The two books that helped me better understand first principles and what that actually means in my life.

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I published a complete overview tour of the new WooThemes dashboard experience earlier today, and since this project has been my little baby (more like a ten ton gorilla, but let's leave it at that), I wanted to share some of the thoughts that went into this major overhaul.

At the forefront of the reasons for the overhaul is experiences. Not just a slick-looking UI, but also an interface and environment where users enjoy spending time. An environment where users can find help, find value & find happiness.

So with this in mind, we created a new experience that is consistent with our brand & personality throughout. In the past, we had little gaps in the holistic experience, where mini-experiences just weren't great even though the overall opinion and feedback from users were massively positive. Still it wasn't consistent and the awesomeness didn't extend to every corner of Woo.

We're not a hosted, web app and thus most of our users' interaction with us happen away from WooThemes.com. This doesn't mean however that users shouldn't be coming back to our website. Often.

With this redesign we wanted to build an experience that would ensure that our users spent more time on the site. We also didn't just want them to waste time either (we're not in the game of compromising on our own or our users' productivity), but instead wanted them to find reciprocal value within the time they spend with us. We want to enhance their overall experience, from first contact to purchase to every single support ticket thereafter.

And we've done this, because we believe we can monetize that increased / improved interaction that happens when users are having fun & finding more value. We're aiming to grow our business based on incredible experiences.