Web Directions » design

Rahul Sen — Interaction Design Bauhaus

Guy Leech — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 07:41:15 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

Presentation slides

Session description

With the release of the Windows Phone, Windows 8, Google+ and a host of other interfaces – a call for revolution is becoming more absolute. There seems to be a clear opposition to skeumorphism in graphical user interfaces (skeumorphic UI were made popular by Apple for the past half a decade). There is a clear call for fierce reduction of chrome in favor of content.

History seldom repeats itself, but every now and then, it rhymes. My session focuses on what I call — ‘The Interaction Design Bauhaus’. It discusses this growing minimalist, ‘form follows data’ trend in UX and compares it to historical phenomenon that occurred in the early 1900’s in the form of the industrial design Bauhaus movement. This session draws comparisons and lessons from history, and attempts to focus on the new material we deal with in Interaction Design and how we deal with old human feelings like Envy.

About Rahul Sen

Rahul is an interaction designer with a background in architecture and theatre. He has a MA in Interaction Design from the renowned Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden. Prior to his work at Ergonomidesign, where Rahul currently works, he has worked at Teague (Seattle) and Atlas Copco (Örebro).

In all these places he has worked on a wide range of cross-disciplinary projects with people from different backgrounds. His work has made him work with global brands like Microsoft Surface, Windows Phone, Zune, Hewlett-Packard, Roche, Proctor and Gamble, Pepsico, Spotify, Maquet, Nokia, and several others. Rahul uses his diverse history to probe and create interesting intersections between people, pixels and our physical World.

In addition to his role as a visual interaction designer, Rahul is a keen thinker about future design scenarios and design-fiction. He writes and speaks about this within the design community as often as possible. He has experienced life and work in India, France, Berlin, USA and Sweden where he currently lives.

Follow Rahul on Twitter: @rahulsen79

Martin Tomitsch — Using the world as a canvas

Guy Leech — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 02:15:42 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

Audio recording of session
Presentation slides
Session description
About Martin Tomitsch

Presentation slide

Session description

Now that we are comfortable developing and designing web content for desktop screens, just when we finally understood how to translate the web experience to mobile screens, there is a new challenge ahead of us. How do we develop and design web content when the physical environment becomes our canvas?

While for a period there was (and largely still is) an emerging trend to stick a screen on everything (remember the Internet fridge), increasingly the smartphone is becoming our swiss army knife for information access. Constantly connected to the Internet, smartphones have literally made information available at our fingertips in more personalised and less obtrusive ways than embedded screens.

With the arrival of new display technologies, like integrated personal projectors, we will be able (again) to design for a much larger content area. There is a danger though that this will be limited to marginal use cases, such as watching photos or movies, when in fact this opens up an entirely new and exciting design space. Drawing on the sensing power of smartphones, projected content could instead be designed to provide rich interaction and contextualised visualisation of information.

The session will draw on research projects and visions of the future to sketch out the possibilities of this new design space, and how current web practices can be translated into a future where using the world as a canvas will change information visualisation and access all over again.

About Martin Tomitsch

Martin Tomitsch holds a lectureship at the University of Sydney and works as researcher at the Design Lab, an interdisciplinary research group within the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning. He teaches interaction design for the Web, mobile devices, and experimental interfaces. In his research he investigates aspects of designing and evaluating information interfaces in everyday environments. He is particularly interested in using new technologies to create user experiences that merge the digital and the physical. Martin has a background in informatics with a focus on human-computer interaction, which he studied in Vienna, Paris and Stockholm. Before joining the Design Lab, he worked as interface designer in software projects.

Follow Martin on Twitter: @martintom

Luke Dearnley & Sebastian Chan — Culture + citizens + digital heritage

Guy Leech — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:09:09 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

Session writeup
Session description
About Luke Dearnley
About Sebastian Chan

Session description

In the last few years people have started talking about something called ‘digital humanities’ outside of academia. The term ‘curator’ is even being loosely talked about as a ‘future job description’ — despite its long history and roots in the museum world. And in museums, archives and libraries all over the world technologists are talking and building linked open data projects, SPARQL endpoints, huge crowdsourced digitisation and citizen science projects, not to mention mobile and social experiences, AR, QR, that fluidly move between the physical and the digital. Not only that, they’re not hiding this work behind patent lawsuits, NDAs and commercial-in-confidence backroom deals.

