Presentations about design

Podcasts, slides, videos and more

Dan Hill — Closing keynote: 15 years in

Dan Hill PortraitIt is time for the prac­tice of web devel­op­ment and design to broaden its hori­zons. How can the skills and expe­ri­ence we’ve acquired over the last 15 years of work­ing on the inter­net be applied more broadly to, say, the design of cities, build­ings, organ­i­sa­tions, gov­ern­ment and so on?

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Cameron Adams — Keynote: Making Waves

Cameron Adams PortraitIf you work on the web, it was hard to miss the announce­ment of Google Wave in May. It was espe­cially excit­ing because this project, designed to leapfrog cur­rent modes of online com­mu­ni­ca­tion, was devel­oped right here in Australia by a Sydney based team. Wave’s inter­face designer — Web Directions favourite, Cameron Adams — will give us some unique insights into the chal­lenges of bring­ing such an inno­v­a­tive prod­uct to fruition, the prob­lems you face in design­ing a desk­top appli­ca­tion in the browser, and how to nur­ture a startup cul­ture inside a large com­pany. Cameron has given some truly mem­o­rable pre­sen­ta­tions at pre­vi­ous Web Directions — this keynote draw­ing from his expe­ri­ences as part of the Google Wave team will be no exception.

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Matt Webb — Opening keynote: Escalante

Web Directions South 2009, Sydney Convention Centre, October 8 9.10am.

Matt Webb PortraitThe long run to the turn of the mil­len­nium got us pre­oc­cu­pied with con­clu­sions. The Internet is finally taken for granted. The iPhone is finally ubiq­ui­tous com­put­ing come true. Let’s think not of ends, but dawns: it’s not that we’re on the home straight of ubi­comp, but the begin­ning of a cen­tury of smart mat­ter. It’s not about fix­ing the Web, but mak­ing a spring­board for new economies, new ways of cre­at­ing, and new cultures.

The 21st cen­tury is a par­tic­i­pa­tory cul­ture, not a con­sumerist one. What does it mean when small teams can be respon­si­ble for world-​​size effects, on the same play­ing field as major cor­po­ra­tions and gov­ern­ment? We can look at the Web — break­ing down pub­lish­ing and con­sum­ing from day zero — for where we might be head­ing in a world big­ger than we can really see, and we can look at design — play­ful and ratio­nal all at once — to help us fig­ure out what to do when we get there.

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Christian Crumlish — Designing social interfaces

Christian Crumlish PortraitDesigning for social inter­ac­tion is hard. People are unpre­dictable, con­sis­tency is a mixed bless­ing, and co-​​creation with your users requires a dizzy­ing flir­ta­tion with loss of con­trol. Christian will present the dos and don’ts of social web design using a sam­pling of inter­ac­tion pat­terns, design prin­ci­ples and best prac­tices to help you improve the design of your dig­i­tal social environments.

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Suze Ingram — Would you like service design with that?

Suze Ingram PortraitService design is well estab­lished in Europe and North America and there’s already a hand­ful of Australian busi­nesses offer­ing ser­vice design. What is it? Does expe­ri­ence in design­ing for screen inter­ac­tion trans­late to design­ing ser­vices too? Will ser­vice design be the next big thing? Suze offers insight by draw­ing on her years of expe­ri­ence as a UX designer and researcher. She shows how ser­vice design might fit into your busi­ness in the future, who you might pitch it to, and what sort of skills you might need to deliver ser­vice design.

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Luke Stevens — Data driven design

Luke Stevens PortraitFar from being the enemy, data can be a designer’s best friend. So much so that it just might be the back­bone of the next evo­lu­tion of web design. Data doesn’t mean less cre­ativ­ity and exper­i­men­ta­tion, it means more. We’ve learned how to design sites that look good, and we know how to mark up our pages with web stan­dards. Now it’s time to fig­ure out what per­forms best.

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Grant Robinson — Visualising the user experience

Grant Robinson PortraitRapid pro­to­typ­ing. Widely acclaimed as one of the best ways to cre­ate great user expe­ri­ences, it isn’t with­out its own pit­falls. This ses­sion will dis­cuss the pros and cons of dif­fer­ent pro­to­typ­ing tech­niques, and intro­duce a new tech­nique called “screen­flows” that focuses on visu­al­is­ing the user expe­ri­ence. Discover how to com­bine the best of paper pro­to­typ­ing, wire­frames and HTML pro­to­typ­ing into one sim­ple and effec­tive pro­to­typ­ing tech­nique. Learn how using this method can dra­mat­i­cally decrease the need for doc­u­men­ta­tion, while increas­ing the speed and agility of the devel­op­ment process.

