December 19, 2019 — 11 years. That’s how long I’ve been using WordPress to create websites as a part of design and development teams. 2017 was the first year I started giving any real contribution back to the WordPress project. Before that I tried. I kept looking at this thing called Trac, I even created an account and followed some of the development tickets. But I felt blocked since my primary background is in design. I didn’t know how to get started.

All that changed last year when I was given a unique opportunity by my company to donate time to helping in the make.wordpress.org work. In this talk I’ll share the process I went through from not knowing where to get started, to jumping into a few tickets, to helping lead parts of the work being done in WordPress.

If you’re curious about giving back to WordPress, but don’t have a ton of development experience, then this talk will be for you. Let’s go through this journey together.

Presentation Slides »

August 13, 2018 — It doesn’t matter who you are, give sketching a try. I’ve used quick sketches to bridge the communication gap between what our clients want to create, and what our developers can build. If you spend 10 minutes on a sketch to describe how an interface will work, you can then share it with your team and validate whether everyone is on the right page. Even if you’re wrong, you’ve got a starting point.

This workshop is for folks making websites for a living. We walk through previous development problems that I’ve used sketching on, and then work on live examples together.

February 26, 2018 — This track consists of five short sessions focused on using themes and building sites.

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Help Us Help You. Things You Should Know Before Contacting Support.

Brooke Dukes

I’ve been on all sides of support. In that time I’ve learned a lot of the dos-and-don’ts of asking for (and providing) support. In this lighting talk I’ll go over some of the most commonly missing information when reaching out to support.

Slides: https://2017.seattle.wordcamp.org/files/2017/11/brooke_dukes_wcsea.pdf

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Creating A Knowledge Transfer Plan, or How To Really Go On Vacation

Hilary Fosdal

It’s surprising how stressful going on vacation or attending a conference can be. Are you ready to temporarily step away from the business relationships you’ve carefully built with your clients and handing over all the hard work you’ve put into your projects to someone else?

Learn how you can transition your projects and clients professionally and programmatically to co-workers during your temporary absence. Take the stress out of leaving for vacation by having a knowledge transfer plan – a.k.a. your vacation exit strategy.

Slides: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0bd6bji99p5cs6t/HowToReallyGoOnVacation.pdf?dl=0

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Sketches: The Universal Language

Joshua Wold

Anyone can sketch. You don’t have to be an artist. A few simple shapes can help explain a problem quickly and clearly. Sketching is a universal language that anyone can understand regardless of technical background.

Have you ever tried explaining a technical problem to a stakeholder, developer, designer, or customer? Has that ever led to miscommunication? A quick sketch can help validate that everyone understands the issue – or show that each person is thinking something completely different.

In this talk you’ll learn some very simple steps to create sketches and wireframes that you can add to any ticket or problem you’re discussing.

Slides: https://cloudup.com/c19N_0Hryii

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Quick Tips: Gain Mutual Buy-In and Inject More Empathy Into Your Projects

Justin Parra

Let’s discuss empathetic strategies that will ultimately help you create a more satisfying client experience, smoother creative process with less barriers, and help clients grant a new level of trust in your creative/technical concepts. Empathy is often said to be the most important quality of a UX professional. One can argue that it is the most important quality in a human being. While we won’t go quite that far, let’s talk about how injecting a higher level of empathy into your project management and client interactions can improve your final product.

Slides: https://2017.seattle.wordcamp.org/files/2017/11/justin-parra-wp-project-management-strategies.pdf

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Getting up to Speed on Build Processes

Jacob Wayne Smith

In this hands-on talk Jacob Smith will demystify Gulp, NPM, Grunt, and more so that you can work smarter and faster.

With code examples and live programming, we will work with a standard build process for WordPress development.

Slides: https://abravenew.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Jacob-Smith-wordcamp-seattle-2017.pdf

October 24, 2017 — In this talk you’ll learn some very simple steps to create sketches and wireframes that you can add to any development ticket or website related problem you’re discussing.

The intended audience is non-designers who are interested in learning how to use visual aids to convey ideas and explain problems.

Presentation Slides »

October 20, 2017 — Sketching is a universal language anyone can speak and understand, regardless of their technical background.
If you’ve ever had to explain a technical problem to a stakeholder, developer, designer, or client, then you’ve likely run into issues of miscommunication. A quick sketch can help validate that you are both on the same page, or show that you’re thinking completely different thoughts. Either way, this quick visual aid will have proved its value.
In this talk we’ll look at some quick steps to creating sketches that you can add to issue you’re discussing. This doesn’t require being an artist or a designer, if you can draw a few basic shapes then you can make sketches work for you.

Presentation Slides »