What exactly is going on here and how might you, as developers and web thinkers, start to explore some of what they have to offer. And, perhaps selfishly, how can you prototype, test and solve your own technical problems using their data and use their unique physical environments as a living laboratory for your own products and projects?

In a fireside chat, Seb and Luke from the Powerhouse Museum will talk candidly about some of the current challenges and future directions in this space — and how you might be able to help.

About Luke Dearnley

Luke Dearnley is the Web Manager at the Powerhouse Museum where he previously worked as a developer. In his time at the museum he has been involved with improvements to the online collection including the automatic semantic mining of over 75,000 object descriptions using the Reuter’s Open Calais service, automated deployment of images to the Flickr Commons, and construction of the Museum’s collection API. In more recent years he has weathered the rise in workload as the department has begun making mobile Apps as well as websites. Insert witty insight into personal life here.

Follow Luke on Twitter: @LukeSnarl

About Sebastian Chan

Sebastian Chan leads the Digital, Social and Emerging Technologies department at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. Beyond the Powerhouse he also helps other organisations internationally strategize and implement cutting edge technologies in the cultural sector. Seb was also a member of the Australian Government’s Government 2.0 Taskforce examining ways of improving citizen engagement with government and opening access to public sector information. Seb writes the popular Fresh & New(er) blog in the museum world, and leads a parallel life in electronic music and art as editor-in-chief of Cyclic Defrost Magazine. He likes sticky dessert wines and high grade dark chocolate.

Follow Sebastian on Twitter: @sebchan

Michael Honey & Tim Riley — Web or native? Smart choices for smartphone apps

Guy Leech — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:16:18 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

Audio recording of session
Presentation slides
Session description
About Michael Honey
About Tim Riley

Presentation slides

Session description

Computers are increasingly being held in the hand rather than sitting atop lap or desk. We now have to consider how our products will work underneath a finger instead of a mouse cursor. Increasingly, too, those products are being delivered as native applications, capable of fully exploiting device capabilities. That has ramifications not only for the way those projects get built, but also how we structure the businesses that support them.

In this session, Michael Honey and Tim Riley answer the question “web or native?” from business, product design and development perspectives. They cover the current state of web technology on modern devices and compare it to what’s available through native development platforms. They’ll look at web, native and hybrid strategies successfully employed by Australian and international businesses, and share their own stories as mobile and web developers. Finally, they’ll offer practical guidance on picking a strategy for web or native development that best suits your needs — as either a developer or a client.

Tim and Michael are two of the partners behind Icelab, an Australian design and development studio. They’ve trod both the web and native paths through their client work, such as interactive touchscreens for museum exhibits, online photo galleries and mobile tour guides, and also their own projects, like Decaf Sucks, a coffee review community available on the web (optimised for both desktops and smartphones) and as a native iPhone app.

About Michael Honey

Michael founded Icelab after a career as creative director and later, interactive director in an agency environment. He has fifteen years’ experience in design for screen, print, video and exhibition spaces, and has expertise in writing, programming, direction and post-production. He is an experienced coder, with a particular interest in algorithmic animation and datavisualisation. He is also experienced in the development of diagrammatic animations for cultural, engineering, scientific and architectural clients.

Michael’s interests include architecture, urbanism, and the environment.

Follow Michael on Twitter: @michaelhoney

About Tim Riley

Tim is a partner at Australian design and development studio Icelab, where he builds excellent web and mobile applications using Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Cocoa, and occasionally out of popsicle sticks. On alternate days he runs Decaf Sucks, an online community for coffee reviews, and RentMonkey, which contains the greatest

Alex Young — Multi-device, Multi-role

Guy Leech — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 10:15:43 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

Presentation slides
Session description
About Alex Young

Presentation slides

Session description

No longer is being connected limited to the constraints of the traditional desktop environment. Devices, networks and the Web are maturing and evolving at a fast rate. Our expectations about what we want, how we want it and when we want it are more complex.

Designing experiences for web for the “desktop” environment is something many of us have been doing for a while. Toss in “mobile”, sprinkle that with some social integration, a native app or two and things suddenly start getting a bit more interesting. How do you approach designing experiences that span multiple platforms and devices, contexts and roles to meet the evolving needs of our audiences?

