News from January 2008

Memories and articles from back in the day

2008

Well, 2008 for Web Directions is about to kick off with ver­sion 2.0 (sorry, couldn’t resist) of Web Directions North in Vancouver next week. Great to see a few Aussie folks head­ing over — hope­fully it’s not just the bumper sea­son at Whistler?

But all those in the Southern Hemisphere, fear … Read more »

Jared Spool — The Dawning of the Age of Experience

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

Experience Design is no longer a nice-​​to-​​have lux­ury of a few orga­ni­za­tions with tons of money and excep­tional vision­ary man­age­ment. It’s become com­mon­place for orga­ni­za­tions that build prod­ucts and web sites. Experience Design is a cen­ter­piece of board­room dis­cus­sions and quickly becom­ing a key per­for­mance indi­ca­tor for many businesses.

However, you can’t just hire a cou­ple of “expe­ri­ence design­ers” and tell them, “Go do that voodoo that you do so well.” Today’s busi­ness envi­ron­ment forces us to build mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary teams, com­pil­ing a diverse group of skills and expe­ri­ences to han­dle the many facets of the tech­ni­cal, busi­ness, and user require­ments. In his usual enter­tain­ing and insight­ful man­ner, Jared will talk about what it takes to build a design team that meets today’s needs.

He’ll demon­strate how suc­cess­ful Experience Design:

  • Must inte­grate the needs of the users with the require­ments of the business
  • Is learned, but not avail­able through introspection
  • Must be invis­i­ble to succeed
  • Is cul­tural
  • Is mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary
  • Thrives best in an “edu­cate and admin­is­trate” environment

You’ll see exam­ples of designs from Apple’s iPod, Netflix, the Mayo Clinic, and Southwest Airlines, to name a few.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Kaitlin Sherwood & Steffen Meschkat — The Business and Technology of Mashups

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

Mashups are the hottest web devel­op­ment topic today. Hear about the front-​​end, back-​​end, and busi­ness issues of mashups with these two experts who know more about them than just about anyone.

Kaitlin Sherwood: Overview of Maps Mashup Technologies

In the past two years, there has been an explo­sion of tools for con­vey­ing geo­graphic infor­ma­tion to the masses. In this talk, Kaitlin Duck Sherwood will intro­duce major con­cepts and issues, and dis­cuss the pros and cons of each of the major mashup frame­works. Attendees will gain an appre­ci­a­tion for their map­ping options, and infor­ma­tion to help them bet­ter choose between them based on their par­tic­u­lar needs.

Steffen Meschkat

A cen­tral topic of “Web 2.0” is browser-​​side web appli­ca­tion pro­gram­ming inter­faces (APIs) and the spe­cific type of web appli­ca­tion they give rise to: mashups.

Using the Google Maps API as an exam­ple, I put this devel­op­ment into a per­spec­tive that allows one to appre­ci­ate how this, on the one hand, is a nat­ural and coher­ent evo­lu­tion of the Web that, on the other hand, sig­nif­i­cantly alters the ways of orga­niz­ing the world’s infor­ma­tion that the Web makes pos­si­ble. I also dis­cuss the spe­cific tech­nolo­gies that web APIs for mashups are based upon, and their some­times chal­leng­ing idiosyncrasies.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Perth event: Ideas 4

Tickets have just gone on sale for Ideas 4, the fourth in a series of great evenings brought to you by the Australian Web Industry Association, to be held on January 30 at the Melbourne Hotel, Perth.

Sounds like a great line up with usabil­ity expert Lisa Herrod of … Read more »

Veerle Pieters & Dave Shea — Finding Creativity in the Design Process

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

Independent design­ers don’t have the lux­ury of spe­cial­ized roles  —  they wear mul­ti­ple hats. Those work­ing on the web today are expected to speak the lan­guage of pro­gram­mers and other tech­ni­cal types, on top of build­ing valid and well-​​coded web sites that are easy to use. All this amongst writ­ing pro­pos­als, main­tain­ing client rela­tions, and keep­ing the finan­cial pic­ture in focus.

When design becomes a process and dead­lines loom, it can be dif­fi­cult to keep the ideas fresh. Communicating with clients is an art on its own; deal­ing with cringe-​​inducing change requests and keep­ing your cool dur­ing dif­fi­cult client rela­tions takes an abil­ity to see things from some­one else’s perspective.

Veerle Pieters and Dave Shea are here to share some of their past expe­ri­ences work­ing with var­ied clients, jug­gling mul­ti­ple projects con­cur­rently, and keep­ing the cre­ativ­ity flow­ing when crunch time hits. As well, they’ll be look­ing at work­ing envi­ron­ments, var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tion and work­flow meth­ods, and dis­sect­ing the idea-​​generation process by way of exam­ple with a spe­cial project they’ve put together for this presentation.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

George Oates and Paul Hammond — Web Apps: Developer to Designer

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

Web apps are an inti­mate mar­riage of back-​​end sys­tems and client-​​side inter­ac­tion, but it takes two very dif­fer­ent skill sets to build robust scal­able appli­ca­tion plat­forms and cre­ate smooth user inter­faces that work in mul­ti­ple browsers.

