The WordPress REST API
Ryan McCue
The WordPress REST API is a simple but powerful way to interact with WordPress. There is also a 2.0 Beta available on Github which is being actively maintained and updated as the project works it’s way into WordPress core. Ryan started this project as a WordPress Google Summer of Code project and it has been growing in leaps and bounds since that project started.
This project will affect everyone who works with WordPress! The WordPress REST API will change the way use WordPress as it’s not only able to expose WordPress content, meta, users and media in JSON. You can easily extend the API to expose content and settings from custom post types you’ve created and plugins that you have developed. Not only can you view the data but you can perform any CRUD activities provided you’re authenticated via the API’s endpoints.
This means that you can use mobile, desktop and web applications that you create in any programming language or framework and update your WordPress data without having to login to WordPress. This will really make it a lot easier to use “WordPress as an application framework”. Ryan’s talk will cover the project goals and will make you excited about the future of WordPress!
Ryan was only 14 when he committed his first WordPress patch but he’s been contributing to open source software since he was 11 or 12. He’s also maintained SimplePie which is an RSS and Atom reader this is used in WordPress core. He’s now a Senior Engineer at Human Made and is one of the lead developers of the WP REST API project.
You can follow him on Twitter.
Email Marketing – The Secret Weapon To Grow Your Business
Warren Denley
Getting the right people to your site is hard enough. And making a sale to first time visitors is nearly impossible. So you need a way to build a relationship with your visitors and keep them coming back to your site until they are ready to buy from you.
You Need Email Marketing! Warren’s talk will cover:
- Selecting an email provider.
- Quick start guide to setting up your account and creating your first list.
- Creating your email template.
- Integrating your list with your site (collecting subscribers).
- Communicating with your list.
- Measuring, monitoring and improving your engagement.
- Case studies – what works and what doesn’t.
- Taking it further – segmentation and funnels.
Key Takeaways
- Understanding of how to set up your email list.
- How to integrate your email list with your site.
- How to nurture your list to create more sales for your business.
Working as a Business Analyst on technical projects for over 15 years, Warren has developed a knack for moulding available technologies into business solutions. As a WordPress Consultant, Warren has spoken at WordCamp Melbourne (Australia) and regularly speaks at WordPress Meetups in Melbourne (for which he is a co-organiser).
When not creating websites or helping people with WordPress technical issues, Warren likes to test his physical endurance, having already completed the Oxfam 100km walk 3 times and Tough Mudder in 2014.
You can follow Warren on Twitter.
After Party Til 10pm
We’ll be hosting a party at the Port Office Hotel on the Saturday night, 6 ’til 10pm. The hotel is located on the corner of Edward & Margaret Streets.
WooThemes are sponsoring a bar tab, and we’ll be providing some nibbles – but we’d encourage you to grab something to eat before you head over.
Entry is by #WCBNE badge only, make sure to bring your badge along on the night.
Panel – Future of Mobile / Mobile & Web
The future of WordPress and mobile devices will be changing considerably over the next 12 – 18 months as new technology and frameworks emerge. This panel discussion will cover all things mobile from responsive design right through to mobile apps. During the session we will have an MC leading the discussion but we will be encouraging audience questions.
How To Tweak Your WordPress Theme
Ricky Blacker
A simple guide to bending your WordPress theme to your will. Learn how to tweak and change the design of your website without hundreds of plugins or years of coding experience. Using easy to learn skills, you will unleash your inner designer, and become a WordPress master!
Ricky’s presentation will cover some of the following topics:
- Preparing your WordPress site for customisation.
- Some of the tools needed to achieve amazing results.
- Simple beginners tips to make basic changes beyond your themes customizer.
- What a WordPress child theme is.
- How to create a WordPress child theme.
Ricky is a self taught web professional who found and fell in love with WordPress, and the community behind it while looking for a CMS platform to build websites for clients. He soon fell down a rabbit hole full of plugins, themes and passionate WordPress devotees, which forever changed his life and has taken him on an extraordinary journey, filled with late night talks with equally enamoured Wordies and fueled by craft beers.
