What goes into building websites for the developing world? Is it something that your company or your development team considers? Having grown up and worked on many internationally recognized websites in South Africa, a country with major socio-economic divides, building websites that individuals can access with out the use of the latest technology and up to date browsers is an incredible challenge, requiring a deep understanding of almost every aspect of the development process.
This talk, using a data-centric approach, will show business owners and developers how to work and develop with clients whose websites need to be accessible and optimized for the developing world.
You’ve completed a client’s website, They are happy, and you got paid. This should not be an end, but a beginning of a beautiful friendship. So let’s talk about setting up a business with happy clients and recurring revenue.
When providing pre- and post-sales support to customers, moving from an email-only mode to 1:1 (video) chat can be quite daunting.
The reassuring, safe bubble of the white email textbox is replaced by the unpredictable live interaction with another human: you never know how they *will* react to your input, and how *you* will react to theirs.
In this talk I’ll share the troubles I’ve faced when asked to host 1:1 chats with Jetpack paid clients on a regular basis. The journey was full of uncertainties, and I questioned myself as a Happiness Engineer. Eventually, it helped me overcome my fears and get the best out of the products I provide support for.
Starting with the pain points of a product, this talk offers a different perspective on face-to-face interactions and pre/post-sales opportunities with potential and/or ongoing clients. This talk is for anyone interested in how to leverage customer service to increase customer loyalty and happiness.
Most websites are disposable – they are built once and not changed until they are replaced or turned off. Frequently, this is despite the best intentions of the original owner, designer, or developer.
But some sites and applications are made to last – to be updated frequently as part of doing work, for weeks, months, or even years. These sites are an integrated part of a high-performing business or organization – one that can do a job well, and then adjust quickly to meet changing business needs.
In this talk, we will explore best practices that smart developers use when building things to last for years. In addition to technical design and development topics, we’ll cover some of the human factors that are at play in IT projects, especially when it comes to WordPress:
WordPress as a critical tool for business (not just as a workaround to IT policies)
Themes and plugins and custom development (how not to paint yourself into a corner)
Ownership through collaborative construction (how to avoid hand-offs that disappoint)
I’m going to show how we can improve our code using skills from the wider PHP world. I’d like to shatter the idea that enterprise applications and WordPress don’t mix. WordPress can be a great platform to build enterprise applications.
The end result, a code base that is lean and scalable. A process that lets you bring on more developers as required. In particular, I will be discussing how to separate theme development from application development, the elegance of using MVC (Model, View, Controller), taming URL rewriting and embracing custom database tables.
Ultimately this lets developers pitch for larger projects using the skills they already have.
Let’s see whether you can make your next complex WordPress project easier with WordPress Multisite. Imagine hundreds of websites in the single instance of WordPress. Each is independent but connected together. What it will be? Governmental website or multilingual online store? Blogging platform or franchising company? Country basketball teams websites or online education centre? These all made easy with WordPress Multisite. Network of WordPress sites will grow with you! You’ll see what WordPress Multisite capable of and when to ask a developer to use it.
When I started my business, in 2011, I didn’t think I needed a business plan, I only needed clients, tons of clients. Even though my title was web designer, I took every job that was asked of me: web sites, of course, but also graphics, print, social media management, training, basically anything!
In less than eight months I had to go back to work as an employee because I managed to spend way more money than I earned.
I kept doing some freelancing on the side with no direction whatsoever and finally I realised that I needed a plan. After implementing a proper business plan, I was able to recognise and concentrate on a niche market, become much more successful, raise my prices, and greatly increase my income.
It doesn’t matter what your financial goal for the year is, or what your mission for your small business is, having measurable goals and a clear strategy will allow you to do what you love and make a living out of it.
Together we will go over the basic sections of a business plan and we’ll learn a creative way to make one that represents you and your business.
Around 45% of what is classed as UK Business have little to no web presence. and even for a large percentage of those who do, they are navigating through a minefield of online tools and platforms, with no direction. I will guide you through a series of steps to help you go and grow online with WordPress as a scalable platform. I will give you top tips on the many other steps that feed into your online presence, from content, to the many forms of marketing, measuring and tracking for success.
WordPress is being used in increasingly complex settings, powering everything from websites, to apps to content distribution services. As complexity increases, it becomes more and more important to make sure that we are designing and building the right experience for content creators, editors and end users. This panel will draw on real life examples that range from designing editor workflows through to UI design for public audiences. We’ll look at how to navigate the organisational challenges, including developing the business case for design and managing stakeholders. We’ll also look at how different products come with very different challenges and needs. Finally, we’ll discuss what success (and failure) looks like in the real world. This is not a technical talk.
Running tests with real users is critical for so many organizations, whether when evaluating MVPs or just as part of iterative updates. For an organization that already has embraced inclusive design, the next step is to integrate it into user testing by incorporating users with disabilities into your normal testing process. Note that this is not the same as accessibility testing. Ideally your accessibility work is done so that you can test a fully functional and accessible site/application for usability regardless of disability. I will discuss how to plan for and execute these sessions as well as pitfalls to avoid. Ideally you will walk away with high-level understanding of where to start.