Web Directions » wdux08 http://www.webdirections.org Just another WordPress weblog Fri, 27 Jan 2012 00:02:10 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Robert Hoekman Jr — The essential elements of great web applicationshttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/robert-hoekman-jr/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/robert-hoekman-jr/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:20:21 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/robert-hoekman-jr/ A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, and Web Direction Government, Old Parliament House, Canberra, May 19 2008.

Robert Hoekman, Jr PortraitMost great web applications have a few key things in common. But can you name them? Better yet — can you achieve them consistently in your own projects?

In this closing keynote, Robert Hoekman, Jr., author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious (New Riders) describes the seven qualities of great web-based software and how to achieve each and every one of them by learning to communicate through design. See why it's important to build only what's absolutely essential, apply instructive design, create error-proof interactions, surface commonly-used features, and more in this informative session that will change the way you work and enable your users to walk away from your software feeling productive, respected, and smart.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

Most great web applications have a few key things in common. But can you name them? Better yet — can you achieve them consistently in your own projects?

In this closing keynote, Robert Hoekman, Jr., author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious (New Riders) describes the seven qualities of great web-based software and how to achieve each and every one of them by learning to communicate through design. See why it’s important to build only what’s absolutely essential, apply instructive design, create error-proof interactions, surface commonly-used features, and more in this informative session that will change the way you work and enable your users to walk away from your software feeling productive, respected, and smart.

About Robert Hoekman

Robert Hoekman, Jr PortraitRobert Hoekman, Jr., is the founder of Miskeeto, a product development and web design consultancy focused on socially-conscious projects that improve the world.

He’s a passionate and outspoken interaction designer, writer, and user-experience evangelist who has written dozens of articles and has worked with Adobe, Automattic, United Airlines, DoTheRightThing.com, Go Daddy Software, and countless others to create superior user experiences for a wide range of audiences. He also gives in-house training sessions and speaks regularly at industry events like Adobe MAX, Flashforward, SxSW, Future of Web Design, and others.

Robert is the author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious, which focuses on seven guiding principles of great web-based software and how to leverage them in any real-world project. Learn more about Robert through his blog at rhjr.net.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/robert-hoekman-jr/feed/ 1 Oliver Weidlich — The mobile web user experience — we’re starting to get it right!http://www.webdirections.org/resources/oliver-weidlich/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/oliver-weidlich/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:09:38 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/oliver-wiedlich/ 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.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

Historically 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.

About Oliver Weidlich

Oliver Weidlich PortraitOliver draws on a background in psychology, experience in usability and understanding of mobile technology to identify key issues for client business strategy, and customers, and to recommend & design solutions through his consultancy Ideal Interfaces. He has consulted to clients such as Hutchison, Optus, Telstra, ninemsn, Orange, Holden, and Motorola.

He has a wide range of experience evaluating and improving the end-to-end customer experience with mobile devices, including 2G, 2.5G and 3G devices, portals, applications and content. He has conducted field research into future mobile usage and the interaction between the mobile device and other technologies.

Ideal Interfaces is a founding member of the AIMIA Mobile Content Industry Development Group and Oliver is playing a key role in the design and project management of the Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index which looks at mobile content usage in the local market.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/oliver-weidlich/feed/ 0 Mathew Patterson — Delivering user experience to the inbox: designing for emailhttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/mathew-patterson/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/mathew-patterson/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:00:51 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/mathew-patterson/ 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.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

So 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.

About Mathew Patterson

Matthew Patterson PortraitMathew is the community manager at Freshview, the team behind the popular email newsletter web apps, Campaign Monitor and MailBuild. In past lives he was a web designer for the Australian Stock Exchange and Priceline Europe among others. He runs Designers Inhouse, the list for web designers in non-design firms, and recently spoke at the Future of Web Design in New York.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/mathew-patterson/feed/ 1 Lisa Herrod — User testing for the rest of ushttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/lisa-herrod2/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/lisa-herrod2/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:57:44 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/lisa-herrod2/ A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Lisa Herrod PortraitEveryone knows they should be doing it, but like software testing, it's one of those things we often don't get round to. In this presentation, Lisa Herrod looks at some sure fire user testing techniques that produce proven results, don't cost the earth, and are easy to implement. After this session you won't have any more excuses for not doing solid user testing of any site or application you develop ever again.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

Everyone knows they should be doing it, but like software testing, it’s one of those things we often don’t get round to. In this presentation, Lisa Herrod looks at some sure fire user testing techniques that produce proven results, don’t cost the earth, and are easy to implement. After this session you won’t have any more excuses for not doing solid user testing of any site or application you develop ever again.

About Lisa Herrod

Lisa Herrod PortraitLisa Herrod is the Principal Usability Consultant at Scenario Seven. The primary focus of her work is web usability, which she believes incorporates much more than just user testing. Drawing on a variety of disciplines, Lisa takes an holistic approach to web usability incorporating user research, accessibility, interaction design and web standards development.

