Web Directions » interaction design

Rahul Sen — Interaction Design Bauhaus

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

Web Directions South 2011, Sydney, October 14th.

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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

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.

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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.

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About Hannah Donovan

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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

Hannah Donovan — Designing without the browser

Guy Leech — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 05:06:55 +0000

Web Directions @media 2011, London, May 27th 11:45am.

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About Hannah Donovan

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About Hannah Donovan

Follow Hannah on Twitter: @Han

Daniels Lee™ — Designing for the 10 foot UI

Guy Leech — Sun, 29 May 2011 00:14:46 +0000

Web Directions Unplugged 2011, Seattle, May 13th 2:25pm.

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About Daniels Lee™

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The web platform has already taken a center role in our desktop and mobile computing lives. The next space for the web platform to take over is the biggest screen in your house — the TV in your living room. However, designing for television has its own set of demands, different than designing for desktop and mobile implementations. This talk outlines the most important best practices to keep in mind when designing web applications for TV. We’ll cover issues like directional pad navigation, user interface design for TV, color issues, and zooming, as well as discussing some unique opportunities for TV applications.

About Daniels Lee™

Daniels is a Developer Programs Engineer who’s had the pleasure of working with several developer communities since he joined the team in 2006. After starting with iGoogle gadgets, he worked closely with advertisers and agencies via Gadget Ads, then onto Geo APIs focusing on V2 to V3 migration, and now Google TV. He’s not afraid to publicly confess his love for JavaScript and recognizes its profound ability to make the web more interactive. With a growing love for HTML5 technology, sky’s the limit. On his off time, he enjoys cultivating authentic relationships while always pursuing a greater sense of self and awareness.

Follow Daniels on Twitter: @dannon81

Daniel Davis — Widgets: Why should I care?

Guy Leech — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 01:22:00 +0000

Web Directions South 2010, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 14 1.40pm.

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About Daniel Davis

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Coming soon.

Session description

When I was a young lad, I had the use of a computer for the Christmas holidays so I typed out my thank you letters and felt super cool. Unfortunately there was no printer. I wrote out by hand what was on the screen and got laughed at by my dad. Despite this, I felt I was ahead of the crowd and at the start of something new and exciting. Thirty years later, I feel we’re at the same stage with widgets – at the start of something new and exciting.

About Daniel Davis

Daniel is the Web Evangelist for Opera's Japan office based in Tokyo. His previous work experience includes project management, IT training, web development, software development and system administration in both Japan and the UK, his home country. After studying Japanese and Chinese at university, he grew more and more interested in the flourishing field of IT and the web, learning as much as he could by playing and experimenting with internet-related technologies. His current work promoting web standards and cross-device web development at Opera fits in perfectly with his ideology of openness and equality across linguistic, social and socio-economic borders.

Follow Daniel on Twitter: @ourmaninjapan

Dan Rubin — Creativity, design and interaction with HTML5 and CSS3

Guy Leech — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:58:00 +0000

Web Directions South 2010, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 14 1.40pm.

Presentation slides

The presentation slides are available on Dan Rubin’s website (PDF).

Session description

HTML5 and CSS3 are the newest stars of the web: the cornerstones of progressive enhancement, the future of online video, the easiest way to build web applications for desktop and mobile devices, and a brilliant foundation upon which we can add complex interaction and animation layers with javascript and Canvas; happily — thanks to much-improved browser support — we can now use them. In this session, Dan Rubin will show you who’s already taking advantage of these latest additions to our toolbox, what this means for interface designers, and how you can bring the same techniques to your projects.

About Dan Rubin

An accomplished designer, author and speaker, Dan Rubin has over ten years of experience as a leader in the fields of user interface design and web standards, specifically focusing on the use of HTML and CSS to streamline development and improve accessibility.

His passion for all things creative and artistic isn’t a solely selfish endeavor either—you’ll frequently find him waxing educational about a cappella jazz and barbershop harmony, philosophy, web standards, typography, psychology, and design in general.