In this ses­sion, George Oates and Paul Hammond con­sider the devel­op­ment process from the per­spec­tive of both back– and front-​​end devel­op­ers, and the coop­er­a­tion required between them. They’ll dis­cuss how sim­ple archi­tec­ture choices, devel­op­ment pat­terns and  —  above all  —  good com­mu­ni­ca­tion are key to mak­ing the rela­tion­ship work.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Craig Saila & Adrian Holovaty — Old Media, New Technology

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

Web based dis­tri­b­u­tion is chang­ing the nature of estab­lished author­i­ties like newsprint and television.

As tra­di­tional media declines, the rel­e­vance of their online brands con­tin­ues to grow in both rev­enue and traf­fic. All of this is lead­ing to a rad­i­cal restruc­tur­ing of how the main­stream media sees itself, and how it oper­ates. From the sur­pris­ingly quick adop­tion of blogs, RSS, and other tech­nolo­gies that fall under the “Web 2.0” label, there are many dis­cus­sion points about what is work­ing, and what isn’t.

In this ses­sion, two experts work­ing at the inter­sec­tion of the web and newsprint will dis­cuss how this change is occur­ring. They will be look­ing at the fal­lac­ies built into online adver­tis­ing and tra­di­tional met­rics which don’t map to how the new Web operates.

They’ll also explore the matur­ing online land­scape and how tra­di­tional media now face a frag­mented mar­ket, pop­u­lated by strong Web brands that offer gen­uine com­pe­ti­tion through their inno­va­tion and nimbleness.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Kelly Goto — Designing for Lifestyle

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 8, 2007.

Interaction design is no longer lim­ited to the web. The con­cept of user expe­ri­ence is being rede­fined as mul­ti­ple deliv­ery meth­ods of social and busi­ness inter­ac­tion merge into our lifestyles. As design migrates from the web to mobile devices we carry and inter­act with on a daily basis, our approach must also shift into cycles of design and research cen­tered around the way peo­ple actu­ally live.

In this enlight­en­ing ses­sion, design ethno­g­ra­pher and web vet­eran Kelly Goto dis­cusses the evo­lu­tion of Web, hand­held, and prod­uct inter­faces and their cul­tural impact. Learn how com­pa­nies are uti­liz­ing ethnographic-​​based research to con­duct rapid, immer­sive stud­ies of peo­ple and their lifestyles to inform the use­ful­ness and via­bil­ity of inter­faces both online and offline.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Joe Clark — Accessibility in the Design Process

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

When peo­ple talk about incor­po­rat­ing acces­si­bil­ity into the design process, they usu­ally refer to select­ing colours that cor­re­spond to some­body else’s ‘acces­si­ble’ con­trast ratio or using a large enough font size. Trivial, really.

But the design process  —  obser­va­tion, ideation, eval­u­a­tion, refine­ment, and pre­sen­ta­tion  —  gives us many oppor­tu­ni­ties to build acces­si­bil­ity in from the very start. We’ll look at some real-​​world exam­ples of Web-​​based ser­vices (like a transit-​​system route plan­ner) and clas­sic acces­si­bil­ity prob­lems (like masses of old PDFs) and use those exam­ples to build in acces­si­bil­ity from the ground up.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

John Allsopp and Dan Cederholm — Microformats: More than Just Promise

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

Microformats are much more than just a promis­ing tech­nol­ogy or pass­ing fad  —  hear these three experts cover the whys and the hows of design­ing and devel­op­ing with microformats.

Hear micro­for­mats founder and cus­to­dian Tantek Çelik paint on the broad can­vas, talk­ing about moti­va­tions, use cases, exam­ples, and ben­e­fits. John Allsopp, author of the forth­com­ing friends of Ed micro­for­mats book will cover a num­ber of prac­ti­cal exam­ples of quickly and cleanly adding micro­for­mats to exist­ing code. Renowned designer and devel­oper Dan Cederholm will look at how micro­for­mats pro­vide excel­lent scaf­fold­ing for styling with CSS.

This ses­sion will really get you up to speed with this excit­ing, quickly spread­ing technology.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Aaron Gustafson & Andy Clarke — Transcendent Design with Javascript and CSS

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

Traditionally, CSS has been the domain of design­ers while JavaScript was for pro­gram­mers, but these tech­nolo­gies can and should work together to improve your vis­i­tors’ expe­ri­ences. After all, you can do amaz­ing things with CSS, but when you start to use CSS in con­cert with DOM Scripting, there’s almost no limit to what you can achieve.

MOD-​​ern web designer Andy Clarke and DOM/​Ajax devel­oper Aaron Gustafson will take your CSS skills and super­charge them with JavaScript magic, explor­ing how you can make CSS and JavaScript work together to make beau­ti­ful (and func­tional) results.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Jeremy Keith & Derek Featherstone — Web Apps — Ajax Kung Fu Meets Accessibility Feng Shui

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

Where can you find Ajax enlight­en­ment? At the mys­ti­cal point where a kick-​​ass appli­ca­tion con­nects per­fectly with the Flow of the best user expe­ri­ences. Let Masters Jeremy and Derek guide you there.

