45

I know that I already said it’s not possible to fix everyone’s problems. But while it’s not possible to fix everyone’s problems the moment they get shared, it’s also truly impossible to fix any problems that no one knows exist. And so giving up and not sharing an issue so that we can identify it as part of a pattern of problems is probably the least effective way to help us help you get your problem solved.

8:13

This brings me back to the question of the value of WordPress users as co creators in the development process. As WordPress grows, both in usage as a CMS and in participation as a community, it’s important for us to shed the idea that software creation is only about what literally can be done to code or what literally can be done to core or what literally can be done to the CMS. It’s also important for us to constantly remind ourselves that the best outcomes are the result of collaboration with the people who use WordPress the most. I know that not every type of user we have is showing up to give us feedback about where WordPress doesn’t work for them. And I would love to see more feedback that helps us to figure out where our patterns are.

9:03

So the bottom line is this without user feedback that has some clarity of what was expected versus what happened, the work to make a good choice involves a whole lot of guessing. So since open source software is built by the people who show up, I hope this gives you an idea of how you can show up and help improve the tool that powers your sites.

9:32

That brings us to today’s community highlight every episode or so I share either a great story of WordPress success or a great story of a WordPress contributor who helped some folks along the way. Today’s community highlight comes from @trishacodes who shared one of her early to WordPress mentors. She says “@RianRietveld was such an encouragement and helped me find the courage to speak up.” I have had myself many conversations with Rian, and that rings true for me as well. 

10:00

That brings us to the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the small list of big things. It’s actually kind of a medium list. Today, I’ve got four whole things to share with you all. The first thing on my list is that WordCamp Europe is coming, that will be June 7th through the 10th. It’s a multi-day online event. I will share in the show notes a link to the main website; there you can get an idea of what will happen, the schedule, and get your hands on some tickets so that you can get it in your calendar and prepare yourselves. 

The second thing I want to share is for all of our polyglots out there. The French team is planning a translation day coming up on April 30. I will share a link to that as well so that you can get an idea of what that takes if you’re feeling like you want to do some translation work. The third thing I want to share is that the Indian community in Pune actually started a new meetup series. It is a translation work along self-study – also for all of our polyglots out there. I would love to see as many people as are interested in both learning about how to do translations and certainly translating WordPress get registered for that. A final thing I want to share with you all is that if you are curious about what full site editing features will be included in the 5.8 release, that’s the WordPress release that’s coming out in the middle of July, you can check out my recap and recording of the demo that was held with Matt, Matias, and the rest of the team. There’s are also a number of other posts of next step ideas that I will share in the show notes as well.

11:51

That, my friends, is your small list of big things. Thank you for joining in today for the WordPress briefing. I’m your host, Josepha Haden Chomphosy. I’ll see you again in a couple of weeks!

8 Stunning Examples of CSS Glassmorphism Effects

Glassmorphism effects have become a staple in modern web design. They offer a sleek aesthetic and fit beautifully with just about any background color.

The exact definition of glassmorphism can vary a bit. However, it’s essentially a “frosted” or semi-transparent element that mimics the look of glass and appears to hover over the rest of the page. Thus, the container’s background is allowed to shine through. You may even see some refraction in more realistic interpretations.

Want to see what all the fuss is about? We’ve put together a collection of glassmorphism effects built with CSS and other web technologies. They range from common UI elements like buttons to more abstract creations. Enjoy!

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The Glass Slipper Breaks Free

This product card UI offers proof that glassmorphism’s beauty is in its simplicity. It takes a lovely gradient background and adds dimension. Hover your cursor over the sneaker and it breaks out of its container and practically jumps right off the page.

See the Pen
[WIP] Product Glassmorph by Alex

Frosted Form

The frosted-glass effect is put to good use here, as it allows this login form to stand out from the page’s photo background. That is one of the main benefits of using this design technique. You can use a complex background while keeping text readable. And it doesn’t disrupt the flow quite like a solid-colored container would.

See the Pen
Frosted Glass Effect – Form by Usama Tahir

Picture Frame

This interactive picture frame presents a layered and colorful glass look. The multicolored shapes within the frame use various blend modes, creating a 3D effect. Hovering or touching the frame allows you to rotate the object, at which point some subtle reflection comes into play.

See the Pen
CSS Glass Reflection Effect by Dovydas

It’s an Actual Glass

We might never find a more natural usage of glassmorphism. This CSS beer starts out as an empty pint. Click and hold on the glass to watch it fill up with frothy, bubbly goodness. The translucent coloring and refraction make it all the more realistic. Cheers!

See the Pen
CSS BEER! by Mike Golus

Text Overlay

Here’s a neat way to add glass effects on top of text. Utilizing absolutely-positioned elements, these rounded shapes bring a unique touch to an otherwise-plain HTML heading. This could be implemented on page titles or even text-based logos.

See the Pen
Glassmorphism by Albert

Hold My Buttons

Nominally, this snippet generates macOS wave patterns. But it also makes nice use of glassmorphism. The small container used to house a set of buttons is highly effective at making them the focal point of the page.

See the Pen
Generative macOS Big Sur Waves 🌊 [SVG] by George Francis

Thick Glass Titles

The use of large featured images within page titles is a popular design technique. The trouble is that it can be hard to keep text legible without ruining the whole aesthetic. This snippet shows us that a frosted-glass effect can do the job quite beautifully. Even with the busy photo background, the included text is easy to spot and read.

See the Pen
CSS – Frosted Glass by Kyle Wetton

Glass Math

Calculators are often portrayed as utilitarian and devoid of compelling design. That doesn’t have to be the case. Check out this gorgeous glassmorphism-enhanced number cruncher. While the perspective-shifting hover effects may be a bit much in terms of usability, the look of the calculator itself is perfection.

See the Pen
Glassmorph JS Calculator by Jack Ellis

Add a Touch of Glassmorphism to Your Projects

It’s easy to see why web designers are continuing to adopt glassmorphism. The effect is relatively uncomplicated. Yet it adds elements of both beauty and utility.

As we saw above, even something as simple as a small container holding buttons can make an impact. You don’t have to go overboard with special effects to create a clean and effective look. It’s more about working with and enhancing the visual assets you have rather than inventing something new.

We hope you enjoyed this look at glassmorphism. If you want to check out even more great examples, visit our CodePen collection.

The post 8 Stunning Examples of CSS Glassmorphism Effects appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.