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Jeremy Yuille — The social life of visualization

Jeremy Yuille PortraitWhen visu­al­iza­tion is cou­pled with col­lec­tive intel­li­gence it becomes a very pow­er­ful tool for mak­ing sense of the data that is now an increas­ing part of our per­sonal and orga­ni­za­tional expe­ri­ence. But how do you design social web appli­ca­tions so they can use visu­al­iza­tion effectively?

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Ruth Ellison — Integrating accessibility into design

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 2.40pm.

Ruth Ellison PortraitWhen devel­op­ing web­sites or web appli­ca­tions, we often fol­low the prin­ci­ples of web stan­dards, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and other acces­si­bil­ity guide­lines. But is this enough? In this ses­sion, Ruth will look at how we can develop acces­si­ble web prod­ucts by tak­ing a holis­tic approach to web acces­si­bil­ity. She will look at dif­fer­ent ways of incor­po­rat­ing acces­si­bil­ity into the design process to pro­duce acces­si­ble and use­ful user expe­ri­ences. This pre­sen­ta­tion will focus on the user expe­ri­ence design process by draw­ing on exam­ples and learn­ings from Ruth’s work in Government.

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Jeffrey Veen — Designing our way through data

Web Directions South 2008, Sydney Convention Centre, September 26 9.10am.

Jeffrey Veen PortraitThe hype around Web 2.0 con­tin­ues to increase to the point of absur­dity. We hear all about a rich web of data, but what can we learn from these trends to actu­ally apply to our designs? You’ll take a tour through the past, present, and future of the web to answer these ques­tions and more:

  • What can we learn from the rich his­tory of data visu­al­iza­tion to inform our designs today?
  • How can we do amaz­ing work while bat­tle the con­stant con­straints we find our­selves up against?
  • How do we really incor­po­rate users into our prac­tice of user experience?

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Lisa Herrod — Usability: more than skin deep

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

Lisa Herrod PortraitWeb Usability is far more com­plex than user test­ing and inter­ac­tion design alone. And while inter­face design is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion, there’s more to a usable site than what’s on the surface.

We all know the impor­tance of acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards, so let’s take that knowl­edge one step fur­ther and into the realm of usabil­ity. In this ses­sion Lisa Herrod will rede­fine the com­mon def­i­n­i­tion of usabil­ity by intro­duc­ing a greater focus on acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards. By tak­ing a more holis­tic approach you will soon see why usabil­ity is more than skin deep.

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Oliver Weidlich — The mobile web user experience — we’re starting to get it right!

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Oliver Wiedlich PortraitHistorically the mobile web has been a ter­ri­ble expe­ri­ence, but things are start­ing to change. Really! We are now at the point that the mobile web is becom­ing eas­ier to access, both on-​​deck & off-​​deck, there’s use­ful & tai­lored ser­vices out there, and killing some time on the train home doesn’t cost more than your weekly train ticket. We’ll check out the lat­est and great­est in the world of mobile web and what makes them dif­fer­ent from the oth­ers. We will also cover the impor­tant things to keep in mind for mak­ing a bet­ter mobile web cus­tomer experience.

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Mathew Patterson — Delivering user experience to the inbox: designing for email

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Matthew Patterson PortraitSo you’ve designed a fan­tas­tic web­site for your client, tested in all the major browsers and every­thing looks great. Now they want to send an email newslet­ter to all their cus­tomers, using the new design.

No prob­lem right? Just need to test in Outlook 07, and 06. Yahoo and Hotmail too, of course. Oh, and Gmail, Lotus Notes, AOL…Of course, the design may not work that well for an email any­way, and isn’t there some kind of anti-​​spam laws?

Like it or not, HTML email is here to stay and the respon­si­bil­ity for doing it right belongs to web design­ers. Learn how to plan, design and build an email newslet­ter that will pro­vide a great user expe­ri­ence to the recip­i­ents, and great value to your clients.

