Around 60 million websites around the world are powered by WordPress, and nearly a quarter of all new active domains use it. At the same time, an increasing number of organizations using the content management system are looking to engage audiences across platforms with responsive design.

Jesse Friedman, director of Web and interface development at Astonish Results LLC and author of The Web Designer’s Guide to WordPress, will give a presentation on Maintaining Responsive Integrity in WordPress at SXSW Interactive.

A veteran WordPress developer, Friedman says developing responsive themes for WordPress sites is easy until you turn the site over to a user admin. Most user admins are not developers, he says, and they can’t be expected to maintain a website the same way a developer would.

Developers need to “think like user admins,” Friedman says, and build fixes into their themes so that they will remain truly responsive over time. He will share specific code examples, including short codes to help user admins make intelligent decisions about how the site functions and how content displays across platforms.

Friedman has given similar talks at conferences across the country, but he says this will be a very different presentation. He’ll provide live, real time examples attendees can follow along with.

He says he has a few surprises in store but wouldn’t divulge any details. You’ll just have to go see for yourself.

You can catch Maintaining Responsive Integrity in WordPress in ballroom BC of the Austin Convention Center Sunday at 11 a.m.