My Top 5 Speakers From WordCamp London 2019

Following our recent trip to North London last weekend for WordCamp 2019, I’ve been thinking about the talks I attended. What captured my attention, and has stayed in my mind throughout the week.

Obviously everyone has their own interests and understanding of certain areas covered at WordCamp. But my list of top 5 speakers covers a few of those. Maybe ping me some feedback on what your favourites were!

My 5 Top WordCamp Sessions

This is in ascending order as I watched them from Saturday AM to Sunday PM…

8 Lessons I Have Learnt Through my Mental Illness (and how my Life has Improved with WordPress) by Judith Schröer

[Community Talk]

WordCamps generally seem to ensure that there is at least 1 talk that touches on mental health which I personally think is really important. When I attended Manchester we attended Dan Maby’s talk about WP&Up however this talk was a little different.

Judith mentioned at the beginning of her talk that not only is this the first time she is talking about her own experiences but also her first talk in English as her native language is German – I personally think she held a fantastic talk.

I took away from this talk a real sense of ease knowing that no matter what life can throw your way that allowing your body to take a break sometimes, whether physically or mentally, is not a bad thing and people should be embracing this.

I am fond of Judith’s honesty and passion for where she is now.

Mindful Design: Designing with Presence for Purpose and Inclusion by Raffaella Isidori

[Design Talk]

I watched this talk after Judith’s so the flow of this kind of talk was great and I really enjoyed this one a lot. Raffaella encouraged us to take part in a an exercise that allowed us to focus on ourselves which can really benefit you in situations you may be finding overwhelming.

Something so important that I took away from this is what is called “rumination” – I had no idea there was a name for it and now I do I feel I could ease away from doing it so much and allowing myself to be more mindful about things.

I am grateful for attending this talk as being mindful is something I really wish to improve on and her advice and techniques discussed, that she uses herself in design, can be used in any instance in everyone’s day to day life.

5 eCommerce Trends to Implement Now by Topher Derosia

[Business Talk]

Creating e-commerce websites at Impact is always enjoyable. You see client’s products in all their glory and you can also watch when live from the sidelines how the business grows through the sales.

I felt that keeping up to date with this from a work point of view and from a personal point of view with my own e-commerce website that identifying trends would be beneficial.

Topher discussed the differences between someone who is younger (eg. Gen Z) and what they look for when purchasing that would push them to buy, compared to a baby boomer or other generation. I found this really useful. There will always be different marketing ploys for every generation. But he confirmed studies were showing that the older generations were not keen on buying online. Whereas of course the younger generations only want to buy online, and they want sales or discounts!

Throughout his talk he touched based on these trends (mentions 5 but as he says there is 6).

Syndicating Content with WordPress by Mark Wilkinson

[Development Talk]

I attended one of Mark’s talks previously in Manchester at 2018’s WordCamp. I really enjoyed it, and based on the topic of this talk I felt it was really relatable to a recent project we had been working on at Impact.

Mark discussed a project they had been working on at Highrise Digital. The client was looking to have the opportunity to update 1000+ websites from one space – this is where syndicating content comes in!

They have built 2 plugins themselves. One that goes in the site you update and the other in the adjoining website that needs to be updated with this content. Unfortunately, they aren’t looking to release the plugins into the public world of WordPress. But they sound like something that could be really accessible and helpful for a large scale of multi-sites should they ever change their minds.

Other members from the audience did suggest other plugins that are availabl.

Effective Copywriting Tips for Better UX by Andrea Zoellner

[Content Talk]

This is another of my favourite talks from the weekend, I found Andrea really approachable and she touched on the important of keeping consistence within your content for the best UX.

I feel like we all assume we know the best formats and suggestions for content but I guess sometimes it is nice to be reminded – such as when we refer to users on our website, what do we call them?

It made me think a little harder – like for an e-commerce store do you call them visitors, shoppers, members? Whatever you do name them then be sure to keep that the same throughout your copy.

Likewise with having a basket, I mean it’s called different things in different countries so using your target audience – what would they call it and how big are your items – would you have a cart for something small you sell like earrings as it’s likely you would have a basket right? Or would you have a cart in the UK? No because we use trolleys.

It all seems so obvious doesn’t it but when you get down to developing these are things we may take for granted but small things can improve that users experience…