Takeaways from WordCamp Northeast Ohio 2016

by
Brad Colbow

Last weekend I joined over 120 people—designers, developers, and users—at the two-day WordCamp Northeast Ohio conference in Kent, Ohio.

I had a wonderful time at the sessions (I have a Google Doc filled with notes!) and in the “hallway track,” what we refer to when we stop to chat with friends and somehow miss a couple sessions.

Loved meeting so many new people and reacquainting myself with people I know online, or met at a prior WordCamp.

Thanks to the lead organizers Angie Bergman and Rich Robinkoff and their organizing team and volunteers for their dedication and hard work in making WordCamp Northeast (NE) Ohio a success.

What made WordCamp NE Ohio special for me:

  • Conference venue was in the hotel, the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center. That made it simple for me to return to my room when I forgot something!
  • Inspirational and thought-provoking keynotes from Eric Meyer and Chris Lema
  • Fifteen-minute breaks between sessions, lovely! I had time to meet attendees next to me, and ask speakers questions without having to hurry off to the session in the next room.
  • One and one-half hours for lunch on both days. What a treat! No rushing to get through lunch.
  • Burrito lunch bar on the second day, yummy!
  • Satirical entrepreneur vs. employee debate
  • Fun afterparty at the bowling alley
  • Beautiful Kent State University campus where I escaped for walks in the morning before the conference started, during lunch breaks, and in the evening

My Takeaways From WordCamp NE Ohio

  1. Design for Real LifeIn his keynote for the first day of WordCamp, Eric Meyer highlighted designing for real life.

    He focused on the need to design for stress cases, those times when people are in crisis mode—an emergency, time-limited situation, or when something just doesn’t go right, rather than edge cases.

    Meyer told his own stories of the need for more compassion and empathy in design as he shared touching personal experiences at a hospital during his daughter’s treatement for cancer.

    Later that year, a new feature in an application harshly reminded him of his daughter’s death when the app design failed to consider stress cases.

    Meyer highlighted designs of several sites and applications that also didn’t quite understand how to design for stress cases.

    By changing their approach to focus on stress cases, designers can create more thoughtful solutions that respect the user.

  2. WordPress and CommunityWordPress the Code needs WordPress the Community said Chris Lema in the day two keynote.

    Lema shared stories about his own experiences as he discussed how you can contribute, build up the community by meeting people, sharing what you know, and focusing on the path, not the destination.

    Some key points from his talk:

    • Never stop learning. Expect mastery to take time. Microwaves have led us to believe web work can be learned quickly.
    • Share all you know, all the time. Write down lessons learned, and publish them so others can learn.
    • Ask questions constantly
    • The community value always outpaces the code value
  3. Design for the Non-DesignerWhat influences your design decisions? There are a number of factors that you need to consider, your audience, site purpose, tone of voice, says Melinda Helt.
    • Typography. Will you use Serif or Sans Serif font? Or one font, with different styles? You want to use a font that works for your type of site, audience, and voice. For example: a transitional Sans Serif font like Oswald is unassuming and modern. It works well for technology or transportation site.
    • Color schemes. First select a base color, then expand your color palette.
    • Images. Since our brains process images faster than words, you want to select images that convey your message. If you’re using stock photography, make sure you have rights to use the image. Best images to use? The ones you take yourself or you hire a photographer to shoot. Use a photographic release form for people in your photos.
    • Graphics. You can create your own graphics with a number of tools, Photoshop, Illustrator, Pixelmator, Canva, or PowerPoint

    Check out her slides for more details and resources (PDF).

  4. The Designer’s ToolkitLoved this session with Kassy Sikora sharing all kinds of tips and resources for designers on typography, color theory, layout, visual identity, color palettes, and the software and tools to use in your web projects. Perfect follow up to the previous talk.

    After her talk, I enjoyed a great chat with Kassey and Brad Colbow about user experience, side projects, and meetup groups.

  5. Deploy a WordPress site with Minimal WorkI didn’t want to miss Seth Alling’s talk about deploying a WordPress site; he’s one of our Metro Detroit WordPress group members.

    Alling gave an overview of various techniques you can use to deploy your site, including local deployment, FTP, Git, and third party services like BackupBuddy (or similar plugin) as well as options like Beanstalk, FTPloy, and Pantheon.

    His preferred method? Use the command line. Seth’s setup uses Vagrant, a staging server, and a production server with his repository on Github. Check out his presentation slides for more details.

  6. Custom Responsive Theme WorkshopWhile you can use any number of frameworks or themes to build a site, creating your own custom framework allows you to better understand the code and create a base you can use to develop future sites.

    In his presentation, David Brattoli shared his method for creating a custom responsive theme, based on Underscores and Foundation from Zurb.

    Brattoli demonstrated the code and changes in the site as he walked through the steps of customizing functions.php and building out a child theme.

  7. Sequential Design–What comics can teach us about designing for the webWho wouldn’t be fascinated with a talk that starts out with a comic of Space Dad, with realistic sound effects?

    My friend Brad Colbow sure knew how to capture everyone’s attention as he masterfully used examples of comics in his discussion of key web design principles.

    Download the slides (PDF: 80M) and check out the resources and comics referenced in Colbow’s talk.

  8. 10 Ways to Ruin Your WordPress Business
    For one of the last talks at WordCamp NE Ohio, my friend Angie Meeker highlighted how WordPress entrepreneurs can sabotage their business.

    When you work by yourself, it can be easy to think you’re invincible and can do it all.

    You can’t. Want to avoid ruining your business? Be sure you’re:

    • Planning
    • Sharing what you know, which benefits you, your client, and other WordPress designers/developers. It sets you up to be recognized as an trustworthy authority.
    • Promoting how you build a solution that the website provides. If you promote that you build things, rather than the value that thing produces, you’re competing for lowest price. And potential clients will go elsewhere.
    • Setting up systems, and finding others to collaborate with. What happen if you’re sick or have to deal with an emergency that takes you away from your work projects? Do you have systems set up so some other professional can take on your projects?
    • Communicating effectively and regularly with clients
    • Turning down clients that aren’t a good fit for you. It’s okay to turn down clients.

    Did you attend WordCamp NE Ohio 2016? Any takeaways you want to add? Share them in the comments.

Photo of author

About the Author

Deborah Edwards-Oñoro enjoys birding, gardening, taking photos, reading, and watching tennis. She's retired from a 25+ year career in web design, usability, and accessibility.

Recent Posts

Contact

Via my contact page.

© 2007 - 2025 Lireo Designs

Privacy Policy Accessibility Statement