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Andy Budd — Designing the experience curve

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Andy Budd PortraitThese days peo­ple expect more from a web­site than a handy set of tools and a pretty inter­face — they want an expe­ri­ence. From the moment some­body enters your site they’ll be judg­ing you on every­thing from the way the site looks to the tone of your error mes­sages. And they won’t just be judg­ing you against other sites. They will be judg­ing you on every cus­tomer expe­ri­ence they have ever had, from the rude man at the train sta­tion to the lovely hotel clerk that checked them in on hol­i­day. So in order to com­pete, we need to up our game and look at expe­ri­ences both on and off-​​line.

In this ses­sion Andy Budd will look at the 9 key fac­tors that go into design­ing the per­fect cus­tomer expe­ri­ence. By tak­ing exam­ples from the world around us, Andy will dis­cuss how we can turn util­i­tar­ian expe­ri­ences into some­thing wonderful.

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Andrew Kesper — ABC’s election site: making the most of dry data

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

Andrew Kesper PortraitWhile elec­tions can be excit­ing times, the under­ly­ing data — swings, booth counts, and the like is prob­a­bly only riv­et­ing to psepho­log­i­cal trag­ics. Yet the ABC’s elec­tion web site man­aged to take this raw data and make it attrac­tive, com­pelling and interactive.

In this ses­sion, the ABC’s Andrew Kesper takes us through the elec­tion site, look­ing at the design deci­sions, and uses of tech­nol­ogy like Ajax, Flash, and inter­ac­tive maps — tools which have wide applic­a­bil­ity for gov­ern­ment sites look­ing to present data in more user-​​friendly and attrac­tive ways.

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Kimberly Elam — Five Essential Composition Tools for Web Typography

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.

Kimberley Elam PortraitHave you ever seen a web site so clear, log­i­cal, and exquis­itely com­posed it made you stop in your tracks? Have you won­dered how the designer achieved such a stun­ning and cohe­sive design?

In this pre­sen­ta­tion, Kimberly Elam, designer and author of the best-​​selling “Geometry of Design” and “Typographic Systems” will reveal the mys­te­ri­ous rela­tion­ships between pro­por­tion, visual sys­tems, com­po­si­tion and aesthetics.

Too often excel­lent con­cep­tual ideas suf­fer dur­ing the process of real­iza­tion, in large part because the designer did not under­stand the essen­tial visual prin­ci­ples. This pre­sen­ta­tion explores these ele­ments and how they work by exam­in­ing how the use of visual prin­ci­ples informs, even cre­ates, beauty in typo­graphic design, but, more impor­tantly, how you can use these tech­niques to cre­ate cohe­sive­ness in your own design. The wide range of visual exam­ples are both infor­ma­tive and insight­ful, and any designer can ben­e­fit from learn­ing or revis­it­ing the rules gov­ern­ing the basics of typo­graphic design.

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Josh Williams — Bedroom to Boardroom

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.

Josh Williams PortraitWhat hap­pens when a designer decides to quit his day job, hang his shin­gle, and wakes up seven years later nowhere remotely close to where he imag­ined he would be? This frank, semi-​​informal dis­cus­sion on the pros, cons, and poten­tial pro­gres­sions of a designer’s career

will explore the following:

  • Niching your design services
  • Crafting a sal­able product
  • The Web Designer of Tomorrow

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Brian Fling — Mobile web design and development

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 31 2008.

Brian Fling Portrait

Mobile tech­nol­ogy is poised to rev­o­lu­tion­ize how we gather infor­ma­tion. By 2010 half the pop­u­la­tion of the planet will have access to the inter­net through a mobile device, mak­ing the mobile web an essen­tial part of our lives. Yet the mobile indus­try has few if any resources to help would-​​be mobile devel­op­ers from div­ing in other than applied expe­ri­ence from within the industry.

Brian Fling dicusses the mobile ecosys­tem in Canada and abroad, how you go about devel­op­ing an inte­grated mobile web strat­egy, mobile design and devel­op­ment prin­ci­ples and best prac­tices, and most impor­tantly, prac­ti­cal tech­niques and infor­ma­tion to start cre­at­ing mobile web­sites today.

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Daniel Burka — The why and how: UI case studies

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 31 2008.

Daniel Burka Portrait

User inter­face design is an iter­a­tive process — the design of Digg and Pownce have been a study in evo­lu­tion and adap­ta­tion. This talk will inspect the why and how of these iter­a­tions by look­ing at spe­cific case stud­ies from the two projects as well as pre­vi­ous client work Daniel has tackled.

