🇺🇸 WordCamp US 2023

Nothing about accessibility means you have to be boring. It just means you’re making your websites better. Just like when we realized there were a ton of different screen sizes to adapt to, it made our websites better for more people to use, accessibility is another way to give more people access to the sites you make.

We stick to conventions and best practices. We ask about audience and cater to their needs. Accessibility is about integrity. It’s about learning the basics, and using each new project as an opportunity to learn something new.

Let’s go over some amazingly creative ways to make fun and accessible websites.

WDG partnered with The Ford Foundation to migrate their existing accessible video player to WordPress. The now open source plugin, displays videos alongside downloadable transcripts, and for videos where visuals require additional understanding, audio-described versions. Vajaah Parker, Directory of Strategy, will partner with Kurtis Shaner, Technical Director, to talk about the process, build and the plug-in.

Large Language Models are the technology behind ChatGPT, Google’s Bard and more. They are weird and somewhat intimidating pieces of technology: we’re still trying to figure out how they work and what they can do, in a field that changes radically on an almost weekly basis.

In this talk I’ll break down how they work, what they’re useful for, what you can build with them and how to dodge their many pitfalls.

I’ll show you how to run surprisingly capable models on your laptop, and demonstrate techniques like semantic search and retrieval augmented generation which harness LLMs to help unlock the value in your own data.
I’ll also talk about their many limitations, including new classes of security vulnerabilities that threaten applications built on top of them.

Exploring LLMs has made me more ambitious with the projects I take on. Used thoughtfully, LLMs can unlock new capabilities, both for us and for the communities that we build software to serve.

In the middle of the pandemic, Ken Liu, an award-winning writer, lost faith in storytelling, the magic that has always made his life a joy. This is the story of how he rediscovered the meaning of narratives in our lives, and his message will challenge us all to rethink how and why we do what we do.

As of 2023, WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world that also powers a global economy estimated to be worth billions of dollars. However, no corporation owns WordPress – it is open source and maintained by a global community, and it needs steady contributions to grow and thrive. Many WordPress companies support the project through the Five for the Future program by sponsoring up to 5% of their employees’ time to contribute to the software. Pledging contributions to WordPress will not only ensure the project’s long-term sustainability but will also offer tangible benefits and growth opportunities for individuals and companies.

This session will be in a panel discussion format that will bring together four seasoned WordPress contributors to share about their contribution journeys. We will discuss Five for the Future and explore various available growth opportunities as part of the program. The discussion will also explore how companies can set up their own internal contribution teams and how they can contribute efficiently and grow alongside the project. Together, we will explore how individual contributors of all experience levels can start their contribution journey through WordPress and use it to build a successful career. The discussion will delve deep into contributor sponsorship opportunities as well.

Get a tour of the site. See the code. Explore the backend. This breakout session will allow you to meet Team NASA, ask us questions, and look under the hood of our WordPress implementation for beta.nasa.gov.

Rockets aren’t the only thing we launch. Over the last few years, NASA has been working on an ambitious evolution of its digital platforms. Equally important and ambitious has been the evolution of NASA’s community of content creators, software developers, and storytellers. We’re revamping our flagship and science websites and adding our first on-demand streaming service, with WordPress as the shared launch platform. 

Attendees will hear about the challenges faced by NASA’s web modernization efforts and what we’ve learned building beta.nasa.gov alongside our editors. Just as the content management system strives to ensure “WordPress is for everyone,” our digital transformation supports NASA’s missions for the benefit of all.

Get a tour of the site. See the code. Explore the backend. This breakout session will allow you to meet Team NASA, ask us questions, and look under the hood of our WordPress implementation for beta.nasa.gov.

Rockets aren’t the only thing we launch. Over the last few years, NASA has been working on an ambitious evolution of its digital platforms. Equally important and ambitious has been the evolution of NASA’s community of content creators, software developers, and storytellers. We’re revamping our flagship and science websites and adding our first on-demand streaming service, with WordPress as the shared launch platform. 