In addition to his contributions to sites including Blogger, the CSS Zen Garden, Yahoo! Small Business and Microsoft's ASP.net portal, Dan is a contributing author of Cascading Style Sheets: Separating Content from Presentation (2nd Edition, friends of ED, 2003), technical reviewer for Beginning CSS Web Development (Apress, 2006), The Art & Science of CSS (SitePoint, 2007) and Sexy Web Design (SitePoint, 2009), coauthor of Pro CSS Techniques (Apress, 2006), and Web Standards Creativity (friends of ED, 2007), writes about web standards, design and life in general on his personal site, Superfluous Banter, and spends his professional time on a variety of online and offline projects for Sidebar Creative, Webgraph and Black Seagull, consulting on design, user interaction and online publishing for Garcia Media, and speaking and teaching at events, conferences and workshops (including An Event Apart, @media, SXSW Interactive, Future of Web Design, Web Directions, and various Refresh and AIGA events) around the world.

Follow Dan on Twitter: @danrubin

Josh Williams — Keynote: Where are we going?

Guy Leech — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 04:12:03 +0000

Web Directions South 2010, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 14 4.15pm.

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About Josh Williams

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Today’s web is being defined more than ever by buzzwords, catchphrases, fads and trends. Startups are being created for startups sake, standards are being hijacked by so-called “social media gurus,” and investors are piling on one after another looking to hop on the next big wave. And we, the designers, developers and innovators actually building the web, are left to wonder if we’re still in the drivers seat.

During this brisk discussion we’ll separate fads from the future, debate native apps versus the mobile web, take an honest look at the hype behind geo-location, then take a step back to ask ourselves where the web—and we ourselves—are going. Hold on, it’s going to be a wild ride!

About Josh Williams

Josh Williams is CEO and co-founder of Gowalla, a mobile and Web service that gives people around the world a new way to communicate and express themselves through the everyday places and extraordinary settings they enjoy. Gowalla empowers everyone to capture and share their journey as they go while following the happenings of family and friends. Josh is responsible for building and growing the business while leading the product design team. Gowalla was launched in 2009 and is backed by notable investors including Greylock Partners, Alsop-Louie Partners, Founders Fund, and other prominent angel investors.

Josh is a self-taught designer and artist who has been creating online for over 15 years. Josh loves mid-century modern design, architecture, skiing, snowboarding and longboarding. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two young daughters.

Follow Josh on Twitter: @JW

Max Wheeler — Location, location, geolocation

Guy Leech — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 09:21:47 +0000

Web Directions South 2010, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 15 11.45am.

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About Max Wheeler

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Phones with GPS are now widely available and the growing support for the JavaScript geolocation API means location based services aren’t restricted to the realm of native applications. Now is the time to learn how to take advantage of this information and add provide your users with the best personal and contextual experience.

This session will take you through building a location-based mobile app using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Including cross-platform techniques for figuring out where your users are, and providing graceful fallbacks options for devices that don’t have geolocation support (or users that don’t want to tell you exactly). You’ll learn about geocoding to a physical address (and the other way around) and look at how to build a mobile-friendly map with local points of interest.

About Max Wheeler

An interaction designer with a passion for emerging technologies, Max believes the web should function as beautifully as it looks. He currently resides in Canberra where he works with Icelab, a media-agnostic design agency with a team of good people.

In his spare time Max takes photographs, travels the world, and builds web applications that do useful things. His latest pet project is Decaf Sucks, a site for helping you to find the good cafés and avoid the bad ones. He also happens to be the current world champion in the sport of beach ultimate.

Follow Max on Twitter: @makenosound

Matt Balara — Flogging design: best practices in online shop design

Guy Leech — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:19:54 +0000

Web Directions South 2010, Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 14 2.40pm.

Session description

Considering how many businesses depend upon the web for their income, it’s shocking how poorly designed most shops are. Not only aesthetically, but also as far as ease of use, retail psychology and user experience are concerned. How can we design better shops? If customers enjoy shopping more, won’t our clients earn more? Can forms be fun? What’s the psychology behind online purchases? How can online and offline buying experiences be harmonised? Matt Balara will share some of his 15 years of experience designing web sites, the vast majority of which have sold something or other.

About Matt Balara

Matt Balara is a freelance web designer, was a child prodigy violinist and is unintentionally bilingual, all of which has been vitally important to his success in designing for the web since 1993. Despite years of experience, he still can’t understand why so many websites are so useless and ugly.

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattBalara