December 22, 2015 — WP-CLI is a set of command line tools for managing your WordPress site. It allows you to perform many tasks much quicker than you would be able to by other means. In this session, I will teach you how to get WP-CLI running, and show some of my favorite time saving features. Once you’ve started using WP-CLI, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it! This talk is appropriate for developers, designers and server administrators of all skill levels.

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December 22, 2015 — A slow website has serious business impacts. Period. 40% of mobile users abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load. Many “Creative Responsive Multi-Purpose” themes are beautiful and flashy with their demo content, but have speed indexes of more than 50 times* what is recommended. How can you tell good themes from bad ones without buying them? Never fear! There are several ways to vet a theme before shelling out the cash.
In this talk, we’ll cover strategies for evaluating themes’ code quality and performance, and creating healthy, content-oriented websites. In many ways, this is a call to action to the WordPress end user community: let’s shift our values from flashy effects to rock-solid content and fast websites. Scroll-jacking and parallax are over!

December 21, 2015 — This session covers how to deliver a clear call to action (CTA)–whether that means nudging users toward a product/service page or teaching them how to grow gladiola bulbs. Strategically scale down your users’ choices, and you’ll boost site usability and quite possibly your bottom line.

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December 21, 2015 — When you work in WP-Admin every day, it’s wicked easy to navigate. But for users who are new to WordPress or only update their sites occasionally, the admin area can be full of WordPress-centric-lingo and not intuitive. If you’ve created a customized front-end experience, why not take a few extra moments and tighten up the admin? It’s not difficult to make users happier and reduce the number of questions you get! We’ll cover customizing primarily via code, adding your own help documentation or metaboxes to the admin, and current best practices.

December 21, 2015 — Take an up-front tour of the WordPress dashboard and its built-in features. We will discover how to customize the look of your dashboard to remove the clutter. We will also look at where your menus and navigation are created and edited and the flexibility you have for building your own custom menus. We’ll also learn about hidden shortcuts and settings and see, as we add our theme and plugins, where their settings end up and if there is any logic to their new homes.

December 21, 2015 — This session is an introduction to putting the practice of Content Architecture to work on your WordPress site to build the most flexible and manageable site possible. You have your content (MAYBE), your site graphics are designed, you know what functionality you need, and now all you have to do is… shove it all into WordPress? Somehow? This session will show you how to figure out what are your WordPress-specific content types, what they need to do, and how to build them. Understanding how to structure your content in WordPress is an invaluable skill to have no matter what level you are at. You will leave understanding your own content structuring needs, and how to translate those to WordPress content types. Be prepared to leave full of ideas for your next project!

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December 21, 2015 — Council meetings sit empty until a road closes, a subway schedule changes, or property taxes increase. Suddenly, meetings are packed with concerned residents. It’s often too late by that time. Use WordPress.com as an interactive digital communication tool to engage the public before meetings are crowded. Incorporate the public’s voice in your local planning process with simple steps outlined in this session.

December 21, 2015 — For this talk, we will discuss how WordPress can empower users while still understanding the pitfalls and considerations required to reach those affected by censorship.
Other topics will cover how WordPress sites and plugins get blocked, issues designing and maintaining sites, and how the OpenNet Initiative affects WordPress. John will also give insight into his own experiences working with censorship and the Web from his time working in China.

December 21, 2015 — WordPress has been making great inroads into government agencies, pubic school districts and military institutions. This session will cover the business case(s) why WordPress should be considered and wholeheartedly embraced by those organizations that are spending taxpayer money. Case studies will include a large public school system and the U.S. Army.

December 21, 2015 — The focus of my presentation will be on WordPress and website accessibility; from a front-end perspective. First, I will explain what web accessibility is and why it is important. To continue, I will discuss AODA and Section 508 regulations for Canada and the United States. Then, I will go over some key WCAG 2.0 compliancy requirements a developer will need to ensure the websites they develop are fully accessible. From there, I will showcase a few web accessibility tools, then some WordPress accessibility plugins; followed by a quick demonstration on how to evaluate a website’s accessibility.