Attendees will hear about the challenges faced by NASA’s web modernization efforts and what we’ve learned building beta.nasa.gov alongside our editors. Just as the content management system strives to ensure “WordPress is for everyone,” our digital transformation supports NASA’s missions for the benefit of all.

Join us for an insightful panel discussion on BlackPress, a global WordPress community dedicated to empowering Black individuals worldwide.

Learn about the origins, objectives, and impact of this transformative initiative as we explore the significance of amplifying Black voices within the WordPress ecosystem. Discover why BlackPress emerged, addressing the underrepresentation and limited opportunities experienced by Black individuals in the digital space. Gain insights on how YOU can actively engage and contribute to this flourishing community.

Whether you’re from the Black diaspora or an ally, we invite you to participate, collaborate, and uplift Black voices through mentorship, open-source projects, networking, and showcasing achievements.

As of 2023, WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world that also powers a global economy estimated to be worth billions of dollars. However, no corporation owns WordPress – it is open source and maintained by a global community, and it needs steady contributions to grow and thrive. Many WordPress companies support the project through the Five for the Future program by sponsoring up to 5% of their employees’ time to contribute to the software. Pledging contributions to WordPress will not only ensure the project’s long-term sustainability but will also offer tangible benefits and growth opportunities for individuals and companies.

This session will be in a panel discussion format that will bring together four seasoned WordPress contributors to share about their contribution journeys. We will discuss Five for the Future and explore various available growth opportunities as part of the program. The discussion will also explore how companies can set up their own internal contribution teams and how they can contribute efficiently and grow alongside the project. Together, we will explore how individual contributors of all experience levels can start their contribution journey through WordPress and use it to build a successful career. The discussion will delve deep into contributor sponsorship opportunities as well.

Join us for an insightful panel discussion on BlackPress, a global WordPress community dedicated to empowering Black individuals worldwide.

Learn about the origins, objectives, and impact of this transformative initiative as we explore the significance of amplifying Black voices within the WordPress ecosystem. Discover why BlackPress emerged, addressing the underrepresentation and limited opportunities experienced by Black individuals in the digital space. Gain insights on how YOU can actively engage and contribute to this flourishing community.

Whether you’re from the Black diaspora or an ally, we invite you to participate, collaborate, and uplift Black voices through mentorship, open-source projects, networking, and showcasing achievements.

Join WordPress Co-founder and Automattic CEO, Matt Mullenweg, as he discusses the technical improvements seen this year and what’s to come, followed by a live Q&A.

WordPress Executive Director, Josepha Haden Chomphosy, speaks to the important conversations happening in WordPress and how they and you can move the WordPress of tomorrow.

As of 2023, WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world that also powers a global economy estimated to be worth billions of dollars. However, no corporation owns WordPress – it is open source and maintained by a global community, and it needs steady contributions to grow and thrive. Many WordPress companies support the project through the Five for the Future program by sponsoring up to 5% of their employees’ time to contribute to the software. Pledging contributions to WordPress will not only ensure the project’s long-term sustainability but will also offer tangible benefits and growth opportunities for individuals and companies.

This session will be in a panel discussion format that will bring together four seasoned WordPress contributors to share about their contribution journeys. We will discuss Five for the Future and explore various available growth opportunities as part of the program. The discussion will also explore how companies can set up their own internal contribution teams and how they can contribute efficiently and grow alongside the project. Together, we will explore how individual contributors of all experience levels can start their contribution journey through WordPress and use it to build a successful career. The discussion will delve deep into contributor sponsorship opportunities as well.

WDG partnered with The Ford Foundation to migrate their existing accessible video player to WordPress. The now open source plugin, displays videos alongside downloadable transcripts, and for videos where visuals require additional understanding, audio-described versions. Vajaah Parker, Directory of Strategy, will partner with Kurtis Shaner, Technical Director, to talk about the process, build and the plug-in.

Why is Web Accessibility so important?
Why is WordPress the best platform for web accessibility?
What difference does it make?
Where do I start?
How do I know if I’m doing it right?
Why a Lighthouse score or a WAVE test isn’t enough.

