November 4, 2014 — Disabled users help uncover interesting behaviors when Accessible User Experience (UX) research methods are applied to WordPress. Results are very instructive and apply to many use cases.

November 4, 2014 — Personas are a form of synthesis and as such they lead as much value as much we can embed them in the existing discussions, design and development. In this talk we are going to see how personas can be built in a lean approach, how to make them visible, and how they can be used in various stages of a product evolution.

We are also going to see a real case scenario: the WordPress.com personas work, currently in progress.

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November 4, 2014 — In a world where web design can quickly turn to web decoration, designers are problem solvers who must not only lead clients through the creative process, but protect the integrity of the solutions they deliver. With an abundance of options readily available to add to a site at any time, it is imperative that designers step up and become the voices of, and champions for purpose driven design, where each element has a specific purpose and only the elements needed to compel action are included. No more, no less.

November 3, 2014 — Contributor Track: Core

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November 3, 2014 — As bloggers, the more personal we are, the more popular we are. Yet we often choose to be fact-based and corporate over honest and human on our blogs. We play it safe. And this gets boring. We want to be exciting and fun. After a brief presentation about reasons and ways to blog, the participants create blog posts and discuss how to build reader interest and suspense. Participants write about their own small quiet moments and big public events. This fun workshop inspires bloggers to get creative in their writing and find new ways to write.

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November 3, 2014 — Finding the right plugin can be a Herculean task, and choosing the wrong one can lead to security problems, bad UX or a complete breakdown of your site. This talk goes over how to group plugins in meaningful ways to identify which would be the most useful. From there, we review how to evaluate plugins for performance, functionality and usability by setting up a complete test environment to stretch plugins to their limits. We end with an overview of red flags and useful signs to look out for, such as support and frequent updates. By understanding the ways in which plugins integrate with the WordPress API, and what to look out for, you’ll be able to find the exact plugin you need, every time.

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November 3, 2014 — Providing support for your themes offers tremendous opportunities to educate people, from explaining how to make a child theme to teaching simple CSS tweaks. It also presents challenges, like writing easy-to-follow setup documentation for a complex theme, or handling requests for help outside official support channels. This session looks at how to support your theme well while making users happy and staying sane – a winning combination in the world of theme development.

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November 3, 2014 — Contributor Track: BuddyPress

November 3, 2014 — The challenges of scaling WordPress depend on many factors. This session centers on three factors that are most often overlooked or misunderstood:
1. Choosing the right caching system
2. Tuning and clustering mysql
3. Tuning apache

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November 3, 2014 — This talk goes over the fundamentals of what constitutes a realtime web application or website, and then explains how we can apply those concepts to WordPress sites and applications.