Ricky runs Data Guru, a small web design business based on Brisbane’s Northside, which develops sites for small to medium sized businesses, as well as doing Pro Bono work for not for profit groups.
He is a Co-Organizer for the Sunshine Coast WordPress Meetup Group, and also regularly attends the Brisbane WordPress Meetup and Brisbane Web Design Meetup groups.
In his spare time (not that he has much of that), he is a temporary Australian (motorcycle rider), plays keyboards and sings in a local Brissy band and tries to stay on top of the ever changing Web Development world. He is passionate about sharing his knowledge of WordPress with anyone who will listen, and loves helping newbies find their legs with the WordPress back end, and show them what can be achieved with this powerful platform.
You can follow Ricky on Twitter.
Why Isn’t My Beautiful Website Enough?
Jo Grey
3 tips to help web designers get the right content from clients. Some easy-to-use sites designers can refer their clients to, such as building infographics, images for their blogs, and topic ideas.
Jo will cover some of the following topics during her presentation:
- Why a pretty website isn’t enough.
- Providing content slows the web designer down.
- Content generating ideas.
- Content moving with the times – not static.
- Clients start off strong, then fade when novelty of being a blogger fades.
- Strategies and tips to help clients manage their content
- Ways web designers can help get the right content the first time.
- Repurposing existing content.
- Engagement.
- Personality in content.
- Stories matter.
Jo Grey has over 20 years of experience in marketing and communications. She is the director of a new corporate communications agency in Brisbane: Cornerstone Communications. Jo and her team know that every brand has a story, and their job is to help you (or your clients) build a content strategy to tell that story.
Content can be words, great infographics, videos, a blog, a digital magazine or ebook, or a short social media post. Whatever fits with your (or your clients’ business) is what the team of hand-picked experts at Cornerstone Communications can do.
Previously, Jo has managed the marketing, communications and media for a range of companies, including state government and tertiary education. In her spare time, Jo studies for her PhD in communications using video-conferencing, walks the dog and eats copious amounts of chocolate.
15 Cool Things You (Maybe) Didn’t Know WordPress Could Do
Kristen Symonds
This talk is aimed at users to get the most out of their WordPress publishing experience.
Kristen’s talk will include some of the overlooked parts of WordPress admin such as:
- The Help menu.
- Screen Options.
- Drag & drop media.
- Inserting multiple images at once.
- Use the Edit Selection section of media dialogue.
- Page Ordering.
- Bulk Edit.
- Emoji.
- And many more!
Kristen Symonds, (aka Kristarella) is co-organiser of the WPSydney meetup group, co-organiser WordCamp Sydney 2014 and a WordPress fanatic. She also loves photography, craft (especially knitting and crochet), Sci-Fi and Fantasy, and board games.
Kristen is married to Dave and has two pet rabbits named Kaylee and Monty; they all live together in suburban Sydney.
You can follow Kristen on Twitter.
Contributing Back To WordPress – Why It’s Important For Your Business
Kel Santiago
There are many ways to contribute to WordPress and many reasons why it’s important for your business. Your company will get recognised at events, you become the face of your company as well as gain trust from the community and clients.
You fly the flag for WordPress which is globally-recognised and when you contribute, you gain new friends, meet new people and for company’s like Digital Cube, business is not about the money, it’s about the people.
Kel Santiago will show you some of the many ways to contribute to WordPress such as:
- WordPress Tips from Users Around the World.
- What it Takes to Contribute.
- DigitalCube’s Five for the Future.
- Contributing back via:
Kel is a Japan-based writer and evangelist of DigitalCube Co. Ltd. Advanced Consulting Partner of Amazon Web Services and Code Poet WordPress Consultant. They were the first in Japan and all of Asia.
You can follow Kel on Twitter.
Once Upon An API
Steven Cooper
In this session Steven will cover how you can integrate WordPress with external APIs. This will be done with the help of a creatively written story and with the help of actors who will play the part of the various stages of the API calls from retrieving the token from a server to the transaction and even the nasty old chargeback. Steven will be using the PayPal and Braintree API’s as his example API’s.
