Year round learning for product, design and engineering professionals

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.

Indi Young – Innovation With Mental Models

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

Indi Young PortraitIn his recent book, The Myths of Innovation, Scott Berkun argues that innovation does not happen in a flash of inspiration. Instead, it takes years of research to deeply understand a problem space. A designer who methodically examines, adopts, or discards various hypothesis about the topic is the one who comes up with the best solutions.

In this talk, Indi Young will present a methodical (but rapid!) approach to invention. Using a mental model diagram depicting the behavior of a customer segment, she will show how to recognize when your current offerings could do better at matching needs and how to synthesize new ideas.

With the ideas in this presentation, you will be able to think up new product ideas and improve upon old product features in a guided, strategic manner.

Andre Charland & Walter Smith – Developing With Adobe AIR and Microsoft Silverlight

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

Crash Course in Adobe AIR

Andre Charlan Portrait There comes a time when web developers need to reach beyond the browser to allow users to go offline, use local files or get rid of the hideous browser chrome. The Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is an up an coming runtime technology that allows desktop applications to be developed with HTML, JavaScript, Flash or Flex. The AIR runtime and SDK are completely free so anyone can get started immediately.

Andre Charland will will give an overview or AIR, the APIs you get access to and how to build a simple Flex and HTML application with it. From there we will explore some of the tools available to make AIR development easier and faster. We’ll finish up with a few important usability guidelines and real world case studies of AIR projects.

A real world overview of Silverlight

Walter Smith PortraitSeattle-based Jackson Fish Market helped deliver the Silverlight based search engine Tafiti, one of the earliest commercial Silverlight applications.

In this presentation, Jackson Fish Market co-founder Walter Smith will give us a detailed overview of Microsoft’s RIA technology Silverlight. We’ll learn from Walter’s first hand experience the strengths and weaknesses of the platform, and see real world examples of what Silverlight can be used to achieve.

If you are looking to evaluate RIA frameworks, or just get a sense of the emerging RIA landscape, this session will prove invaluable.

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.

Boris Mann – The 3 stages of dynamic systems

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

Boris Mann Portrait

Content management systems have all but replaced the former art of publishing static HTML pages. From letting clients edit and add content, to content like calendars and forums that defy the “page” convention, dynamic interactive websites keep visitors coming back. At some point your website goes beyond just a site filled with HTML pages and actually becomes a full-fledged web application.

From these features, we extract three stages of content management — simple content management, beyond the blog, and building your own web application.

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