Melanie’s Adcock diverse background enables her to have a unique insight in the area of Web Design. Melanie received her degree in Art Education from Ball State University and was an Art Teacher for 17 years. During that time she became interested in graphic design and web design and became a district wide trainer for applications such as Photoshop, Painter, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Illustrator, and Flash.

In 2001 Melanie left teaching to pursue a full time career in Web Design and Technology. Her duties included not only web design, but network administration, network design and infrastructure, phone system management, help desk support, software training, and even some video editing.

In May of 2010 Melanie relocated to the Atlanta area and became a full time Web Designer / Developer. She has been using WordPress exclusively for nearly five years. Her current clients include several small businesses, continuing care retirement communities, churches and former employers. She also mentors and consults with other WordPress enthusiasts. In her free time she studies additional web related technologies. Her other hobbies including reading and working out.

WCATL 2015 Session – Rev Up Your Design Cycle

Rev up your design process by removing slow internet connections, the hassle of installing WordPress and plugins prior to beginning a project. Creating local development dev sites right on your desktop or laptop that work just like real world servers is now simple.
DesktopServer can import, export, clone, and deploy WordPress websites with a few clicks. It works seamlessly with BackupBuddy, ManageWP, and InfiniteWP.

I’m a content strategist and user experience specialist on a mission to connect people through the web. I work for non-profits, businesses, and universities who need user-friendly websites with memorable content. I also consult for website development firms when they have clients who require content or user experience expertise. Sometimes I give talks on how to improve websites.

I have experience and training in these areas:

• content strategy
• usability and user experience design
• photography and video
• writing and editing
• graphic design

When I’m not working, I like to be outside or on my yoga mat as much as possible. You can often find me with my two favorite people in the world – my husband Josh and my daughter Parker.

WCATL 2015 Session – Top Strategies for Better Photography on Your Website

Visuals are important to engage website users, but often photos are put on a website without sufficient thought. What’s the difference between an average photo and one that wows? What do website users like to see? How do you decide which are the best photos to use from a photoshoot? Does the rise in mobile affect your choices? How do you manage a professional photographer — or get great photos when you have to DIY?

Receive helpful answers from an experienced content strategist trained in visual communication. Get practical tips to improve the photography on your site now and make your websites users happy.

You will:

• Understand the difference between an average and a great photo
• Learn what is most attractive to website users, based on usability and eye-tracking research
• Discover how to avoid common photo pitfalls by looking at example websites, both good and bad.

Josh, is the owner of and a developer for CalderaWP where he sells WordPress plugins and training and the community manager and contributing developer for Pods, a free WordPress development framework.

He is also a WordPress core contributor and has written for Torque, Smashing Magazine, Tuts+,and WPBegginer.

WCATL 2015 Session – Using Composer to Increase Your WordPress Development Powers

Composer, the PHP dependency manager, is a simple tool that can make it easier for you to reuse your code across projects, speed up your plugin, theme and site development, use other people’s code more efficiently and can even improve your site deployments. In this talk you will learn how to add Composer to your projects, publish Composer libraries, use other developer’s open source Composer libraries, improve your site deployments and otherwise make your life easier.

Ken Granger has taught more than 10,000 small business owners how to brand their business and leverage the power of the internet to increase sales, brand loyalty and quality of life. Ken has been working with WordPress since 2008 and he and his team have built more than 5,000 WordPress websites. BrandCo helps small businesses build their offline and online branding with things like logos, business cards and fully custom WordPress websites.

WCATL 2015 Session – Understanding Google Analytics

Even without speaking your visitors are telling you something! Learn how to read your Google Analytics data to make better decisions on managing your website. From beginner to advanced there is something for everyone in this session.