Jeremy Ward is speaking on Good, Fast, and Cheap: How Modular Design Improves Our Projects at WordCamp Minneapolis.

What inspired or motivated you to give this talk at WordCamp?

Working as a WordPress Developer for an interactive agency, I get to build a lot of beautifully designed websites. Over time I have worked on enough of these types of projects that I’ve started to notice sections of themes that I seem to create over and over—big hero images with calls to action, accordions, image carousels, multi-column block layouts, email signup forms—the list goes on and on. Often, decisions are made to include these content sections during the design process, and by the time the project moves to development, we don’t have a lot of context as to what these components should have and what they need to do.

My goals for this presentation are two-fold: First, I want to start a conversation between all project stakeholders (designers, developers, information architects, UX designers, quality auditors, sales staff, project managers) about the importance of developing a patterns library to quickly implement commonly repeated components, and establishing a shared language to talk about them so clients get a unified experience all the way through a project. Second, I want to demonstrate what modular design looks like in a WordPress context and how these theories can be incorporated into real-world projects. I’m inspired by the possibility of helping others think a little differently about how they approach their WordPress projects.

How do you “create intention” in your job, career, or life?

I’m constantly asking myself if what I’m doing is the best it can be. Am I missing information or skills that I need to learn in order to complete a project? Was the code I wrote easy to read and understand? Did I leave comments so someone else down the road (possibly myself) can pick up where I left off and feel like they understand how the application works? If not, I evaluate where those improvements can be made and make an effort to learn from my mistakes so that that project and the next ones can be better than the ones before them.

If you were a WordPress Plugin, what Plugin would you be and why?

I’d be Regenerate Thumbnails by Alex Mills. I’m constantly learning new information and skills and need to update the “old me” to adapt to new projects.

If you were not doing your current job, what profession would you be in and why?

It took me over 30 years to realize how much I enjoy writing code, so I can’t imagine doing anything else!

What professional and/or research resource(s) can’t you live without?

Feedly and Slack/IRC. The former for aggregating news sources so I can quickly soak up new information in one visit, the latter for connecting with my team at 3five and other developers in the industry so we can get to know each other, laugh, make plans, and have fun.