Having started in the web during the last century, Lisa is occasionally caught making jokes about font tags, layout tables and shims. Nobody ever laughs.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/lisa-herrod2/feed/ 0 Jackie Moyes — Converting research findings into business speakhttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/jackie-moyes/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/jackie-moyes/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:20:50 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/jackie-moyes/ A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Jackie Moyes PortraitGetting your company to adopt a user-centred design approach can be an uphill struggle. The first stage typically is to get them to agree to incorporate usability testing in to the development process, at a stage early enough to actually implement any design recommendations. The second stage is to convince them to do more ethnographic style research to understand the larger context of the task that the site is trying to support. The biggest challenge comes last – how to help the business owners make the mental leap between the in-depth findings from the research and the implications and opportunities it presents to your core business strategy and product roadmap.

This is the challenge that the User Experience team at News Digital Media have been addressing. In this presentation, Jackie will discuss this issue in more depth and present examples of ‘design tools’ the team have been experimenting with to try and bridge this gap and help the business develop more user-centric strategies.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

Getting your company to adopt a user-centred design approach can be an uphill struggle. The first stage typically is to get them to agree to incorporate usability testing in to the development process, at a stage early enough to actually implement any design recommendations. The second stage is to convince them to do more ethnographic style research to understand the larger context of the task that the site is trying to support. The biggest challenge comes last – how to help the business owners make the mental leap between the in-depth findings from the research and the implications and opportunities it presents to your core business strategy and product roadmap.

This is the challenge that the User Experience team at News Digital Media have been addressing. In this presentation, Jackie will discuss this issue in more depth and present examples of ‘design tools’ the team have been experimenting with to try and bridge this gap and help the business develop more user-centric strategies.

About Jackie Moyes

Jackie Moyes PortraitJackie graduated with a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction in 1995 and since then has been conducting user research and interaction design for clients in the UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. In 2005 she established and still currently heads up the User Experience Team at News Digital Media – in two years moving the company culture from one that either outsourced or ignored experience design to one that now employs one of the largest and most highly qualified, in-house user experience teams within Australia.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/jackie-moyes/feed/ 0 Donna Spencer — Getting content righthttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/donna-spencer/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/donna-spencer/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:06:26 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/donna-maurer1/ A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Donna Maurer PortraitWe all know that great content is a core part of the website user experience. So why is it so hard to find content that isn't dull, lifeless and uninteresting - blah, blah, blah?

Web content can be vibrant, interesting and fun. It can draw you in, fill your head and make you learn without having to think. And it's not really hard to write. Three simple tricks can turn poor content into a great experience - remember that readers care more about themselves than you; write in real words with authentic voice; play show and tell.

This presentation will discuss these principles, with plenty of funny and not-so-funny examples. You'll go away with practical steps to make your writing kick-ass. And you won't even have to think.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

We all know that great content is a core part of the website user experience. So why is it so hard to find content that isn’t dull, lifeless and uninteresting — blah, blah, blah?

Web content can be vibrant, interesting and fun. It can draw you in, fill your head and make you learn without having to think. And it’s not really hard to write. Three simple tricks can turn poor content into a great experience — remember that readers care more about themselves than you; write in real words with authentic voice; play show and tell.

This presentation will discuss these principles, with plenty of funny and not-so-funny examples. You’ll go away with practical steps to make your writing kick-ass. And you won’t even have to think.

About Donna Spencer

Donna Maurer PortraitDonna Spencer is a freelance information architect, mentor, writer and trainer. She has 8 years experience working in-house and as a consultant doing strategic and tactical design. She has designed large intranets & websites, ecommerce & search systems, business applications, design patterns and a CMS.

Donna is an experienced speaker who has taught workshops and presented sessions at local and international conferences, on information architecture, interaction design and whatever else crosses her mind.

She spends her (little) remaining time on the board of IAI and writing a book on card sorting. Sometimes she even gets time to weave and sew.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/donna-spencer/feed/ 0 Andy Budd — Designing the experience curvehttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/andy-budd/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/andy-budd/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:02:35 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/andy-budd/ 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.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

These 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.

About Andy Budd

Andy Budd PortraitAndy Budd is an interaction designer and web standards developer from Brighton, England. As the user experience lead at Clearleft, Andy spends his time helping clients improve their customers online experience.

Andy is a regular speaker at international design events such as SXSW, An Event Apart and Web Design World. He also runs the popular dConstruct conference, which takes place in Brighton every year. Andy has helped judge several international design awards and currently sits on the advisory board for .Net magazine. Andy wrote the best selling book, CSS Mastery and blogs at andybudd.com.

Never happier than when he’s diving some remote tropical atoll, Andy is a qualified PADI dive instructor and retired shark wrangler.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/andy-budd/feed/ 5 Andrew Kesper — ABC’s election site: making the most of dry datahttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/andrew-kesper/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/andrew-kesper/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:55:12 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/andrew-kesper/ 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.

]]> 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.

We’re sorry, but slides and podcast for this presentation are unfortunately not available.