The case stud­ies will exam­ine spe­cific user inter­face chal­lenges that have arisen and will chop them up into their var­i­ous bits. How do I iden­tify a chal­lenge? What is the best approach for get­ting started? How do I solve the prob­lem con­cep­tu­ally and tech­ni­cally? How will I know if I solved the chal­lenge suc­cess­fully? Case stud­ies have been selected that are espe­cially per­ti­nent out­side of their spe­cific con­texts to help you in your every­day UI design.

The pre­sen­ta­tion will focus on design inspi­ra­tion, decision-​​making processes, tech­ni­cal solu­tions, and learn­ing from mis­steps as part of a designer’s iter­a­tive process.

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Cameron Adams — The future of web interfaces

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 31 2008.

Cameron Adams Portrait

We’re at an excit­ing time in the devel­op­ment of web-​​based inter­faces — along with a matur­ing front-​​end toolkit (CSS & JavaScript), there are so many tech­nolo­gies, trends and excit­ing ideas emerg­ing that are enabling us to push the bound­aries of inter­face design.

Author, designer and code cow­boy Cameron Adams will explore some of these areas and how they will apply to our devel­op­ment of online inter­faces, includ­ing: the pos­si­bil­i­ties of front-​​end cus­tomi­sa­tion, appli­ca­tion inter­faces, browser-​​native vec­tor graph­ics, and the gen­eral duty of all web devel­op­ers to make things interesting.

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Brian Oberkirch – “Plays Well With Others”: Simple Things to Make the Social Parts of your Service More Social

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.

Brian Oberkirch Portrait Not only are most Web appli­ca­tions going to have (or uti­lize) social com­po­nents — they’re also going to have start shar­ing social infor­ma­tion like pro­files, con­tact lists and such with other ser­vices. The ’social net­work fatigue’ users feel and the inef­fi­cien­cies of keep­ing this infor­ma­tion in mul­ti­ple spots will drive us to play bet­ter with other social apps. This ses­sion will focus on using sim­ple build­ing blocks and emerg­ing design pat­terns to keep it sim­ple for users, for you and for the open social Web at large.

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Derek Featherstone – Real World Accessibility For Real World People

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 30 2008.

Derek Featherstone Portrait When we fol­low the prin­ci­ples of web stan­dards, we write valid HTML and CSS, unob­tru­sive JavaScript and fol­low WCAG and other acces­si­bil­ity guide­lines. This sim­ple act goes a long way to cre­at­ing an acces­si­ble web site, appli­ca­tion or ser­vice. At the same time, many sites that don’t uti­lize all that is good and whole­some about web stan­dards per­form sur­pris­ingly well when they are used by peo­ple with disabilities.

How can we get the best of both worlds to cre­ate standards-​​based solu­tions that are highly usable for real peo­ple (includ­ing those with dis­abil­i­ties) in the real world?

In this ses­sion, we’ll dis­sect sev­eral exam­ples from real sites and apps to learn about acces­si­bil­ity prob­lems that arise from design and devel­op­ment deci­sions and what we can do to cre­ate a more acces­si­ble user expe­ri­ence for all peo­ple, regard­less of their ability.

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John Allsopp & Dave Shea – Where’s Your Web At? Designing for the Web Beyond the Desktop

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions North, Vancouver Canada, January 31 2008.

John Allsopp Portrait Dave Shea Portrait Since the advent of per­sonal com­put­ing, we’ve been tied to one place — typ­i­cally sit­ting at a desk, with a key­board and mouse, and in iso­la­tion. Even the advent of the web and the wifi-​​enabled lap­top hasn’t much changed this quar­ter cen­tury old par­a­digm. But with the rise of mobile phones and devices like the Nintendo Wii and PSP fea­tur­ing first class web brows­ing, our expe­ri­ence of the web will change dra­mat­i­cally over the com­ing years. In this con­text, which design and user expe­ri­ence pat­terns and tech­niques we’ve devel­oped over the last 15 years hold up? And… which break?

In this ses­sion, Dave Shea and John Allsopp con­sider the chal­lenges we’ll face as the web devolves onto a myr­iad devices, and the web is “always on” wher­ever we are.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Stephen Cox — Building ethnography into the design process

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

Stephen Cox Portrait Working in usabil­ity and user expe­ri­ence can give you some great insights into the prod­uct design process. Yet few organ­i­sa­tions know how to take advan­tage of this infor­ma­tion silo. As a user expe­ri­ence expert do you some­times wish you could have more input into prod­uct ideas handed down from above? Ever wanted to have the ear of busi­ness strate­gists? Even be best friends with mar­keters and sales peo­ple? Stephen Cox explores some of the excit­ing things that can hap­pen when the dis­ci­plines of usabil­ity and user expe­ri­ence are allowed to seep out into the realms of strate­gic and tac­ti­cal design inno­va­tion. He approaches the field of ethno­graphic design research in prac­ti­cal terms illus­trat­ing how News Digital Media has come to embrace the idea of exten­sive cus­tomer research, and the ben­e­fits that this has brought to dif­fer­ent lev­els of the organisation.

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Cameron Adams — The future of web interfaces

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.

Cameron Adams PortraitAjax brought about a host of new pos­si­bil­i­ties in online inter­faces, but where are we going next? Cameron Adams will look at the evo­lu­tion of dynamic inter­faces; inter­faces that truly meet the needs of all their users. Through the care­ful use of Web Standards, client-​​side script­ing, and server-​​side intel­li­gence, it’s pos­si­ble to cre­ate inter­faces that shape, adapt to, and pre­dict a user’s needs.

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Andy Clarke — Think like a mountain

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.

Andy Clarke PortraitOnce seen as unso­phis­ti­cated, child­ish and of low artis­tic value, comic-​​book art and cul­ture has inspired artists and design­ers for gen­er­a­tions and are now are often untapped resource for web design inspi­ra­tion. In this ses­sion, designer and author of Transcending CSS, Andy Clarke will exam­ine comic book lay­out, con­ven­tions and colour in the con­text of mak­ing inspi­ra­tional designs for today’s web.

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Scott Berkun — The myths of innovation

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

Scott Berkun PortraitMuch of what we know about inno­va­tion is wrong. That’s the bet this enter­tain­ing keynote takes as it romps through the his­tory of inno­va­tion, dis­pelling the mytholo­gies we’ve con­structed about how we got here. This talk, loosely based on Scott Berkun’s recent O’Reilly book (May 2007), will help you to rec­og­nize the myths, under­stand their pop­u­lar­ity (even if you don’t believe in them), and how to use the truth of inno­va­tions past to help you in your work today.

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Lisa Herrod — Usability: more than skin deep

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

Lisa Herrod PortraitWeb Usability is far more com­plex than User Testing and Interaction Design alone. And while inter­face design is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion, there’s more to a usable site than what’s on the sur­face. We all know the impor­tance of acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards, so let’s take that knowl­edge one step fur­ther and into the realm of usabil­ity. In this ses­sion Lisa Herrod will rede­fine the com­mon def­i­n­i­tion of usabil­ity by intro­duc­ing a greater focus on acces­si­bil­ity and web stan­dards. By tak­ing a more holis­tic approach you will soon see why usabil­ity is more than skin deep.

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Justin French — Pushing beyond design

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 27 2007.

Justin French PortraitYou’re a great web designer. You craft beau­ti­ful inter­faces, you’ve nailed stan­dards based design, and you’re at the top of your game. So now what? Based on real world expe­ri­ences, this pre­sen­ta­tion encour­ages you, the mod­ern web designer, to ignore the title on your busi­ness card and to start think­ing about your real role in the devel­op­ment process — what you have to offer, what your team really needs, and what you could do to dra­mat­i­cally increase your value on a daily basis.

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George Oates — Human traffic

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

George Oates PortraitIf there’s one thing about Web 2.0, it’s that we’re real­is­ing that there are actu­ally peo­ple using the inter­net. It’s no longer about Human to Computer inter­ac­tion, but rather Human to Human. Discover some of the user expe­ri­ence ideas and strate­gies behind the design of flickr​.com, one of the rich­est Human to Human places on the web today.

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Andy Clarke — Creating Inspired Design

A pre­sen­ta­tion given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 29 2006.

Andy Clarke Portrait

Designers are more than mere pixel push­ers. The role of the cre­ative designer work­ing on the web has changed and will con­tinue to change faster than ever before. In this ses­sion, Andy Clarke will dis­cuss how design­ers should now play the piv­otal part in the cre­ation of engag­ing user expe­ri­ences, bind­ing together the roles of infor­ma­tion archi­tects, con­tent authors and tech­ni­cal devel­op­ers. It’s time to put design­ers in the hot seat. See the slides and hear the podcast »