Steven’s talk will be entertainment from the very beginning, engaging young and old alike and suitable for all ages. Actors in a talk, who’d have thunk it!? Quite often developers use API’s via SDKs and don’t understand the interactions that are happening so Steven thought this would be a light hearted way to make the journey entertaining!
Steven’s talk will cover some of the following topics:
- The benefits of using the WordPress HTTP API.
- How to use the WordPress HTTP API.
- Token based authentication with an API.
- Debugging and testing APIs.
Steven Cooper is responsible for working with the strong developer community within Asia-Pacific, to develop and nurture the healthy start-up culture that continues to flourish across the region.
Over the last 20 years, Steven has worked as a senior developer for a host of start-ups and as a developer analyst for more than 10 years with Sensis. Before joining PayPal, he configured and spec’d mass production technology hardware for the likes of Virgin, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Visa, St. George and Westpac.
In his current role, Steven hopes to align businesses with the most appropriate PayPal solutions – products that deliver efficiency, flexibility and enable scalability.
You can follow Steven on Twitter.
These Are A Few Of My Favourite Themes
Meryl McCay
There are so many themes out there; how do you choose? Especially if you’re not a coder, so building one from the ground up is not an option. Or your CSS skills are more like “What on earth is CSS?” Where can you find quality themes? Meryl will introduce you to several sources of WordPress themes and some of the pitfalls for the unwary beginner, such as “I’ve installed the theme but it doesn’t look anything like the demo!” Plus, Meryl’s got a couple of favourite themes she’d like to share.
- Introduction
- Sources of themes (e.g. ThemeForest, WooThemes, StudioPress, Elegant Themes, etc)
- Why doesn’t it look like the demo; There’s more to implementing a theme than just installing it!
- Pitfalls for the unwary (e.g. image sizes, theme option panels, support, etc)
- Tweaking CSS for the novice – where do you start? (including a look at Firebug and the CSS Hero plugin)
- A few of my favourite themes (Canvas by WooThemes, Divi by Elegant Themes, KingSize from ThemeForest)
- Questions
Meryl has been using WordPress since 2011, but still considers herself to be a novice. Having seen the list of august speakers coming to the WordCamp, people with serious dev skills, entrepreneurs and the like, she has some trepidation about volunteering to present; however, we all had to start somewhere and if she can inspire another newbie to think “Hey, I can do that too”, then the anxiety will have been worth it!
As a non-coder she finds the WordPress platform perfectly suited to the skills she can bring to the table. With over 20 years’ experience as an Information Professional (aka a Librarian), helping small businesses and not-for-profit organisations to create well-structured websites, with quality content, that they are able to manage themselves (to a large degree) is something she finds very satisfying.
Being programmatically challenged, Meryl uses quality commercial themes to do the heavy lifting and has begun to delve into the mysteries of CSS in order to tweak the design to suit the client. Still unsure about whether this fascination with WordPress can actually generate an income, she has nonetheless taken the plunge and finally got a business card. ☺
You can follow Meryl on Twitter.
WordPress On The Command Line With WP-CLI
Jamie Madden
Being able to build and maintain WordPress installations from the command line has many advantages. You can automate the setup and installation of a base site template including all your settings, plugins and users preconfigured and ready to go.
WP-CLI provides a command line interface to your WordPress site for the install, update of plugins, import and modification of data and more, all without the need of a web browser.
Jamie’s talk will go through the basics of WP-CLI along with a demo of some of the available commands. I will share a script I use to quickly build a development environment for plugin and theme development.
- The talk will start with what WP-CLI is.
- Advantages of using the command line.
- Basic Commands.
- Demo: Install core and base plugins.
- Demo: Import demo content.
- Advanced commands.
- Demo: Creating a script to automate the previous.
Jamie has spent over 15 years as a systems administrator and developer. He is interested in all areas of technology both on and offline. Jamie has always aimed to automate his environments wherever possible. Starting in the early days with shell scripts and moving through to tools like Chef.
Jamie has been a WordPress user and developer since the early days of version 1.5. He has utilised WordPress for all levels of products including basic websites, blogs, e-commerce, auctions, helpdesk systems and more. He is the lead developer of WC Vendors a free Multi Vendor WooCommerce plugin.
