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Adactio Go to the source

I’ve published the transcript of a talk I gave at An Event Apart in 2010 . It’s mostly about interaction design, with a couple of diversions into progressive enhancement and personality in products. It’s called Paranormal Interactivity . I had a lot of fun with this talk. It’s interspersed with videos from The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy , Alan Partridge , and Super Mario , with special guest appearances from the existentialist chalkboard and Poshy’s upper back torso . If you don’t feel like reading it , you can always watch the video or listen to the audio . … Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

I was really disappointed to see a recent post from somebody I admire and respect defend the validity of the new UX Developer job title that has been cropping up of late. As well as being misleading, the title, UX Developer has implications that are damaging to the field of User Experience and will hasten the current devaluation of the term. Despite what many newcomers to the industry may think, User Experience Design is a well-defined specialism as distinct from visual or interface design. The practice of user experience design is a specific field of study with its own books, conferences, membership organisations and college courses. User experience designers therefore have a distinct set of skills and practices that form the core of their profession. That being said, user experience designers don’t own these practices any more than developers own the ability to code up wireframes. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

At last November’s Build conference I gave a talk on digital preservation called All Our Yesterdays : Our communication methods have improved over time, from stone tablets, papyrus, and vellum through to the printing press and the World Wide Web. But while the web has democratised publishing, allowing anyone to share ideas with a global audience, it doesn’t appear to be the best medium for preserving our cultural resources: websites and documents disappear down the digital memory hole every day. This presentation will look at the scale of the problem and propose methods for tackling our collective data loss. The video is now on vimeo . The audio has been huffduffed … Read the rest here

Eric Meyer Go to the source

Though I certainly do not support SOPA or the PROTECT IP Act (the complete, rather contrived acronym of PIPA), I will not be blacking out meyerweb. This is largely because the vast majority of my readers already know about these bills, and very likely oppose them; as for anyone who visits but does not know about these bills, I feel I’ll do better to speak out than to black out. (Which is not a criticism of those who do black out. We all fight in our own ways.) Instead, I will reproduce here the letter I attempted to send via contact form to my state Senator this morning, and which I will print out and send by regular postal service later today. Senator Brown: I grew up in Lexington, Ohio. I moved to Cleveland in pursuit of a career, and found success. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Aral recently released the videos from last September’s Update conference . You can watch the video of my talk if you like or, if video isn’t your bag, I’ve published a transcription of the talk . It’s called One Web, Many Devices and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. It’s a short talk—just under 17 minutes—but I think I made my point well, without any um-ing and ah-ing. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

A little while back, Andy wrote : Even if you happen to be a genius in the waiting, there are no svengalis to pluck you from obscurity and put you on the pedestal you know you deserve. … So if you want to contribute to articles, write books and speak at conferences, you’re the only person in the way. You can contribute to A List Apart . You can write for Smashing Magazine . You can also put a resource written in HTML at your own URL that is retrievable via HTTP …write a blog post, in other words. If you prefer dead trees, you no longer need a publishing house. … Read the rest here

Snook Go to the source

It is once again that time of year where I reflect on the year that has passed and contemplate the year the come. Professionally On a professional level, this has been a fantastic year but still not without its ups and downs. This year capped my second and final year with Yahoo!. Yahoo! has been a great experience for me and exposed me to an environment that I hadn’t worked in before. I was able to work with large teams on a large scale across multiple products. To know that I had a big part to play in the success of those projects is very rewarding. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I flew out to San Francisco last week for An Event Apart . This was the final event (apart) of the year so it was something of a bittersweet affair. This year the line-up for AEA was—with some minor modifications—consistent from city to city: Seattle Boston Atlanta Minneapolis Washington DC San Francisco It was like a travelling roadshow, a carnival of web geekery. Next year’s AEA line-up will be very different from city to city, showcasing lots of new speakers, so last week’s San Francisco gig felt like the last concert of a tour before the band breaks up. Well, we went out with a bang. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I spent last week in Belfast for the Build conference , so I did. The fun kicked off with a workshop on responsive enhancement which was a lot of fun. Toby has written a report of the day outlining all of the elements that came together for a successful workshop. The day of the conference itself was filled with inspiring, uplifting talks full of positive energy …except for mine. My talk— All Our Yesterdays —had an underlying sense of anger, especially when I spoke about the destruction of Geocities. If you heard the talk and you’d like to explore some of the resources I mentioned, here’s a grab-bag of links: Stock and Flow by Robin Sloan. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I’m on a bit of a sojourn in the United States right now, and I’m having a rather lovely time. It all started with Brooklyn Beta which was a jolly gathering in New York. It reminded me a bit of the Reboot events of old: grassroots gatherings that may be rough around the edges but are put together with much love and affection. There were plenty of inspiring talks and repeated entreaties to go out there and change the world. As with Reboot, I think Brooklyn Beta is an excellent part of a balanced conference diet: other conferences will give you more detail on how exactly you can go out there and change the world. In fact, my trip is perfectly balanced by two complementary events at either end… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I spoke at the DIBI conference back in June . It was a really good event, despite its annoying two-track format. My talk was entitled One Web : The range of devices accessing the web is increasing. We are faced with a choice in how we deal with this diversity. We can either fracture the web by designing a multitude of device-specific silos, or we can embrace the flexibility of the web and create experiences that can adapt to any device or browser… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I never made it to the Build conference in Belfast last year or the year before. I think it clashed with previous commitments every time. This was going to be the third year in a row that I was going to miss Build. I had already slapped my money down for the excellent Full Frontal conference which is on the very same day as Build but takes place right here in Brighton in the excellent Duke Of York’s cinema . But fate had other plans for me. Ethan was going to be speaking at Build but he’s had to pull out for personal reasons …so Andy asked me if I’d like to speak. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