Answers to these most frequently asked questions and ten things you can start today to make your websites more accessible.

The maturing and widespread adoption of the Block Editor has coincided with the growth of headless WordPress.

The Block Editor provides an unrivalled WYSIWYG experience – where content teams can provide richer, more creative content for their end-users. Headless provides unrivalled performance and provides a great Developer experience (DXP).

But until now, they have rarely come together. Headless often means a huge compromise for content creation teams – requiring a ‘leap of faith’ – where the display settings are abstracted into a few meta fields in the backend. Creativity and flexibility are constrained and they’ve been left behind by the WYSIWYG revolution.

No longer. We’re going to look at a major enterprise project (mecum.com) where we build the ‘Block Editor Bridge’ – where the Block Editor feeds directly into UI Components in the frontend app. We’ll look at new, exciting initiatives from VIP and WPEngine and how you can implement the same approach in your next project.

The Headless Block Editor is the new gold standard – the best backend and frontend experience – and it’s here.

WordPress is a powerful content management system, but certainly isn’t the ideal solution for complex business functions and secure data management. These functions are often left to dedicated CRM and ERP solutions that are external to the website.

There’s good reason for organisations wanting to use WordPress for their primary website. It means they are able to manage their own public facing content easily, and with 40% of all websites on the internet using WordPress, it’s a good choice when choosing a platform to standardise on. However there is often an element of their line-of-business web applications that is user facing (such as a customer portal) and ideally it makes sense for these to be presented seamlessly via the website. Integrating between WordPress and other platforms has traditionally relied on methods such as iframes, APIs and custom developed plugins.

Inherently, most of these integration methods come with their fair share of security and/or usability issues and considerations. They can also be a pain to maintain.

In the pursuit of a secure, flexible, and maintainable solution, we explored a novel approach—leveraging Single Page Applications (SPA) built with frameworks like React and Vue.js. This approach provides a seamless user experience because the content is rendered seamlessly in WordPress as HTML, and as it is environment agnostic it works equally well in the Block Editor, a Page Builder or a traditional WordPress template.

Get ready for real-life examples and a practical demonstration of how this can be achieved, and more importantly some of the challenges you might encounter (and how to overcome them). From managing how to best style these for consistency with your existing style sheets, to learnings about how it can impact SEO and user experience – not to mention how we solved some of the challenges of dynamically adjusting navigation (and other items) when users authenticate or log out.

Whether you are a seasoned developer or new to WordPress integrations, this talk will equip you with practical knowledge and inspire you to push the boundaries of what can be achieved with external web applications (custom or not) and WordPress.

When developing themes and plugins for WordPress, it’s inevitable that you’ll get a report of a security flaw, or worse, that one of your clients’ sites has been hacked. Right? Well, not quite.

In this session you’ll learn about the approaches enterprise agencies use to prevent a panicked phone call from a client reporting a flaw. Learn why the White’s Local Family Business site gets hacked but the White House does not.

Just as there’s no one plugin that will make a site secure, there’s no one trick to prevent it either. This session will help you understand the holistic approach required to keep your client’s sites secure.

Navigation is the main component of a website when it comes to moving around different pages and finding content. For this reason, it is critical to design and develop accessible navigation. This means keeping those using different devices and assistive technologies such as screen readers in mind.

Accessible navigation is easy to understand, semantic, and adaptive. In this session, Steve will review the best practices to design and develop accessible navigation from start to finish. He’ll also discuss how to replace the navigation in an existing theme.

Join us for an insightful panel discussion on BlackPress, a global WordPress community dedicated to empowering Black individuals worldwide.

Learn about the origins, objectives, and impact of this transformative initiative as we explore the significance of amplifying Black voices within the WordPress ecosystem. Discover why BlackPress emerged, addressing the underrepresentation and limited opportunities experienced by Black individuals in the digital space. Gain insights on how YOU can actively engage and contribute to this flourishing community.

Whether you’re from the Black diaspora or an ally, we invite you to participate, collaborate, and uplift Black voices through mentorship, open-source projects, networking, and showcasing achievements.