Outside of the IT world Jamie enjoys a variety of music and photography and tries to combine the two whenever possible.
You can follow Jamie on Twitter.
How To Get Visitors Marketing Tropical North Queensland With Us
Kate Duffy
Advocacy is a key driver in moving consumers through the path to purchase, with word-of-mouth and recommendations from other travellers being the most honest and effective form of tourism marketing today. Kate’s talk will centre around Tropical North Queensland‘s advocacy strategy and the role of their new WordPress blog in their marketing endeavours.
Kate’s talk will cover the following topics:
- The evolution of tourism marketing: From a controlled industry with a few small players to a more open, interactive and consumer driven market.
- How things we all take for granted now-days such as mobile devices & access to free WiFi change our expectations and interaction with the tourism industry because millions of people can share their experiences online. This sharing (or advocacy) is at the core of TTNQ’s marketing strategy.
- How Kate and her team use their WordPress blog as a platform to build a profile of their advocates and point consumers from their social media channels and tell a deeper story about the FNQ destination.
You can follow Kate on Twitter.
Creative SEO
Dan Petrovic
Creative SEO tactics go beyond the usual technical SEO, keyword selection and link building. Dan will provide a practical session with actionable takeaways and is sure to inspire new ideas.
Dan talks will cover the following topics:
- Inside the Matrix: Tracking Google’s Algorithm.
- Guerrilla SEO: Outrageously different tactics.
- Big Stuff: Dealing with large scale research.
- Link Building is for Suckers: There’s a better way!
Dan Petrovic is Australia’s best-known name in the field of search engine optimisation and the director of DEJAN. His research and experiments have drawn attention of the worldwide community and major industry blogs. Dan is a frequent blogger and a speaker at all major Australian and select international search industry events. Conference delegates describe him as a passionate presenter with practical and actionable approach. Dan holds a multimedia degree from Griffith University in Brisbane, where he often presents as a guest lecturer and contributes to quality of teaching material as a member of the curriculum advisory board. Outside his day job Dan’s interests are in the field of science, education, research, technology, electronic music and futurism. The best way to connect with Dan is through Google+.
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More details and photos: http://dejanseo.com.au/dan-petrovic/
ROOOAR Magazine – The Benefits Of Publishing A Digital Magazine
Nicki Mckay
Nicki & Anna initially started ROOOAR magazine as a just for fun experiment to promote their own businesses by speaking directly to their target audience. Now into the start of their second year, the magazine has taken a mind of it’s own, with a thriving community, regular in person & online events and distribution on the Virgin Airlines inflight entertainment network.
During the talk Nicki will discuss the process of how they started the magazine, the technology they used, how they experienced high organic growth and how they continue to maintain the magazine whilst still running their separate full time businesses.
Nicki’s talk will cover the following:
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Why they started a digital magazine.
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Secrets to collaboration.
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Implementation.
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Growth.
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Maintenance.
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Monetisation.
Nicki Mckay is a wander lusting, garden loving Brisbane based creative. A freelance web designer, front-end developer, blogger, digital strategist and co-founder of ROOOAR magazine – a digital magazine for female entrepreneurs.
With over a decade of experience in the industry, Nicki has helped hundreds of clients bring their online vision to life. She has a passion for helping people not only build their online brand, but also help them to maintain sustainable businesses.
You can follow Nicki on Twitter.
Writing and Design for Successful Content Strategies – Words, Images and Interaction
Tracey Porst
Tracey Porst will be discussing her process for designing, writing, producing and delivering interesting and engaging content for clients and target audiences, regardless of industry or development platform.
Good content strategy focuses on planning, designing, producing, delivery, and organisation of content that is of interest to the target audience and creates a positive experience of the brand. Good content doesn’t just include the right words and images on a website, but also the interactive elements used. Ensuring your sites have useful and usable content, that’s well structured and is easily found is vital to improving the user experience of a website.
Tracey will address sourcing and curating good content for not just websites, but also other digital marketing activities such as email newsletters, blogs and social media.