About Alex Young

Alex Young is co-founder of MOB, an R&D lab in Sydney. MOB create apps, multi-device platforms, Augmented Reality and Computer Vision solutions for customers as well as their own products that are used around the world. MOB is active in the AR standards community globally and work with businesses to provide them hands-on experience using emerging technologies to get a look ahead at what the impacts to their organisations and customers will be.

Prior to MOB, Alex spent 10 years heading up UX, Design and Development teams across Interactive TV, Web and Mobile, primarily in Telco-land.

Follow Alex on Twitter: @alexmyoung

Aaron Weyenberg — Getting Real: Pros and Pitfalls of Realistic UI Design

Guy Leech — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 10:10:52 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

Presentation slides
Session description
About Aaron Weyenberg

Presentation slides

Session description

A new generation of touch devices have proven to be exciting playgrounds for app designers. And with every new product we create, we have the opportunity to offer the most clear and efficient experience for our users. Recent UI trends often lean to realistic, faithful representations of analog controls and features. These designs can offer advantages, but also come with their own set of hazards.

In this session Aaron will lead you on a tour of current trends and practices, examining the strengths and drawbacks that realism brings. We’ll talk about things like mental models, innovation and usability as they relate to lifelike UI. Finally, Aaron will share some pragmatic guidelines to keep in mind as you build the next wave of mobile and tablet apps.

About Aaron Weyenberg

Aaron Weyenberg is the UX Lead at TED in New York. Over the last 13 years Aaron has served in key roles at a range of companies, from small design agencies to fledgling startups to internationally recognized media brands. As an Art Director for ESPN, Aaron guided best practices, developed core UI components and designed pioneering real time game and scoring apps. His work appears in places like Smashing Magazine, Six Revisions and Tripwire Magazine.

His offline hobbies involve learning about social psychology and human behavior, photography, reading, and an intrepid quest to find the perfect iPod earphones.

Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aweyenberg

Scott Bryant & Simon Wright — Designing for change and disruption

Guy Leech — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:33:13 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 13th.

Audio recording of session
Presentation slides
Session description
About Scott Byrant
About Simon Wright

Presentation slides

Session description

Change is never a smooth process. How do know when disruption is useful and how do you cope with the feedback on it? Recently news.com.au, a national news website with large numbers of daily visitors, underwent a major upgrade which tore down existing and perhaps “expected” ways of presenting news. At the heart of the redesign was a desire for change that motivated and challenged every aspect of the team’s design thinking and process.

In this co-piloted session Simon and Scott will fly you over the territories of change they encountered on the project, ones common to many redesign projects. They’ll descend through the experiences that came out of the redesign: fundamentals like stakeholders, requirements and their process for user experience architect and designer working side by side. Sprinkled with some of the twitter and facebook feedback the project received, they’ll touch down on the sticky issues of dealing with feedback and how to suck it up and utilise passionate user and stakeholder feedback.

About Scott Byrant

Scott Bryant is a Senior Experience Architect working on online and cross platform news media and classifieds, most recently for news.com.au within the User Standards and Innovative Technology Team for News Digital Media. He spends his time working across product, design and technology teams utilising design and research to create engaging user experiences for news media.

His career began as a visual artist before working in university and local government libraries, and finally into new media. He completed two Masters Degrees, in Media Art and Information Studies (while working as a Project Manager, Content Producer and IA).

Upon returning from the US working on the Ask Jeeves innovative search interface he concentrated on User Experience, He continues to lecture casually in information and interaction design at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Follow Scott on Twitter: @ScotTheLot

About Simon Wright

Simon Wright is the Art Director of news.com.au, leading the design and front-end development team. He’s responsible for the brand’s design and development across all digital platforms, and also works closely with journalists on new ways to tell stories online. As someone who’s passionate about design, the web, media and well-designed chairs, being a part of a news website’s a near perfect fit (if it was possible to do this while climbing up a rockface, he’d never leave).

In a previous life Simon was based in Perth and wore the many hats of small business, mostly the propeller-topped one of designer/front-end dev and sometimes the dull beige hat of The Guy Who Does The Finance.

Follow Simon on Twitter: @diversionary

Mike Kuniavsky — Design [in|for|and] the age of ubiquitous computing

Guy Leech — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 22:23:43 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

Presentation slides

Session description

Let’s start with the assumption that computing and networking are as cheap to incorporate into product designs as plastic and aluminum. Anything can tweet, everything knows about everything. The cloud extends from smart speed bumps to exurban data systems, passing through us in the process. We’re basically there technologically today, and over the next [pick a date range] years, we’ll be there distribution-wise.

