What are ‘Advanced Custom Fields’?
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is a WordPress plugin which allows you to add a variety of fields such as text, images, maps, date pickers to the WordPress CMS and build pages for the website quickly and intuitively.
With ACF, you can add fields on demand, quickly and easily, anywhere on WordPress including on posts, users, media, and more.
ACF flexible content allows you to build up your page with modules which you can order in a drag and drop fashion.
Why use Advanced Custom Fields?
You can create pages without specifying a page template, and instead, just add the relevant content blocks/modules on to the page wherever/whenever you want.
Effectively, each page can act as a blank canvas that can be easily tailored to create combinations and orders of content specific to what you require.
A huge benefit of this is that it makes it easier for the user to have control over the site’s design and appearance at any point (without need for coding knowledge) by adding/removing modules or rearranging the order easily. Building a site in this way also helps to future-proof it, so that you can update your site with different layouts made up of the various content blocks without having to rely on designers and developers.
How to design for ACF flexible content
When it comes to designing for a page builder, the best way to design is section based, so when we are coding it each section can be it’s own block / page builder element. We can add anything in the blocks from sliders, to API feeds, promos, text / image and general content.
If you are analysing your site through analytics, heatmapping and user journeys, having a more modular approach to page building can you allow you to change the layout of pages and A/B test them to see what sort improvement in visitor retention and lead generation it can provide.
See the below video which shows an ACF page builder from the user’s perspective.
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