She’ll discuss how writing well for the web is more important than ever and words and well-chosen images contribute to the overall perception of a business. How choosing the right image does speak a thousand words, as does typography, colour palettes and how the user interface supports the presentation and delivery of the message.
Tracey’s professional background is in digital media design and production.This includes many years designing and developing online and digital media, including using content management systems and other cross platform interactive experiences. Today, this includes content and digital media strategy development and user-centered design for engagement.
The healthcare technology space is of particular interest to Tracey and she is very active in this community in Brisbane, especially as a co-organiser of a successful and rapidly expanding meet up group called Healthtech Innovation QLD (http://www.meetup.com/Healthtech-Queensland-Meetup/events/220964056/) which has grown exponentially since it began in October last year.
Tracey has managed and delivered content for international brands as well as small, local clients and her talk will cover some case studies in:
- Corporate communications – online, brand establishment and management, copywriting, visual communications.
- Instructional videos – motion graphics, combined with voice-over and video content.
- Information graphics – visual communication of complex data and concepts.
- Website advancement – design, build, content strategies and maintenance.
- User experience design – engagement, task focused outcomes, GUI design.
- Creative direction and brand management – guidance on target audience perception, branding guidance, social media etc.
You can follow Tracey on Twitter.
Plugin Development 101
Wil Brown
Are you a master of themes? Are you ready to take the leap and start making your very first WordPress plugin? Well Wil Brown has the perfect talk for you. Will will be teaching you how to code up your first custom WordPress plugin and he’ll even be teaching you how to get it on WordPress.org!
Wil’s talk will cover the following:
- Basic structure (files) required for plugin.
- Functions required to initialise, activate, deactivate and uninstall.
- Coding a simple shortcode plugin. Basic shortcode, then one with content, then one with inputs.
- Explaining filters and action hooks – some commonly used ones.
- Where to go to find out more (codex).
- Examples of things you can do with plugins to extend WordPress.
- How to get your plugin into the WordPress.org reposititory (covering GPL and subversion).
Wil is a professional web developer with a passion for leading edge technologies, security and server architecture. He spoke at WordCamp Sydney 2012, co-organizes the WordPress Sydney meetup, was lead organiser for WordCamp Sydney 2014 and contributes to the WordPress Core development. He likes pizza, sausages, chilies, beer, red wine and hyperdimensional physics.
You can follow Wil on Twitter.
Leveraging Your Skills – Moving From One-On-One Client Work To Creating Your First Online Course
Helena Denley
Are you a freelancer who is at capacity with clients but aren’t earning the income you would like to be? Are you a freelancer looking to expand your reach beyond the one on one client work? If you answered ‘Yes’ to either or both of those questions then this is a must see talk for you!
Helena will help you plan your first online course by helping you with following tasks:
- Do you have a list? If not start building one now so you can survey your list to find out what they may want.
- Can your current skills, the ones you use in your freelance business with one-on-one clients, translate into an online course?
- Skills assessment.
- Target market – who are you be able to teach your skills to?
- Creating your course – delivered live or pre-recorded?
- Minimum viable product and iterate as you go or at each release.
- Fitting course creation amongst current work.
- Cut back on one-on-one work to make time to deliver the course.
- Specific launches or Evergreen course.
Helena’s presentation will leave you with the following key takeaways:
- Do you have skills that would convert well into an online course?
- There is never a good time to take a break from client work to create a course. Make a plan, set a date, make it happen!
- Options for creating course content.
In between un-schooling her 6 year old son, Helena is the co-owner of http://www.diywebsitecoach.com & http://thenewsolopreneur.com (with her husband Warren). They help new solo business owners get started with their first website and learn how to manage the daily tasks involved with running a business online and being a solo entrepreneur.
You can follow Helena on Twitter.
Wouldn’t Life Be Better Without Clients?
Ben Maden
A prospective client calls us wanting work – Yay! They get into complaining about their existing web developer. They’re a good dev, we know them. Where did it go wrong? Is the client crazy? This is a classic problem that happens the world over to web designers/developers. It causes us (and the clients) pain and stress.