Here’s the issue: now that we have this power what do we do with it? Yes we can now watch the latest movies on our phones while ignoring the rest of the world (if you believe telco ads) and know more about peripheral acquaintances than you ever wanted. But, really, is that it? Is it Angry Birds all the way down?

Of course not. Every technology’s most profound social and cultural changes are invisible at the outset. Cheap information processing and networking technology is a brand new phenomenon, culturally speaking, and quickly changing the world in fundamental ways. Designers align the capabilities of a technology with people’s lives, so it is designers who have the power and responsibility to think about what this means.

This talk will discuss where ubiquitous computing is today, some changes we can already see happening, and how we can begin to think about the implications of these technologies for design, for business and for the world at large.

About Mike Kuniavsky

Mike Kuniavsky is a designer, writer, researcher, consultant and entrepreneur focused on people’s relationship to digital technology. He cofounded Adaptive Path, a San Francisco design consulting firm, and ThingM, a ubiquitous computing design studio and micro-manufacturer. He is the author of ‘Observing the User Experience,’ a popular textbook of user research methods, and ‘Smart Things: ubiquitous computing user experience design,’ a guide to the user-centered design of digital products.

Follow Mike on Twitter: @mikekuniavsky

Hannah Donovan — Designing without the browser

Guy Leech — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 02:42:28 +0000

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

Audio recording of session
Presentation slides
Session description
About Hannah Donovan

Presentation slides

Session description

Innovation is intensifying off the browser — the things we use everyday are increasingly controlled by touch, gesture and voice. And we, as interaction designers, are faced with a challenge that’s the opposite of our browser-based one-man-shop: there’s suddenly a gulf of production between our concept and the final product; the means of production is as tricky to navigate as a roster of Tolstoy characters; mistakes are expensive; and everyone speaks a different language. Sound dangerous? Sound exciting?

Donovan argues the processes for the future lie in our more material-based graphic designer pasts, and our cousin disciplines of industrial design and architecture. After a decade of honing our newfangled browser-based skills, learn how to dust off and sharpen the tools of our roots.

About Hannah Donovan

Hannah Donovan is a Canadian interaction designer living in London. She led design at Last.fm for five years, and before that worked agency-side designing digital campaigns. Since leaving Last.fm this spring, Hannah’s become an independent product designer focused on ways to make music better on the web. When she’s not busy with new work, Hannah contributes to spacelog.org and plays cello with a real orchestra as well as a comedy orchestra.

Read an interview with Hannah in Desktop Magazine.

Follow Hannah on Twitter: @Han

Brian Fling — Six rules to designing amazing mobile apps

Guy Leech — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 05:18:25 +0000

Web Directions @media 2011, London, May 26th 11:45am.

Presentation slides
Session description
About Brian Fling

Presentation slides

Session description

Building a mobile app isn’t easy. Regardless of chosen platform or technology creating a memorable mobile experience has some pretty intense challenges throughout. However if you can get it right it can have some incredible rewards and propel your brand in more ways than one. After spending ten years building mobile apps for some of the biggest companies in the world, author and mobile designer Brian Fling shares his six rules for building amazing apps that will either you get you started or improve upon your next release.

About Brian Fling

Brian Fling is an authority in the field of in mobile user experience and designing for multiple contexts. He has worked with hundreds of businesses from early stage start-ups to Fortune 50 companies to leverage a variety of mediums, like mobile devices, to design for the needs and context of real people.

Author of O’Reilly Media’s Mobile Design and Development: Practical concepts and techniques for creating mobile sites and web apps, Brian goes in depth into the design principles involved in creating compelling mobile experiences for this new era of multiple devices and context. As well as explore the rapidly growing area of how to easily design and build a mobile site and web app, how to deal with devices practically and how to translate an experience to a variety of mobile devices.

Brian is a frequent author and speaker on the issues on mobile design, the mobile web and mobile user experience, teaching people how to leverage mobile all over the world. Brian is also the founder and president of pinch/zoom, a design and development agency specializing on mobile experiences helping clients like Best Buy, Lonely Planet and others dive into the world of mobile.

Follow Brian on Twitter: @fling