The maturation of the block editor brought with it a major shift in how WordPress theme development was expected to work. For many independent developers and small agencies, this shift seemed like an huge disruption to their workflow – a once-reliable codebase now in flux, entirely new coding languages and tooling to learn, and layers of complexity added to tools (like hooks and queries) that used to be simple and accessible.

The questions seem overwhelming: How do we build something modern for our clients while ensuring its stability and reliability in the years to come? How do we find the time to learn all these new tools while continuing to produce quality work (and support ourselves or our team in the process)? Can’t I just keep doing it the way I was doing it?

Through my own experience as a full-time independent developer – building and supporting real projects with classic WordPress, the block editor, “hybrid” themes, and Full Site Editing as these features were introduced – I will share what I have learned about navigating the triumphs and pitfalls of modern WordPress theme development, and how to confidently decide which tools and features make sense for your projects.

Forget the recently penned think-pieces – Multisite is here to stay, and The Motley Fool provides free and premium investment guidance to its members via our Global WordPress-powered CMS. Learn how we created a robust access-control solution to segregate free and premium content using networked sites and a custom-built entitlement system, and how we share, categorize and aggregate content across each site with our handy Global custom taxonomy!

There are benefits to teaching WordPress to high school students. We know WordPress is a powerful content management system that makes it easy to use and customize. Over the last few years I have found it is a great teaching tool for students who are interested in learning about web development.

Teaching WordPress to high school students benefits them on several levels:
1. They develop technical skills and learn project management.
2. Students learn the basics of web development without having to learn any complex coding languages. This usually leads to their interest in learning programming languages.
3. WordPress helps students develop their creativity.

In the process of teaching students I have seen many students who also see how WordPress can level up their entrepreneurial skills. Many have hopes to start their business. When they work with WordPress they see that they can create their own websites and online businesses. This opens them up to learning about the basics of running a business, such as marketing, sales, and customer service.

I want to share with WordPress developers that there is not only a benefit to reaching out in the community to introduce high school students to WordPress but also how to do this. I will discuss how developers can get paid contracts with school districts and show how to develop a curriculum to teach WordPress in the classroom.

User experience and performance are now common place discussions. The web’s evolution demands it. In order to look after both, a trio of modern metrics called Core Web Vitals were introduced in 2020. Three yrs later, they too have evolved. Core Web Vitals 2023 is a deep dive into these 3 metrics, their maturation, significance, and data surrounding them through the lens of WordPress practitioners

You can’t attend a WordCamp in the nation’s capital without hearing the story behind the launch of whitehouse.gov. During an unusual presidential transition, the team had just six weeks to design and build something from scratch. It had to be perfect, and it came with a constitutionally mandated deadline. Hear from two longtime WordPress community members who led the whirlwind effort, designed a highly customized Block Editor fit for the White House, and launched what may be the highest-profile WordPress site in the United States.

WordPress isn’t just for developers!

In this inspiring talk, we will explore the vital role of inclusivity and diversity in the WordPress space, particularly in encouraging more creatives and beginners to join and contribute. With WordPress being a powerful platform for websites, blogs, and online businesses, it is essential to foster an environment that embraces newcomers and empowers them to express their creativity.

We will discuss the importance of breaking down barriers and creating accessible entry points for beginners and creatives by ensuring that they feel welcome and supported in their WordPress journey. By cultivating a diverse community, we can tap into the wide variety of different perspectives, experiences, and talents that enrich WordPress as a whole.

Together we will explore how we can nurture a supportive environment that encourages experimentation, self-expression, learning, and collaboration. We will highlight the benefits of local WordPress meetups as avenues for beginners and creatives to connect, seek guidance, showcase their work, and get their “feet wet”.

Together we will discover how unique perspectives and fresh ideas can revolutionize the way we build, design, and use websites, and we learn ways to encourage others to contribute to creating a vibrant and inclusive WordPress community for everyone.

