A recent analysis by the Design Management Institute, a nonprofit focusing on design management, shows with statistics what graphic designers suspected all along: that good design increases profits. In the past 10 years, design-driven companies outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 by 228%. These companies included Apple, Coca-Cola, Ford, Herman Miller, IBM, Intuit, Newell Rubbermaid, Nike, Procter & Gamble, Starbucks, Starwood, Steelcase, Target, Walt Disney, and Whirlpool. The money that these companies invested into smoother user experiences, beautiful branding, and innovative advertising have turned into higher net profits.
The Design Management Institute partnered with Motiv, an innovation strategy firm, to create the DMI Design Value Index – a list of design-led, publicly traded U.S. companies that meet a set of six design management criteria. The above-mentioned companies were only a few in a pool of 75 that met DMI’s criteria. They measured the success of this design-led segment of companies against other companies in the stock market, and found that, indeed, those companies that put design first had a significant stock market advantage.
WordPress is the world’s most-used content management system (CMS) and blogging software. It is user-friendly and makes maintaining your website a breeze. However, like all CMS’s, it’s file and content structure allows for invasion if not properly secured. Hackers often insert malware that can destroy your site or redirect to another site (often an unsavory one). A site that has been hacked runs the risk of losing customers and readers, and getting black-listed by Google, ruining any SEO valuation you may have had. I’ve been told that taking steps to secure your site is like taking vitamins, but repairing a hacked site is like performing open heart surgery. It’s obvious that taking a few basic precautions can save you hours of your time and hundreds of dollars. Keep reading for four easy ways to improve your site’s security.