This document provides tips for using WordPress effectively. It discusses installing popular plugins like Akismet and W3 Total Cache to improve site security and performance. It emphasizes optimizing images, widgets, and animations for faster load times. The author recommends measuring speed with plugins and removing unnecessary elements. Advanced techniques include performance optimization. The author is John O'Nolan, a WordPress designer and UI deputy who provides advice on plugins, themes, and optimization.

1. How to do cool stuff with
WordPress and make
yourself more sexually
attractive, and smarter, and
richer, and generally much
better at life. Kind of.
by John O’Nolan

2. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
Who?

3. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
Cure world hunger (approved by Jesus)

4. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I’m a Designer

5. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I’m a Designer
Who likes to take Photos

6. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I’m a Designer
Who likes to take Photos
& build Stuff on the web

7. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I’m a Designer
Who likes to take Photos
& build Stuff on the web
People tell me I swear
at inappropriate moments

8. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I work for WordPress
UI Team Deputy

9. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I work for WordPress
UI Team Deputy
I built a travel
blog for over at

10. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
I work for WordPress
UI Team Deputy
I built a travel
blog for over at
I built a travel
app for the new
aircraft

11. John O’Nolan
twitter.com/johnonolan
and some other stuff

15. Behind The Scenes

16. WordPress Users
Matt Mullenweg
Co-founder & Project Lead
Ryan Boren Mark Jaquith Peter Westwood Andrew Ozz Jane Wells
Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer UX/UI and Community Lead
Andrew Nacin Dion Hulse Specific Area Joseph Scott Mark Riley Matt Thomas
Core Commit Core Commit Core Commit Theme Repo Lead Plugin Repo Lead Style Lead
Contributing Core Developers John O’Nolan Ben Dunkle
with Temporary Commit Status UI Deputy Icon Designer
Trusted Contributing Core Developers Theme Reviewers UI Group Contributors
Forum Codex
Active Contributing Core Developers Theme Authors Plugin Authors Moderators Editors
Forum
Casual Contributing Core Developers Testers Docs Team
Volunteers
WordPress Users (including consultants/private developers)

17. WORDPRESS.ORG STAKEHOLDERS
WordPress Users
Matt Mullenweg
Co-founder & Project Lead
Ryan Boren Mark Jaquith Peter Westwood Andrew Ozz Jane Wells
Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer UX/UI and Community Lead
Andrew Nacin Dion Hulse Specific Area Joseph Scott Mark Riley Matt Thomas
Core Commit Core Commit Core Commit Theme Repo Lead Plugin Repo Lead Style Lead
Contributing Core Developers John O’Nolan Ben Dunkle
with Temporary Commit Status UI Deputy Icon Designer
Trusted Contributing Core Developers Theme Reviewers UI Group Contributors
Forum Codex
Active Contributing Core Developers Theme Authors Plugin Authors Moderators Editors
Forum
Casual Contributing Core Developers Testers Docs Team
Volunteers
WordPress Users (including consultants/private developers)

18. THE CIRCLE OF TRUST
Donncha
Andrew Nacin
O’Caoimh
Andy Skelton Dion Hulse
Joseph Scott Silviu Burca
XML-RPC (Scribu)
Matt Mullenweg
Ryan Boren Samuel Wood
Mike Adams Jane Wells
(Otto42)
Matt Thomas Daryl
UI/2010 Koopersmith
Mark Jaquith Peter Westwood
Andrew Ozz
Nikolay Bachiyski Jon Cave
i18n (duck_)
Alex M John O’Nolan
(Viper007Bond) (UI Group)

19. WordPress Users
Matt Mullenweg
Co-founder & Project Lead
Ryan Boren Mark Jaquith Peter Westwood Andrew Ozz Jane Wells
Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer UX/UI and Community Lead
Andrew Nacin Dion Hulse Specific Area Joseph Scott Mark Riley Matt Thomas
Core Commit Core Commit Core Commit Theme Repo Lead Plugin Repo Lead Style Lead
Contributing Core Developers John O’Nolan Ben Dunkle
with Temporary Commit Status UI Deputy Icon Designer
Trusted Contributing Core Developers Theme Reviewers UI Group Contributors
Forum Codex
Active Contributing Core Developers Theme Authors Plugin Authors Moderators Editors
Forum
Casual Contributing Core Developers Testers Docs Team
Volunteers
WordPress Users (including consultants/private developers)

20. WORDPRESS.ORG STAKEHOLDERS
WordPress Users
Matt Mullenweg
Co-founder & Project Lead
Ryan Boren Mark Jaquith Peter Westwood Andrew Ozz Jane Wells
Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer Lead Developer UX/UI and Community Lead
Andrew Nacin Dion Hulse Specific Area Joseph Scott Mark Riley Matt Thomas
Core Commit Core Commit Core Commit Theme Repo Lead Plugin Repo Lead Style Lead
Contributing Core Developers John O’Nolan Ben Dunkle
with Temporary Commit Status UI Deputy Icon Designer
Trusted Contributing Core Developers Theme Reviewers UI Group Contributors
Forum Codex
Active Contributing Core Developers Theme Authors Plugin Authors Moderators Editors
Forum
Casual Contributing Core Developers Testers Docs Team
Volunteers
WordPress Users (including consultants/private developers)