As a leader, you not only need to figure out your own work/life balance but also ensure that you’re modeling the right behavior to those you manage and lead. Or at least do your best not to accidentally model a harmful one. This can be tricky under normal circumstances for a typical person… but how do you go from fully multi-office-bound to involuntarily fully remote for years with the unexpected curveball of a proposed remote-forward but hybrid solution just when you’re getting used to the former?!

A woman in tech leadership, an immigrant from a somewhat different cultural background than most of my team to begin with and now with a bonus of many other cultures mixed in, likely in a different place in life than most of the people I lead: how did I learn to better understand and empathize with people who rely on me for leadership but live a different kind of life.
I made mistakes and so will you, but hopefully my list will help you avoid some big ones in the future.

WordPress.org’s Learn WordPress platform is a comprehensive resource for users looking to learn more about the WordPress content management system and its various features and functions. The platform offers a variety of resources which are designed to help people learn to use, extend, and contribute to WordPress through synchronous and asynchronous learning.

This session is geared towards WordPress Meetup organizers, WordCamp organizers, educators, and contributors. But even if you are a WordPress user with a passion for learning, you can come hear about these free resources from the WordPress community!

In this session, you will learn about:
• An overview of the Learn WordPress platform
• Content Types on Learn WordPress
• Sharing Learn WordPress
• How to Contribute to Learn WordPress

Every website contains information. Information is the reason that a website exists, so it’s a pity that how that information is organized is often an afterthought.

To be clear, information architecture is ***not*** the same as navigation design! User interfaces (the stuff people see and touch) are just the tip of a very important user experience iceberg. Good information organization starts with a well-designed, future-proof database and high-quality user research. And in WordPress, that means conscious decisions about how and where data is stored, and a solid understanding of the WordPress ecosystem and how the WordPress database actually stores stuff.

Join me to discover the essential tools and techniques that even beginners (whether designer, developer, UX professional, or project manager) can use to turn your next project from mess to success.

In our ever-evolving field of front-end development, it’s easy to become comfortable with our familiar stack and tools. However, relying solely on what we already know can lead to stagnation and hinder our professional growth. In this talk, I want to introduce the concept of adopting a lean front-end mindset, empowering developers to stay up-to-date with the latest front-end techniques and tools available today.

By embracing this mindset, not only can we ensure that our projects and industry knowledge remain relevant, but we can also alleviate the stress of constantly catching up with new trends. This approach promotes lean development by avoiding unnecessary reliance on external libraries when they are not required.

Attendees will gain valuable insights on when and how to apply different development approaches, allowing them to create lean and effective solutions that meet project requirements.

How to use tools & procedures to significantly speed up the design process and produce accessible designs, even when the designers don’t have an accessibility background. A walk through showing how to work with designers who have no accessibility background to get designs created which meet WCAG criteria.

We all know that AI tools are here to stay. How can we use AI as a tool to fulfill our content strategy and planning goals? In this workshop, we will learn how to use AI as part of a content creation process that includes:

• Identifying a content strategy and target audience
• Planning quarterly content using AI
• Producing content using AI

By the end of this workshop, participants will be empowered to successfully use AI and

• Jumpstart their content creation process
• Maintain an authentic voice on social media platforms, email, and long-form content
• Effectively repurpose content

As of 2023, WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world that also powers a global economy estimated to be worth billions of dollars. However, no corporation owns WordPress – it is open source and maintained by a global community, and it needs steady contributions to grow and thrive. Many WordPress companies support the project through the Five for the Future program by sponsoring up to 5% of their employees’ time to contribute to the software. Pledging contributions to WordPress will not only ensure the project’s long-term sustainability but will also offer tangible benefits and growth opportunities for individuals and companies.

This session will be in a panel discussion format that will bring together four seasoned WordPress contributors to share about their contribution journeys. We will discuss Five for the Future and explore various available growth opportunities as part of the program. The discussion will also explore how companies can set up their own internal contribution teams and how they can contribute efficiently and grow alongside the project. Together, we will explore how individual contributors of all experience levels can start their contribution journey through WordPress and use it to build a successful career. The discussion will delve deep into contributor sponsorship opportunities as well.