You seek to infuse your work, whether an app or a web site fea­ture, with the power of Ajax. But, tak­ing the wrong path at the begin­ning of your project will lead to frus­tra­tion for vis­i­tors, rather than a grace­ful, intu­itive expe­ri­ence. True Masters start with the right ques­tions: When is Ajax an enhance­ment? When is it a hin­drance? How can its energy be chan­neled ele­gantly? This insight­ful ses­sion will be grounded in real-​​life exam­ples and demon­stra­tions, reveal­ing the impact of the choices we make. Above all, you’ll learn the strate­gi­cal think­ing and higher per­spec­tive that will ensure a bril­liantly user-​​centered web site.

Where can you find Ajax enlight­en­ment? At the mys­ti­cal point where a kick-​​ass appli­ca­tion con­nects per­fectly with the Flow of the best user expe­ri­ences. Let Masters Jeremy and Derek guide you there.

You seek to infuse your work, whether an app or a web site fea­ture, with the power of Ajax. But, tak­ing the wrong path at the begin­ning of your project will lead to frus­tra­tion for vis­i­tors, rather than a grace­ful, intu­itive expe­ri­ence. True Masters start with the right ques­tions: When is Ajax an enhance­ment? When is it a hin­drance? How can its energy be chan­neled ele­gantly? This insight­ful ses­sion will be grounded in real-​​life exam­ples and demon­stra­tions, reveal­ing the impact of the choices we make. Above all, you’ll learn the strate­gi­cal think­ing and higher per­spec­tive that will ensure a bril­liantly user-​​centered web site.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Cameron Moll & Tantek Çelik — Design and Coding at the Cutting Edge

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

Hear micro­for­mats founder and cus­to­dian Tantek Çelik paint on the broad can­vas, talk­ing about moti­va­tions, use cases, exam­ples, and benefits.

Cameron Moll says the web is a volatile medium that changes end­lessly, but one thing remains con­stant: a demand for design­ers who are dis­ci­plined in graphic design the­ory, human com­put­ing prin­ci­ples, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­niques. Oh, and CSS, acces­si­bil­ity, and (soon) mobile devices, too. How does one stay abreast?

Hear one of the web’s most dis­ci­plined design­ers share his advice for mas­ter­ing fun­da­men­tal user inter­face prin­ci­ples, good vs. great design, communication-​​centric approaches, and mobile web devel­op­ment, all with the hope of pro­duc­ing mean­ing­ful inter­faces that deliver a reward­ing user experience.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

Molly E. Holzschlag — WSI:Vancouver — Crimes Against Web Standards

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions North, Vancouver, February 7, 2007.

Web stan­dards inves­ti­ga­tors: Get your crime scene gear on and help Molly dig up the dirt on crimes com­mit­ted against web stan­dards. Molly will demon­strate code sam­ples from her own felo­nious work dat­ing back to 1993, as well as the work of other infa­mous stan­dard­is­tas before they got reha­bil­i­tated and let stan­dards into their hearts. Help unearth the felonies and reveal the clues that lead to a life of crime-​​free, guilt-​​free code.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

The Commons — folksonomy meets the Library of Congress

One of our most pop­u­lar speak­ers last year, George Oates of Flickr, writes in detail today about a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Library of Congress (the US National Library), and Flickr to enable any­one to tag the Library’s pho­to­graphic collection.

For now it’s a pilot project of about 1500 pho­tos, but hope­fully … Read more »

Web Directions Merchandise

Can’t make it to Web Directions North? Heading there, but want to take a lit­tle reminder with you? We’ll, now you can get a range of cloth­ing, mugs, mousepads and other gear fea­tur­ing either the fan­tas­tic Happy Webbies bag design for WDN08, or Dave Shea’s fan­tas­tic Web Direction … Read more »

Mark Pesce on Stephen Conroy’s proposed Australian net censorship

We were pretty dis­ap­pointed over these parts to see that an early ini­tia­tive of the new Australian Labor gov­ern­ment was a con­tin­u­a­tion of the anti-​​technology, mud­dle headed think­ing of the lit­tle lamented for­mer Liberal gov­ern­ment. The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would require ISPs to block a black list of sites pre­pared by … Read more »

Scott Berkun Podcast and slides now available

The Myths of Innovation, pre­sented by Scott Berkun was one of the most intrigu­ing and chal­leng­ing pre­sen­ta­tions of Web Directions South 2007. It’s just a shame a few peo­ple missed it as it was on first thing on the Friday morning.

The good news is that the MP3 Scott’s thought pro­vok­ing … Read more »

Who does these things?

Is it just me, or is there any­one else out there utterly gob­s­macked by the fact that in 2008 one can go to the site for one of the country’s lead­ing cul­tural events only to be blasted by blar­ing objec­tion­able music that can’t even be turned off prop­erly, at … Read more »

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