21. Let’s Go Back In Time

22. WordPress 0.71

26. WordPress 1.5

30. WordPress 2.3

34. WordPress 2.5

38. WordPress 2.7

42. WordPress 3.0

46. We’ve come a long way.

47. Who Are We Designing For?

48. 100,000,000 Views Per Day

49. 100,000,000 Views Per Day
Just on WordPress.com

50. 3,000,000,000 Views Per Month

51. A Report Last Year Suggested That
WordPress Powers
8.5% of The Internet

52. Over 26,000,000 Sites

53. BUT

54. Microsoft migrated an estimated
30,000,000 additional sites
to WordPress.com

55. Total: 56,000,000 Sites*

56. *
How Many Sites Microsoft Said They Migrated
How Many They Really Migrated

57. Total: 30,000,000 Sites
(ish)

58. It’s like selling out every seat at every match at
every stadium at the World Cup

59. 10 Times

60. The Best Part?

61. They Speak Over
60 Different Languages

62. Who Are We Designing For?

63. Lots of people.

64. How Do We Do it?

65. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead

66. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead
Style Lead Icon Design UI Deputy

67. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead
Style Lead Icon Design UI Deputy
UI Group
UI Lead (design)
Style Lead UI Deputy

68. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead
Style Lead Icon Design UI Deputy
UI Group
UI Lead (design)
Style Lead UI Deputy
Implement it! YES! REVIEW NO! #blamenacin
(does it work?)

69. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead
Style Lead Icon Design UI Deputy
UI Group
UI Lead (design)
Style Lead UI Deputy
Implement it! YES! REVIEW NO! #blamenacin
(does it work?)
UI Group UI Deputy Core Dev Beta
(markup+css) Release

70. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead
Some code
stuff
happens
here
Style Lead Icon Design UI Deputy
Star
Trek? UI Group
UI Lead (design)
Style Lead UI Deputy
Implement it! YES! REVIEW NO! #blamenacin
(does it work?)
UI Group UI Deputy Core Dev Beta
(markup+css) Release

71. Users Matt Dev Lead UI Lead
Some code
stuff
happens
here
Style Lead Icon Design UI Deputy
Star
Trek? UI Group
UI Lead (design)
Style Lead UI Deputy
Implement it! YES! REVIEW NO! #blamenacin
(does it work?)
USER TESTING
(does it work?) NO!
UI Group UI Deputy Core Dev Beta YES!
(markup+css) Release
Final Release

77. Don’t Forget

79. &

81. Everything has
to be flexible

82. It’s challenging

83. John. You’re
supposed to be
giving them
tips and stuff.

85. WordPress
not Wordpress

86. Some Basics
(general shit)

92. Must Have Plugins
Don’t leave home without them. Ever!
- Akismet (Automattic)
- After The Deadline (Raphael Mudge)
- WordPress Database Backup (Austin Matzko)
- Comment Reply Notification (Denishua)
- Google Analytics for WordPress (Joost)
- WordPress SEO (Joost)

93. Some Intermediate Stuff
(design & pretty colours)

94. “ A designer knows he has achieved perfection
not when there is nothing left to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away.
— Antoine De Saint-Exupery

97. “ Everyother designers’ work. secretseethat they
copy
designer’s dirty little
They
is
work
they like and they imitate it. Rather cheekily,
they call this inspiration.
— Aaron Russell

103. Some Advanced Stuff
(performance and optimisation)

104. Performance
Why should you care?

105. Performance
Why should you care?
For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon
measured a 1% drop in sales.

106. Performance
Why should you care?
For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon
measured a 1% drop in sales.
1% of $4.3billion a month = $43million

107. Performance
Why should you care?
For every 100ms delay in page load, Amazon
measured a 1% drop in sales.
1% of $4.3billion a month = $43million
For every 500ms delay in page load, Google
measured a 20% drop in traffic.

108. Install W3 Total Cache

110. Get rid of as many big images,
social widgets, and fancy
animations as possible.

111. Measure your speed with
the YSlow plugin for Firefox

113. My Name is John O’Nolan
twitter.com/JohnONolan My Book, Coming Soon:
JOHN
facebook.com/JohnONolan
flickr.com/photos/JohnONolan DESIGNING
LICENSING: EMOTION
This talk is released under the Creative Commons 3.0 license.
All slides and content will be available on john.onolan.org BY JOHN O’NOLAN
PHOTO CREDITS:
AND ADII PIENAAR
Myself, Qfamily, petesimon, gesika22, dailyinvention, James
Cridland, xlibber, Ian Lamont, cheezburger.com
AUTUMN 2011
http://amzn.to/DesigningEmotion