December 20, 2015 — Join WordPress designers Sarah Whinnem, Michael Arestad, and Mel Choyce, along with moderator Mikel King, as they chat about designing modern WordPress websites and applications. What tools do they use? What are their thoughts on design trends? What do their design processes look like? What are the best techniques for designing responsively?

December 19, 2015 — Join this marketing seminar to gain a clear understanding of the must-have tactics to successfully build a website that builds business.
A bad website can kill a business. Outdated technology, confusing navigation and poor content are just a few reasons why websites fail.
If done right, a website is a lean, mean, lead-generation machine. If done wrong, you’re losing more than 50% of potential customers.

December 19, 2015 — In art class we were taught to copy the masters such as Da Vinci, Van Gough, and Caravaggio. This taught us skills like technique, form, & contrast. The same principle applies to learning any skill – steal from the masters and learn from it.
In this design-focused talk, we’re going to explore a few methods of sharpening our skills and intuition. Design, code, & user experience can all be improved when we take a deeper look into successful implementations. We’ll analyze some methods and steal a few things along the way – learning how to truly make it our own.

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December 19, 2015 — Rewrite rules are a thorn in many WordPress developers’ sides. In this session, we’ll discuss a simple way to add automated testing for your rewrite rules to help speed up your development and allow you to deploy your custom rules with confidence and peace of mind.

December 19, 2015 — This talk brings the focus of web design back to its core subject: How to communicate with people. You’ll learn about user research, empathy in the design process, communication patterns, real-world testing, and designing from the content out. Web design is about empathy for the user, and the users who visit your site are people. This talk will teach you how to prepare, design, and build websites with user experiences that communicate clearly and make the people who visit the site the top priority.

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December 19, 2015 — The WordPress REST API is one of the most exciting new features of WordPress, but it is more than just the default routes and endpoints that it adds automatically to your site. It is also an awesome tool for creating your own RESTful API.
In this talk we will look at how powerful this tool is, see some some practical examples of how to extend the REST API and learn how to create custom routes and endpoints. When you leave this talk, you’ll be prepared to create your own custom APIs, the WordPress way.

December 19, 2015 — Every WordPress user—from bloggers to site managers to developers—needs to know how to format text that is accessible to all site visitors regardless of how they use a computer. Come learn what web accessibility is, watch examples of assistive technology in action, and see ways to format text, enter images, and generally improve the accessibility of a WordPress website. WordPress users of all levels will leave with new skills that can immediately improve their websites.

December 19, 2015 — Confused by all the geek speak and jargon? We are going to explain the basic terminology used in the WordPress environment. Whether it’s an explanation of what a widget is or the difference between head, header, and heading, you’ll come away understanding the jargon needed to navigate the WordPress and web design world. We’ll cover the terminology used in websites and themes, such as header, slider, navigation, widget, sidebar, footer; terminology used in WordPress, such as dashboard, permalinks, plugin, theme, widget, custom post type; and any more you can think of.

December 19, 2015 — Finding the right theme for your website can be a true challenge. The Genesis Framework offers a powerful foundation for a WordPress driven web site. In Getting Started with Genesis we’ll cover everything you need to get your web site online with the Genesis Framework. We’ll also dig into the best plugins and resources that will help you make the most of your Genesis powered web site.

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December 19, 2015 — This talk is about fundraising on a WordPress site. I will draw on my experience of working with a house of worship and several other nonprofits to help you navigate the waters of taking donations on your WordPress site. I will discuss issues involved and solutions I’ve implemented and recommend. It’s time to move beyond the PayPal Donate button and take donations to the next level!