Session description

While 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.

About Andrew Kesper

Andrew Kesper PortraitAndrew Kesper has been working at the ABC for the past two years. Andrew’s first project was the redevelopment of ABC News Online that launched in mid-2007. This was followed back-to-back by the development of the ABC’s Federal Election site, Australia Votes 2007, which launched in September 2007.

Andrew has also developed sites for several ABC current affairs programs including The 7.30 Report, Lateline and Insiders. Pre-ABC, Andrew worked for a web design firm in London, developing web sites for clients such as the British Film Institute and local government organisations. He graduated with a Bachelor of Information Technology from the University of Queensland in 2003.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/andrew-kesper/feed/ 2 Steve Baty — Analysing user research datahttp://www.webdirections.org/resources/steve-baty/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/steve-baty/#comments Thu, 06 Mar 2008 04:21:18 +0000 Maxine http://westciv.com/webdirections08/resources/steve-baty/ A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Australia, May 16 2008.

Steve Baty PortraitIn our efforts to better understand the end users of the sites & applications we design, we generate a great deal of data. That data is useless to us until it has been analyzing and interpreted. This presentation looks at some of the methods & techniques we can use to make sense of user research data in a meaningful & rigorous way. The presentation will look at some of the common types of quantitative data collected during user research, and the statistical analysis methods we can employ to make the most of our data-gathering efforts. The session covers practical examples such as task completion rates, time-to-completion, page view comparison, as well as some basic concepts in statistics.

]]> A presentation given at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Australia, May 16 2008.

Presentation slides

Session description

In our efforts to better understand the end users of the sites & applications we design, we generate a great deal of data. That data is useless to us until it has been analyzing and interpreted. This presentation looks at some of the methods & techniques we can use to make sense of user research data in a meaningful & rigorous way.

The presentation will look at some of the common types of quantitative data collected during user research, and the statistical analysis methods we can employ to make the most of our data-gathering efforts. The session covers practical examples such as task completion rates, time-to-completion, page view comparison, as well as some basic concepts in statistics.

About Steve Baty

Steve Baty PortraitFounder & Principal Consultant at Meld, Steve has over 13 years’ experience in the design and delivery of e-business services. Steve is a well-known practitioner in the area of experience strategy and architecture, writing articles for industry publications and presenting at local conferences. During his career Steve has completed over 300 Web projects & thousands of smaller tasks.

Steve has, over the past four years, led user experience teams to develop online strategies and experience architectures for clients across a broad spread of industries including: tourism, travel, transport, consumer electronics, manufacturing, government, and the arts. These include projects for the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage & the Arts; an expert review for Maersk Line — the world’s largest container shipping company; oneworld Alliance — the world’s leading airline alliance; YHA Australia; and Fuji Xerox Australia.

Steve holds post-graduate degrees in electronic commerce (M.Ec) and business administration (MBA) from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management; and a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics (Physical Mathematics & Applied Statistics) from the University of Technology, Sydney.

]]> http://www.webdirections.org/resources/steve-baty/feed/ 1 Jeremy Yuille — Web visualisation: do you see what I see?http://www.webdirections.org/resources/jeremy-yuille-web-visualisation-do-you-see-what-i-see/ http://www.webdirections.org/resources/jeremy-yuille-web-visualisation-do-you-see-what-i-see/#comments Fri, 15 Feb 2008 05:04:49 +0000 jessie http://www.webdirections.org/?p=476 A presentation given at at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Jeremy Yuille PortraitIn this session Jeremy Yuille from ACID looks at information visualisation from a user experience perspective, overviewing new and old examples and how they can help (or hinder) the experience of using the web. You’ll see what kinds of amazing things you can do within the browser platform these days. More importantly you’ll learn why (and when) you’d want to use visualisation at all.

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

Presentation slides

Session description

The web is packed with information and knowledge, but too often our efforts to understand what’s important or relevant are stymied by antiquated methods of presentation. At the same time, more and more libraries, widgets and services are being released to help us present information visually. Problem solved? Not really.

In this session Jeremy Yuille from ACID looks at information visualisation from a user experience perspective, overviewing new and old examples and how they can help (or hinder) the experience of using the web. You’ll see what kinds of amazing things you can do within the browser platform these days. More importantly you’ll learn why (and when) you’d want to use visualisation at all.

About Jeremy Yuille

Jeremy Yuille PortraitJeremy Yuille is a senior lecturer in Communication Design, digital media artist and interaction designer specializing in interactive audio visual systems. He has a background in Architecture, web design, music, and a masters exploring interactive sound designfrom RMIT’s Spatial Information Architecture Laboratory.

Jeremy manages the Multiuser Environments program at ACID, the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design, researching Interaction Design (IxD) for remote presence and socially driven knowledge environments. On faculty at RMIT Communication Design, he coordinates IxD undergrad initiatives, supervises graduate students in research projects involving IxD and other related design fields. He is also a director and secretary of the Interaction Design Association.

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