A great block editing experience takes advantage of the existing Block Editor interface, reduces confusion, and empowers users. Learn the five considerations you need to take into account that will help you create custom blocks with an intuitive administrative experience that feels right at home in the Block Editor.

The WordPress.org plugin directory requires that all plugins must be compatible with the GNU General Public License (“GPL”) and recommends GPLv2 or later as the same license as WordPress itself. This includes third-party libraries, code, and images. With today’s modern development practices and easier contributions on git-based systems like GitHub, you may not even notice a dependency being added to your project. I will show you how to utilize a GitHub Action to scan your current codebase and ensure that all future pull requests and commits similarly ensure that all third-party libraries (aka dependencies) are GPL-compatible so that you can rest safe that your plugin can properly maintain its GPL-compatible claim.

WordPress Playground is an innovative tool that lets you run WordPress directly in your web browser, within Visual Studio Code, or as a standalone local environment. This eliminates the need to install additional tools. This innovative solution changes the game for WordPress development, testing, learning, and showcasing.

During this talk, we will learn how to leverage the unique capabilities of WordPress Playground by running some examples:

• Showcase your plugin or theme on your homepage with admin access on the frontend without registration and without the possibility of getting hacked.
• Build an entire website and preview it in Visual Studio Code.
• Run WordPress with NodeJS and use it as a local environment.
• Test your code on different WordPress and PHP versions.
• New applications built on top of WordPress Playground.

Finally, we will investigate the underlying technologies of WordPress Playground, explaining how it uses WebAssembly to run WordPress and blurring the lines between the backend and frontend. By understanding this transformative technology, you will discover new opportunities to enhance your development workflow, making WordPress Playground an indispensable tool in your development arsenal.

This workshop explores the tools and techniques that can be utilised to build a modern workflow delivering secure, robust and maintainable WordPress projects.

We’ll examine concepts like environment configuration, dependency management, quality assurance, source control and continuous delivery through demonstrations and hands-on practice with tools like Lando, Bedrock, GitHub Actions and more.

By the end of this session, you’ll have gained a solid understanding of the key components that you can integrate into your own WordPress development process.

Rejection after rejection. That was the norm after prison until I found a new lease on life with WordPress. I stand here today as a testament to the power of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), illustrating how it encompasses more than just identity and disability. Come along on my journey from reformed convict to self-taught software engineer, demonstrating how the WordPress community can spark radical change and open doors to a brighter future.

At Georgetown University, we have two codebases. Each is an installable, ready-to-go version of WordPress that we use to produce live sites. One contains about 18,440 files including all of WordPress core, various third-party plugins, and a bunch of bespoke code produced by a third-party agency. The other: only 36. None of them are WordPress files—not themes, not plugins, and not core. One file, and only one file, defines how all of that is to be installed: composer.json.

Composer is a tool that maintains a list of PHP dependencies within a project so you don’t have to. It can, with a single command, build a standard WordPress installation, install bespoke and third-party plugins and themes, and maintain the appropriate version of all of them. If you, like us, have hundreds of sites to manage, Composer is a dream come true for both new sites and maintaining old ones in a way that guarantees they remain in sync with each other.

This talk is for anyone who wants to streamline their build and installation process. Come if you’re tired of installing themes and plugins from the Dashboard. Give it a listen if you don’t want to have to install Core from the zip file anymore. Or, stop by if you want to learn how you can rollback changes without having to use arcane git commands and make merge conflicts a thing of the past. You — yes you! — can set up all of this and more with Composer.

Join us for an insightful panel discussion on BlackPress, a global WordPress community dedicated to empowering Black individuals worldwide.

Learn about the origins, objectives, and impact of this transformative initiative as we explore the significance of amplifying Black voices within the WordPress ecosystem. Discover why BlackPress emerged, addressing the underrepresentation and limited opportunities experienced by Black individuals in the digital space. Gain insights on how YOU can actively engage and contribute to this flourishing community.

Whether you’re from the Black diaspora or an ally, we invite you to participate, collaborate, and uplift Black voices through mentorship, open-source projects, networking, and showcasing achievements.