May 11, 2016 — Are you tired of cranking out the same old header-content-footer web layouts we see? Wonder if a WP page even needs a header, or a footer? Wanna get seriously crazy with page layout in WP? I have two recommendations: 1. Make lots of thumbnail sketches. Then make some more. 2. Master the fine art of registering widget areas. If you can register a set of widget areas, and load them up with graphics, type and images, you can make a WP page look like ANYTHING. You can even make a phone screen look interesting!

August 17, 2015 — It’s easy to talk about designing for conversion until you decide you’re really going to do it. What design considerations really do matter for conversion? What’s the role of copy, given these two prevailing (and conflicting!) attitudes:
1. Just make the BUY button big and add a picture of a baby. Nobody reads the copy anyway.
Versus:
2. Copy is everything! If someone really is in the market for your thing, they’ll read everything you have to say! (Just add a video of someone saying the exact same thing at the top, and use LOTS of subheads.)
Take a look at these points of view and more, on the road to converting your lookers to buyers, one press of that blue button* at a time.

Presentation Slides »

June 20, 2014 — So how do we keep responsive WP sites from looking like each other? And where does mobile-first fit into all of this? What are the obstacles? The obvious approaches? This presentation looks at the ideal case, the bare-bones case and a middle ground – and some tools we can use to get started.

Presentation Slides »

March 1, 2014 — You don’t have to be a php ninja to make your sites look like whatever you want. But you do need to edit a little bit of code. This presentation shows how and where in two major frameworks (Genesis and Thematic,) And you’ll have complete control of your designs!

Presentation Slides »

December 7, 2013 — This talk shows some sites based on Genesis child themes. It shows the stylesheets and how they’re the same from theme to theme. It then moves into some other work that combines themes, and talks about adding mobile-first design instead of just sticking to the child themes’ responsive CSS.