May 31, 2015 — Once upon a time we passed parameters to create web pages, now we use pretty URLs and (hopefully) think through our URLs carefully. URLs are one of the fundamental commands a user can give WordPress, and they can be poetic, powerful and precise all at once. This talk covers how URLs are turned into WP_Query parameters, what URL endpoints are and when to use them, how URLs can be attractive and amusing, and how to use URLs across different post type structures.

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May 31, 2015 — Colour & A11y
Julio Potier
Julio is colourblind and would like to share his user experiences with you, users and designers, where and why the colours or contrasts give me headache. He wants to give you the tricks to improve your designs – he is not a designer, help him to see better!

Empathy & User-Centred Design
Lance Willet
The big difference between good and bad designers (and developers, copywriters—all of us) is how they handle people struggling with their design. In this lightning session Lance will argue why empathy is important to beautiful, engaging, and useful products.

Iconography: First Time for Everything
Dave Redfern
Slides: http://www.iweb.co.uk/2015/03/iconography-talk-at-wordcamp-london
New projects bring new challenges. It’s what keeps our jobs interesting. Recently Dave had the opportunity to design a set of bespoke icons. Embracing this new challenge he wants to share his experience

The WordPress of Things
Scott Evans
Slides: http://scott.ee/journal/the-wordpress-of-things/
A man called Matt once said: “I see the future of WordPress as a web operating system.” We have done a great job at conquering desktop, mobile is going well, and there are plenty of new WordPress APIs to shout about… but where will WordPress sit within the “Internet of Things?”

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May 31, 2015 — With the REST API shortly due to be merged into WordPress core, this will be a talk/workshop about advanced theming techniques that allow theme developers to utilise it. The session takes the shape of a step-by-step method of building a theme that mixes best practice, current theming techniques with pioneering theming techniques of the future. It includes a considerable focus on JavaScript and a number of the libraries written with it, and how these technologies can be combined with current themes and the REST API to open up a whole new epoch in the development and design of WordPress themes.

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May 30, 2015 — Many WordPress websites use hand-crafted themes intended solely for one website. Creating a WordPress theme from scratch can seem daunting at first, but it is not as tricky as you may think. The talk is aimed at people who want to create a one-off theme for a single website (eg. a client project, personal blog), rather than building a theme for distribution. It will require previous knowledge of WordPress, HTML, CSS and basic familiarity with PHP.

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May 30, 2015 — 2015 will be remembered in the WordPress community as the year of the JSON REST API. It will be the biggest turning point in the WordPress project since 2010 (when we first saw custom post types). As a result of this, I believe that we’ll see /wp-admin start to disappear in favor of more functional backend interfaces. In this talk we’ll explore the possibilities of a future without /wp-admin

May 30, 2015 — This talk is about the WP API internals. From development decisions, progress and focus to writing custom API routes. With code, live programming, git conflicts and lots (and lots) of typos.

May 30, 2015 — This session covers important aspects of content marketing and emphasize how to promote content and grow an audience. Learn ways to integrate content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media to expand your reach. Topics such as social influence, guest posts, and social signals for SEO are discussed. Key plugins and relevant online tools are also be highlighted.

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May 30, 2015 — You’ve been meaning to start using Sass in your projects, right? But it looks hard…is it really worth figuring out? Yes, yes it is! In this talk, we will cover Sass basics like structuring projects, mixins and variables, and using extensions. We will then go over how to start using Sass in your own themes as well as touch on a few Sass-ready starter themes. Afterwards, Lara will be available at the Happiness Bar for demos and to help you get set up!

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May 30, 2015 — One of the recent WordPress accessibility initiatives has been the introduction of the ‘accessibility-ready’ tag for theme authors who wish to submit themes to the WordPress repository. The tag is used to indicate that a theme contains the best practices in web accessibility, and can form the basis of an accessible WordPress website. But uptake has been slow. This presentation looks at what you need to do to get your themes up to the ‘accessibility-ready’ standard – whether or not you intend to submit them to the repository. It’s not hard to do, and the benefits can be enormous for many, many people.
I will also be looking at whether it’s worth following the ‘accessibility-ready’ steps for plugins too.

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May 30, 2015 — Questions for WordPress’ core developers, what it’s like to develop WordPress, what’s happening in WordPress’ future, and how you can help out. The panel will consist of:
Helen Hou-Sandi (WordPress Lead Developer)
Mark Jaquith (WordPress Lead Developer)
John Blackbourn (4.1 Release Lead)