Ben will talk about this common problem and address some questions such as:
- How can we get it right?
- Why do clients cause us pain?
- How bad can this pain get? (Including a confession or two from Ben).
- How can we take control of our lives?
Ben can teach you how to create a plan and compare our industries business model agains other professional services that handle client service relationships, instructions, variations and billing such as builders, lawyers, accountants and plumbers. There’s a lot we can learn from this!
At the end of Ben’s presentation you’ll leave with the following take aways:
- An action plan to solve your issues.
- You’ll make sure you’re never the designer or developer that clients whine about!
- Make sure you have your docs and contracts in order.
- You’ll learn how to reach out for help from your peers!
Ben Maden founded Matter Solutions in April 2000 and remains the lead web consultant today. While Matter Solutions originated in London, UK, the company took on Australian clients when Ben emigrated to Brisbane in November 2006.
Ben does lots of different things… roughly in order of frequency the tasks he performs include…
- Working with clients and prospective clients to plan projects.
- Communicating plans with team members and project managing progress.
- Coaching team members.
- Coding – Headphones on and coding funky (mostly back-end) stuff.
- SysAdmin – Keeping the infrastructure humming along.
- Blogging – Writing about stuff that happens and how to do things.
You can follow Ben on Twitter.
How To Get A Page Speed Score In The 90s
Peter Wilson
Peter will be teaching you how to get a page speed score in the 90s!
There’s no doubt about it, performance is becoming a more important part of day-to-day web development. Why?
Users hate waiting.
Users hate waiting at their desktop, they hate waiting on 3G. Users hate waiting for Open Sans when Arial is adequate. If users hate it, Google hates it; performance has become an important metric in PageRank; they’ve introduced a new tool – PageSpeed – to measure it.
Spend a few minutes learning how to increase the PageSpeed score of your WordPress powered site. Find out some of the rules you have to follow, and some of the rules you have to break to get there.
Peter Wilson has been a front end developer for almost two decades. After spending his early career working with tables and spacer gifs, Peter developed a love for CSS.
Peter has provided coding and web management services for a for some of the country’s largest and smallest businesses.
He currently spends his days working on enterprise grade contract management software.
You can follow him on Twitter.
Plugin Paradise
Selina Power
Selina will cover some of the best WordPress plugins that are designed to save time and help new bloggers to the seasoned developer. This will be a take away packed presentation which will leave conference goers begging for more and excited to start activating plugins.
Selina’s talk will cover the following topics:
- Assets of using plugins.
- What to look for when choosing a plugin.
- Standard installation of a WordPress plugin.
- Premium vs Free plugins.
- Listing of plugins based on category (SEO, lightbox, social media feeds etc.).
- Why they are so good and the before and after.
- Funding a custom built plugin.
- Final plugin tips.
Selina Power is a social media specialist and founder and owner of Super Power Digital – a WordPress website design development and social media agency.
Selina’s native genius moniker, ‘Social Media Powerhouse’, is pretty apt, as she has been in the social media and digital marketing industry for over eight years and has worked with non-profit organisations and large commercial companies. She was also the founder of Social Media Online Academy which is now being run by Bluewire Media. Selina has been featured on Nova (Brisbane), ABC Radio and has spoken with Facebook at their Small Business Bootcamp. Selina is a renowned international keynote speaker and is the co-creator of the Social Media Planning Template and the 5 Minute Social Media Marketing Plans which have been downloaded 1,000+ times worldwide. Selina is always on the look out for the next social media trend and gadgets.
Follow Selina on Twitter.
Building a Membership site with WooCommerce
Anthony Hortin
Anthony’s presentation will show how you can create a membership site using WooTheme’s WooCommerce plugin. Although there are a number of membership specific plugins around, WooCommerce brings with it a number of benefits. First and foremost, WooCommerce is a trusted and well supported plugin, which is easy to setup and use. It’s currently estimated to be powering approximately 28% of all eCommerce sites. Other benefits include the number of available extensions, and in particular, payment gateways, which are ideally suited for membership sites. On top of that, if you want to sell products to your members, you automatically have the ability to do so, nice and easily. Anthony will outline the benefits of using WooCommerce, over dedicated membership plugins. He’ll also discuss which plugins (along with WooCommerce) would be required and how to go about setting them up.
