January 30, 2023 — When designing WordPress themes, one of the biggest challenges stems from a core component of WordPress itself: the ability for site owners to change, modify, and build new content themselves. This simple yet powerful capability was a driving force behind the adoption and popularity of WordPress, but theme designers are faced with a difficult task: designing for content and functionality that doesn’t yet exist.

As content and functionality become even more modular thanks to advances like the block editor, and as we look ahead to the adoption of Full Site Editing, theme designers will have to accommodate even more flexible ways of visualizing and presenting the information. How do we anticipate and accommodate the needs of a constantly evolving website while providing visual solutions that are clean, thoughtful, and consistent?

We will walk through the entire design thinking process as it relates to themes, and you’ll leave with a thorough checklist of steps and tools for designing themes that support WordPress core functionality, custom templates and content, common plugins, and an array of standard and custom Gutenberg blocks. This process is useful both for custom theme builds, and designing themes for sale as a product.

Presentation Slides »

October 28, 2022 — As content and functionality becomes more modular thanks to advances like the block editor, theme designers will have to accommodate even more flexible ways of visualizing and presenting the information. How do we anticipate and accommodate the needs of a constantly evolving website while providing visual solutions that are clean, thoughtful, and consistent?

This talk works through the entire thinking process as it relates to theme design. It offers a thorough checklist of steps and tools for designing themes that support WordPress core functionality, custom templates and content, common plugins, and an array of standard and custom Gutenberg blocks.

July 8, 2020 — When designing WordPress themes, one of the biggest challenges stems from a core component of WordPress itself: the ability for site owners to change, modify, and build new content themselves. After all, modern web content needs to be flexible and evolving, but not everyone is a developer who can build custom layouts to fit each use case.
As content and functionality become even more modular thanks to advances like the Gutenberg editor, theme designers will have to accommodate even more flexible ways of visualizing and presenting information. How do we anticipate and accommodate the needs of a constantly evolving website while providing visual solutions that are clean, thoughtful, and consistent?
In this talk, we’ll discuss the principles of Atomic Design, how to stop thinking of your content as “pages” and “posts” in favor of the concept of “building blocks”, and how to extend this mindset to utilize the potential of Gutenberg as it is now, and where it might be going in the future.

June 21, 2020 — Learn the principles of Atomic Design. Reframe your perception of content as pages and posts to work with it in the newer context of blocks. Extend this mindset to utilize the potential of Gutenberg as it is now, and where it might be going in the future.

Presentation Slides »

June 18, 2020 — In this talk, we’ll discuss the principles of Atomic Design, how to stop thinking of your content as “”pages”” and “”posts”” in favor of the concept of “”building blocks,”” and how to extend this mindset to utilize the potential of Gutenberg as it is now, and where it might be going in the future.”

Presentation Slides »

November 19, 2019 — We will walk through the entire design thinking process as it relates to themes, and you’ll leave with a thorough checklist of steps and tools for designing themes that support WordPress core functionality, custom templates and content, common plugins, and an array of standard and custom Gutenberg blocks. This process is useful both for custom theme builds, and designing themes for sale as a product.

November 19, 2019 — We will walk through the entire design thinking process as it relates to themes, and you’ll leave with a thorough checklist of steps and tools for designing themes that support WordPress core functionality, custom templates and content, common plugins, and an array of standard and custom Gutenberg blocks. This process is useful both for custom theme builds, and designing themes for sale as a product.

March 11, 2019 — Modern browsers, JavaScript libraries, and CSS3 have made it easier than ever to create exciting, dynamic animated experiences within web interfaces. But we have also seen the unfortunate side effect of trying to do too much: websites that are resource hogs, eating up bandwidth and slowing load times to a crawl, all for effects that are ultimately just there for the “show” factor. This talk will discuss how to use these animation skills for good: to establish context, convey status, give feedback, and yes, even add a little delight. Along the way, we’ll discuss the principles of animation that guide everything from your favorite feature films to the actions of a button on your screen, and learn how deliberate animation choices can improve the experience for your user.

Presentation Slides »

February 28, 2019 — Much like playing an open world game, each of us approaches a new development challenge with different skill levels, knowledge, and philosophies. It may seem like a person starting their first coding project has very little in common with a seasoned developer, but in fact, we are all here because we see the value in using developer tools we have not written ourselves. We’ll discuss how we, as players of this game, choose from the tools available based on their strengths (value) and weaknesses (risk) relative to our own skills and ability to weild these tools. We’ll explore how these decisions change as players level up, or face different challenges. By discussing skill, value, and risk instead of code, we can gain empathy and understanding for the decisions of our fellow players.

September 16, 2018 — WordCamp Minneapolis / St. Paul, Keynote

Be Smart and Helpful: Success, Generosity and the Business of People with Michelle Schulp