WordPress Portland Site Strategy

1. WTF Do I Put On
My Site?
Info Architecting
& Site Strategy
•Yes, slides will be online. In
10 minutes. I promise. Yes, I’m
serious. And mostly honest.
Really. Slideshare.net/hzp
•I really do try not to curse

2. How Websites are Born

3. Developers think like this:

4. Designers think
Like this:

5. Whats the Difference?

6. Conversion
And usability and portability and
rate of retention and likability and
all the things that make up
conversion

7. Information
Architecture
User
Interaction
Best
practice

9. Everyone
Is
Selling
Something

10. Step 1
What do you do?

13. What do you do?
To (target market, location), (name of
org) provides (services) by (unique
methods) for (results).

14. What do you do?
“ACAP trains organizations, teaches students and treats individuals
seeking emotional health in Northern New Jersey through non
traditional methods resulting in practical tools and opportunities.

15. Step 2
Define your visitors

17. Mobile users

18. Mobile users

19. Mobile First Design

20. Step 3
Define “success points”
on your site

21. Mobile users
Help beacon

22. Step 4
Create a “Path to Buy”

23. The Four Questions
• Why do I want crap?
• Why do I want *your* crap?
• What’s the process to get your crap?
• Give me crap

24. Mobile users
Help beacon

25. Step 5
Revel in Sitemap. Go get ice cream.

26. Actual Step 5
Find the overlaps

28. Step 6
Simplify the wireframe.
• What’s important
• What’s expected

29. Homepage
Marketing message, callouts
Return clients, govt agencies, fellow superheros,
career day organizers, friends & family, competitors
Who Needs Superheroes? Why Superman Services Contact
For citizens Help Services Contact Form
For Gov’t Agencies Corporate Accounts Appt Sched.
For Schools Superman Foundation Press
Blog
Union Screw You Page

30. Determine
• What’s copy
• What’s graphic
• What functions can I use a plugin for?
• What should I relegate to sidebar (primary
vs secondary)

31. What’s Missing
• About me pages
• Testimonials
• Cute Puppies
• Vague, unhelpful titles
• Picture/video pages
• Advertising
• Roadblocks

32. What *is* There
• Fewer pages
• Less copy
• Multiple Entry Points
• Icons, Graphics, visualizations
• Clear Branding
• Calls to Action
• (what does the user do next?)

33. Use Your Tools
• Sidebars
• Footers
• Title/Descriptions
• Author Display
• Dynamic Content Gallery
• Gravity Forms
• Quotations Plugin

34. Step 7
NOW, enter the design process
Marry design to mission statement

36. Consider
• What is the brand imparting?
(not what you like, even if you are
the brand)
• Restaurants
• Preschools
• Clothing

41. Testing is Never Done
testtesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttestt
esttesttesttesttesttesttesttesttest
testtesttesttesttesttesttest
& Don’t ask dumbass questions

42. Examples of Dumbass Questions
• What do you think of this?
• Do you like this?
• Does this feel ______ to you?
• Does this seem professional?

43. Un – Dumbass, Qualitative,
Objective Questions
• What does this person do?
• What are some words that come to mind
when you see this?
• What should you do first?
• What is the first thing you notice?

44. Measure, then test again
Google Analytics is *AWESOME*

45. Designing the Dashboard

46. UNIVERSAL TRUTH:
Teaching the client how to use WordPress
Sucks.

47. Using ACF and Custom Fields to
unsuck WordPress workflows in
practice

52. Using WP Help to unsuck
WordPress workflows in practice

54. Using Roles & Role Manager
Plugins to unsuck WordPress
workflows in practice

56. Using Honesty and
Process Exploration
to unsuck WordPress workflows in
practice

57. On behalf of myself and
#clementinethedoberman, we thank you
and remind you to be a good canine
citizen
@amandablum amanda@howlingzoe.com slideshare.net/hzp