During Anthony’s presentation he will covering the following areas:
- Benefits of using WooCommerce
- Benefits of WooCommerce over other popular membership plugins
- Plugins required (WooCommerce plus others)
- How to set up and configure the various plugins
Anthony runs a boutique design & development studio in the South-East suburbs of Melbourne. Maddison Designs works with a wide range of clients, from micro businesses through to large corporates, specialising in custom WordPress sites and WooCommerce stores.
Anthony has been developing for the web since the late 90’s. His love for WordPress was realised back in 2005 and he’s been happily using & coding for it ever since. He’s passionate about giving back to the WordPress community and has contributed to both the WordPress Theme and Plugin Directories and can be frequently found on the WordPress support forums.
Anthony is the author behind the highly popular Easy WP Guide an easy to read WordPress manual for end users and WordPress consultants.
Back in 2013, Anthony was a co-organiser for WordCamp Melbourne and each month he helps organise the WordPress Melbourne meetups.
You can follow Anthony on Twitter.
Modern Design: Browser, Mobile and Data-Centric
Lucy Bloomfield
Lucy will cover processes and workflows that allow her to rapidly prototype on projects that has a team spread out across the planet. She’ll discuss the importance of sketching but also the importance of iterating quickly, scrapping bad ideas and jumping as quickly as possible into designing in the browser.
She’ll discuss the importance of building for the mobile device first, as well as what happens when you don’t (warning: it gets ugly) and Lucy will also discuss how to utilise data to improve designs.
The audience will hopefully walk away with a better idea about how to improve their prototype workflow, how to build and design things quickly as well as how to build for mobile first and to scale designs.
Lucy’s presentation will cover the following topics:
- Modern design is awesome (why’s, job examples)
- Sketching (it’s really important and why)
- Holding on to your designs (why it’s bad and how not to do it)
- In browser design (how, why you should and key tools)
- Mobile first (how, why you should and when it goes badly)
- Rapid prototyping (building things quickly, iterating for improvements)
- Data-centric design (how to do it and how cool it is)
Lucy is a UI/UX designer that got sick of doing the usual 9-5 in agencies and decided to go out on her own. Over the last year and a half, she’s set up a one (wo)man agency that handles a variety of different projects – anything from writing programming courses for London-based QA to leading the re-brand and re-structure of Boston-based startup, Security Innovation. Oh… and she’s only 22!
Currently Lucy is the lead designer on a team within Security Innovation for an application security product called TEAM Mentor. This product allows her the freedom and privilege of getting to try her hand at basically everything she could ever want – from iconography, digital strategy and programming to design, information architecture, user testing and product management.
She has a lot of experience designing in browser specifically, with a focus on mobile first. Much of her process revolves around coding and because of that, she’s had a lot to do with the way her designs are created, which is something many designers aren’t able to do.
You can follow Lucy on Twitter.
WooCommerce Case Study – coffeebeansdelivered.com.au
Jen Jeavons
Coffee Beans Delivered is Pixel Palace’s very own eCommerce project. Conceived after years of building online stores for clients they thought it would be fun to put their money where their mouth is and try it for themselves. In the presentation Jen will cover the business concept and model, branding and design, SEO and WooCommerce set up and plugins plus tips and tricks they’ve learnt along the way and unique insights from a client/user perspective on running an online store that as developers you may not consider..
In our presentation Jen will cover:
- How they named the business for SEO purposes
- The business model
- The SEO techniques and results that have seen them perform exceptionally in search results.
- Branding and site design aesthetic (which has seen it featured on numerous design blogs).
- WooCommerce plugins and extensions we’re using (including follow up emails, cart messages etc).
Jen Jeavons is the director of Brisbane based digital design studio – Pixel Palace. For more than a decade, Pixel Palace has been specialising in handcrafted custom online solutions. Jen heads up a small but crazy clever team from their Kelvin Grove office servicing a broad range of clients worldwide. Clients include well known local businesses such as Shingle Inn and reach as far as America with clients including high end LA fashion labels and celebrity stylist and Harpers Bazaar spokesperson Anita Patrickson. Pixel Palace specialises in custom WordPress sites and WooCommerce builds.
