Author Archive

  • Michelle Ames: It’s the Little Things That Make a Difference

    WordCamp Portland ME 2017Speaker: Michelle Frechette

    June 6, 2017 — So you can build a technically wonderful website, but does it appeal to your audience? Does it have finesse? Who is it designed for: the owner, the designer/developer, or the customer/user? Are forms user-friendly? This talk will show you the things that make a website more complete, user-friendly, and user-appealing. Topics will include favicons, custom 404 pages, form buttons, footers, colors, SSL certificates, and more.

    Presentation Slides »

  • Jesse Friedman: Improving User Experience and Engagement

    WordCamp Portland ME 2017Speaker: Jesse Friedman

    June 6, 2017 — Jesse Friedman has been building websites for 18 years, and exclusively with WordPress since 2006. Since then he has written several books, taught hundreds of students as a professor, and organized dozens of local meetups (and even a few WordCamps along the way).
    In his talk he explain how to build an MVP (minimal viable product). We’ll start by stripping out all the bloat, get rid of all those widgets and start with naked content. Then and only then we’ll start to methodically add features, as they are needed. You will be amazed how much your visitors enjoy just reading your content and engaging with you through simple solutions.

    You’ll walk away with practical strategies around:
    – Building content driven websites
    – Gaining traction and increasing engagement
    – Elegantly monetizing your blog
    – Plus 5 experience tips that will make your website 1 of a kind

  • Rachael Dines and Meg Fenn: Website Design Pain Points for Clients and How to Help Them Through It

    WordCamp London 2017Speakers: Rachael Dines, Meg Fenn

    June 6, 2017 — Meg Fenn and Rachael Dines, Directors of Shake It Up Creative Ltd talk about the pain points that clients face when setting up their business website and how to help them through it. For example, one common pain point is content. Where to start? How much? Does it need to optimised? Another common pain point is deciding whether to manage their own website or pay a web designer or marketing company to do this for them. Do all business owners need to be techy?

  • Adrian Roselli: Selfish Accessibility

    WordCamp London 2017Speaker: Adrian Roselli

    June 6, 2017 — We can all pretend that we’re helping others by making web sites and software accessible, but we are really making them better for our future selves. Learn some fundamentals of accessibility and how it can benefit you (whether future you from aging or you after something else limits your abilities). We’ll review simple testing techniques, basic features and enhancements, coming trends, and where to get help. This isn’t intended to be a deep dive, but more of an overall primer for those who aren’t sure where to start nor how it helps them.

    Presentation Slides »

  • Monique Dubbelman: The Importance of Information Architecture – How to Organise Content to Improve User Experience

    WordCamp London 2017Speaker: Monique Dubbelman

    June 6, 2017 — The most important factor for people in web design is, that it makes it easy for them to find what they want. Yet, so many websites are so poorly structured, that it’s impossible to do so. If you want to learn what content should be on your site or how your menu should be structured: this talk is for you.

    Information architecture is something serious, however, the majority of businesses have structured their sites in an bad way, using the ITTIR-method – “I think this is right”. While common sense is a useful tool and a lot of sites are very simple (e.g. 5 pages total), there’s a better way to go about it. If you already have tens of pages on your site, you should do proper information architecture analysis. Guiding people through the vast amount of information on offer is something that requires thought and research. Intuitive navigation doesn’t happen by chance. So don’t jump the visual part of of your webdesign too quick, but take plenty of time to think about the architecture of the information you offer on your site.

    This helps you answer user’s four most important questions when they arrive at a website:

    Am I in the right place?
    Do they have what I am looking for?
    Do they have anything better (if this isn’t what I want)?
    What do I do now?
    After this talk you’ve learned what content should be on your website and how you should structure it.

    Presentation Slides »

  • Alain Schlesser: Wrapping A Modern PHP Architecture Around A Legacy WordPress Site

    WordCamp London 2017Speaker: Alain Schlesser

    June 6, 2017 — Alain is a freelance software engineer and WordPress consultant.

    In his talk he presents a case study of wrapping a legacy WordPress site into a scalable architecture, using a combination of existing and custom packages, that provides the following benefits:
    – services architecture that lets plugins define their dependencies, with automatically resolved loading order
    – auto-wiring dependency injection that allows coding against interfaces instead of implementations
    – configuration management that can account for differences in environments
    – centralized logging throughout the entire site that can be sent to logging servers
    – bus system that handles events and commands without blocking the frontend
    – all of this without any noticeable impact on content editors

    Presentation Slides »

  • Nela Dunato: Ending Design Revision Hell

    WordCamp London 2017Speaker: Nela Dunato

    June 6, 2017 — Nela Dunato is a brand and web designer with over a decade of professional experience. She’s worked in several web development agencies before becoming a full-time freelancer in 2013.

    She said design is easy to see, and this makes it an easy target to shoot down by anyone and everyone. Bad design process leads to many problems, such as matters of personal taste-determining the outcome of the project, and endless revisions that postpone the website launch date. In this presentation, you’ll learn the two biggest mistakes designers and other professionals make in their process, and how to fix them so your design concepts get accepted faster.

    Presentation Slides »

  • Ross Wintle: Why and How to Use Screencasts to Train Users

    WordCamp London 2017Speaker: Ross Wintle

    June 6, 2017 — Ross is a freelance website developer, communications consultant and accidental WordPress expert who helps organisations use technology to make the world better.

    He said In person client and user training can be difficult to arrange, time-consuming, and expensive. He’s using screencasts and animated GIFs in client training and support for a while now and it’s good for everyone involved. He talks through why it’s so good to do, how to get started, what tools and setup you need, and how your work can help others too.

  • Francesca Marano: Help Your Readers – Format all the Things!

    WordCamp London 2017Speaker: Francesca Marano

    June 6, 2017 — WordPress professional, community junkie, business explorer. She make WordPress things happen from Torino, Italy: Polyglots and Community team member, Meetup and WordCamp organizer.
    She said People read on screen differently than on paper and formatting the text will help them get to the end of it.
    She shows how to leverage the options available in WordPress and it will teach you how to fix some common problems with a few HTML tags.

    Presentation Slides »

  • Pedro Martins: A importância de um contrato de serviços

    WordCamp Lisboa 2017Speaker: Pedro Martins

    June 6, 2017 — Um modelo de contrato é algo que todos os designers e developers deviam oferecer aos seus clientes e é absolutamente necessário para o sucesso do projecto: é bom para ambas as partes pois baliza expectativas e comportamentos e aumenta a responsabilidade no cumprimento dos deveres de todos os envolvidos.

    A principal razão para a assinatura de um contrato é a definição escrita por ambas as partes de um compromisso que se esforçarão por honrar. Ter um contrato corresponde a esclarecer as expectativas do cliente e as obrigações do designer ou developer.

    O contrato também vai ajudar se, em algum momento, a relação com o cliente se deteriorar (o que nunca é desejável, mas somos todos seres humanos e desentendimentos são sempre possíveis).