September was quite a month. There were plenty of events that I attended right here in Brighton: dConstruct , Maker Faire , Update and Improving Reality . In the middle of all that, I went to Tennessee for Breaking Development and Mobilewood . I finished the month with a trip to Italy for the inaugural From The Front conference. It was a great little grassroots affair. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

Much as I enjoyed myself in Tennessee , it was shame to miss some of the Brighton Digital Festival events that were going on at the same time. I missed Barcamp and Flash On The Beach . But since getting back I’ve been making up for lost time, soaking up the geek comedy at The Caroline of Brunswick last Wednesday with Robin Ince and Helen Keen . I also went along to the Improving Reality conference on Friday, which turned out to be an excellent event. The title was deliberately contentious, inviting a Slavin -shaped spectre to loom over the proceedings after he closed dConstruct with his excellent talk, Reality is Plenty wherein he placed his boot on the head of Augmented Reality, carefully pointed his rhetorical gun at its temple and repeatedly pulled the trigger. But AR was just one of the items on the menu at Improving Reality… Read the rest here

Andy Budd Go to the source

Over the last few years I’ve noticed a strange and disturbing trend amongst web practitioners. There was a time—not so long ago—when passionate individuals would blog about their work for no other reason than to share their discoveries. The more prolific of these individuals built up an online reputation and became seen as experts. Some of the more articulate ones were asked to write books or present their thoughts at conferences, and received a modicum of success. After years of sharing their knowledge freely, some were able to capitalise on their notoriety by securing jobs at interesting companies or setting up small agencies. A few even managed to make a living off publishing books and speaking at conferences, although how they managed this is anybodies guess… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

The Brighton Digital Festival kicked off with a one-two punch of geek conferences: dConstruct and Update . Update was a labour of love from Aral who worked hard to put together an eclectic, slick event. It was mostly aimed at iOS developers but there was a lot of other stuff in there too, including a range of musical performances. Some speakers, like Matt Gemmell and Sarah , talked specifically about iOS design and development while others, like Cennydd , spoke of broader issues. In my opinion the most important talk of the day was delivered by Anna who laid bare the state of Britain’s education system—and by extension, Britain’s future… Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

dConstruct is over for another year. It was, once again, a day packed full of far-reaching ideas and thought-provoking presentations. Even if you didn’t necessarily agree with everything a speaker had to say, you certainly got plenty of food for thought. I was playing compere for the day, which was an absolute pleasure. I thoroughly enjoyed every talk, though some of them polarised the audience. It was interesting to see some people rate a talk as their favourite—Don Norman’s or Kelly’s, for example—only to have the very same talks dismissed by other people… Read the rest here

Cameron Moll Go to the source

HOW Interview with Yours Truly : Bryn Mooth interviews me leading up to this November’s HOW Interactive Design Conference in San Francisco. Speaking of, the early bird registration ends this Thursday, September 1. Save an additional $50 on top of that with discount code CAMERON. Hope to see you in San Fran. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I’m living inside Keynote these days. I’ve got a string of speaking engagements coming up and I’m freaking out about all of them. The big one is the full-day dConstruct workshop I’ll be leading called Responsive Enhancement . I’ve been working on it solidly for the last month and I hope that it’s all going to come together this week. I’m quite excited about it. … Read the rest here

Adactio Go to the source

I was in Minnesota last week for An Event Apart Minneapolis . A great time was had by all. Not only were the locals living up to their reputation with Amy and Kasia demonstrating that Kristina isn’t an outlier in the super-nice, super-smart Minnesotan data sample, but the conference itself was top-notch too. It even featured some impromptu on-stage acrobatics by Stan . A recurring theme of the conference—right from Zeldman ’s opening talk—was Content First . In Luke ’s talk it was more than a rallying cry; it was a design pattern he recommends for mobile: content first, navigation second. … Read the rest here