You can follow Jen on Twitter.
Make WordPress Accessible
Charlie Carter
Following on from Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Charlies’ talk will discuss the many options that developers can do to improve accessibility within the WordPress platform. His presentation aims to offer practical insight and advice into making your WordPress more inclusive without the bloat.
Charlies’ talk will include the following topics:
- WordPress intro
- Making WordPress Accessible Initiative
- WordPress Accessibility plugins
- Tenon.io and Access Checker
- CAPTCHAs
- Colour contrast
- Captioning
Charlie is the Founder / Director at Webbism. A web accessibility consulting business that aims to make the web a more inclusive place. Charlie is the founder of the Brisbane Web Accessibility & Inclusive Design Meetup in Brisbane, Team Lead for Accessibility at the Emergency Wiki 2.0 and member of Universal Tux, a group that aims to enhance accessibility within Linus and FOSS (free and open source software). Charlie is a founding member at The Loft Project and lives on the Sunshine Coast.
You can follow Charlie Carter on Twitter.
Keynote: Recurring Revenue is the Holy Grail
Troy Dean
Troy will talk about why recurring revenue is the holy grail and how you can create recurring revenue in your WordPress business. During the talk Troy will teach you how to package up your recurring revenue offer, how to pitch it to clients and how to build infrastructure to automate most of the work.
Troy will walk you through a simple framework to help you build recurring revenue into your business so you can stop trading time for money.
Most WordPress-based businesses already have plenty of opportunities to create recurring revenue. During this presentation you will learn how to identify your recurring customers, how to package what they are already buying into a recurring revenue model and why recurring revenue really is the holy grail for you and your clients.
Troy Dean is co-founder of Video User Manuals and WP Elevation.
His past clients include QuickBooks, IBM, F1 Grand Prix, The Ashes, Westpac and Jessica Watson.
He is also host of the WP Elevation podcast which consistently ranks in the top 3 in iTunes for his category.
In his spare time he is a rock god in several bands.
You can follow Troy on Twitter.
How to Freelance like a BOSS
Dee Teal
Freelancing, on the face of it is an exciting idea. Being your own boss, being the manager of your own time, working from home and basically working for yourself can be incredibly rewarding.
It can also, however be terrifying. Instead of just being a writer, or a designer, or a developer you now also have to be a bookkeeper, accountant and all round office dogsbody/tea-maker.
In attending this talk, audience members who are already freelancing will be able to check off whether they’re making the most of their time and resources, beginners will learn how to set themselves up for success.
Dee’s talk will cover the follow:
1. Managing your Environment
- Home Office
- Co-Working
- Ergonomic Workspace
2. Managing your Accounts
- Bookkeeping Software
- Keeping Receipts
- Managing Cashflow
3. Managing your Relationships
- Staying Connected
- Meetups and Industry Associations
4. Managing your Tax obligations
- When to hire a bookkeeper
- Setting aside money for income tax
- Registering for GST
5. Working to your Strengths
- Staffing your weaknesses
You can follow Dee on Twitter.
Build on Chassis: Introduction to a Solid Development Workflow
Japh Thomson
Knowing what tools and processes to use when starting out is difficult for a newcomer to WordPress-based development. I’ll share my preferred setup after years of building on WordPress. The basis for my development workflow is a project called Chassis. I’ll cover the general workflow, and an intro to Chassis.
Japh has been building websites since the late 1990s, and specialising in WordPress since ~2008. As a senior developer he’s helped a number of web agencies switch to WordPress as their CMS of choice. He worked as the WordPress Evangelist for WordPress at Envato from ~2011, and now works at Human Made, a WordPress.com VIP partner agency.
Japh is also interested in a variety of things, including fermentation and the intersection between beverages and botany. He also has a passion for seeing WordPress taken into the countries, languages, and cultures where it isn’t already dominant.
You can follow Japh on Twitter.