As ever, I had a lot of fun moderating the hot topics panel at this year’s Web Directions @media in London. Thanks to all of you who left questions on my blog post . I had a great line-up of panelists: Relly , Brian , Bruce and Doug . We discussed publishing, mobile, browsers, clients and much much more. … Read the rest here
HOW Interactive Design Conference, November 2-4 : HOW Magazine , synonymous with excellent graphic design and the exposition thereof, understands the challenges facing the modern print designer. Many have begun embracing interactive design, whether by choice or necessity. In a major way this Fall, HOW will broaden its coverage of all things design and assist traditional graphic designers in making a successful transition to (or simply adoption of) web design. The HOW Interactive Design Conference is a three-day event in San Francisco. I’m honored to not only be on the speaker roster but on the advisory board for the event, as well. Please consider joining us, or pass this along to a design friend who’s ready to make the leap. … Read the rest here
As I explained in my previous post, user experience design is a multidisciplinary activity which includes psychology, user research, information architecture, interaction design, graphic design and a host of other disciplines. Due to the complexity of the field a user experience team will typically be made up of individuals with a range of different specialisms. On larger teams you’ll find people who focus on one specific area, such as user research or information architecture. You may even find people who specialise in specific activities such as usability testing or wireframing. This level of specialism isn’t possible in smaller teams, so practitioners tend to group related activities together. Conceptually I believe you can break design into tangible and abstract activities. … Read the rest here
Tickets for dConstruct 2011 went on sale last Tuesday. Tickets for dConstruct 2011 also sold out last Tuesday. That’s kinda crazy: a conference for almost 800 people selling out in one day! I think it’s partly down to the great reputation that dConstruct has established for itself over the year’s as the thinking geek’s gathering. But I think it must mostly be down to the fantastic line-up of speakers : Don Norman , Frank Chimero , Kevin Slavin …it’s going to be quite a day! If you didn’t manage to get a ticket, don’t despair. Technically, there are still some tickets available… Read the rest here
As somebody who has publically stated that they “don’t care about user experience” and is fed up of “defining the dammed thing” I find myself being drawn into discussions about the term far more often than I’d like. Some designers think that user experience is just a made up name and that we’re all user experience designers really. Others think that User Experience is a term used by consultants to trick clients out of money and would prefer it we all just stuck to the title of web designer. Some feel that user experience is simply common sense design while others see it as a land grab to own the fun bit of the design process. This is all complete nonsense of course, which is why I keep getting drawn into an argument I don’t really want to have and one that isn’t especially beneficial to the industry. It’s obviously nonsense to argue that the field of UX design doesn’t exist as there are hundreds of books and conferences devoted to the practice, tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people with UX in their job title and an unfathomable number of blog posts about the subject… Read the rest here
June was a busy month. I went to Newcastle for the DIBI conference , which was quite excellent. I was very pleased with the talk I gave—called “ One Web ”. I think the talks were recorded on video so I hope they’ll be showing up on a video-sharing site before too long. I spoke on the Using Blue podcast about all sorts of design- and development-related topics. … Read the rest here
Remember that mobile browser panel I moderated at the Mobilism conference in Amsterdam earlier this year? Well, I’ve had the whole thing transcribed. You can now: read the transcription , watch the video or listen to the audio . Enjoy! Tagged with mobilism panel conference mobile browsers transcription … Read the rest here
Remember when I said that the Ampersand conference was going to be great ? Yeah, well, I wasn’t wrong. If anything, I underestimated how great it would be. Make a venn diagram of web nerds and type nerds; Ampersand was all about the intersection of those two circles. There was something special about having so many domain-specific nerds in one place at one time. … Read the rest here
Usually when I go to a conference it involves crossing a body of water to arrive on foreign shores, often in Europe or America. But the last two events I attended were much closer to home. Two weeks ago there was Web Directions @media in London. Thank you to everyone who provided questions for the Hot Topics Panel . It went swimmingly, thanks to the eloquence and knowledge of the panelists: Brian , Relly , Bruce and Douglas Fucking Crockford . There was a surprising lack of contentiousness on the panel but I made up for it by arguing with the audience instead. … Read the rest here
I’m heading up to London for the next few days to soak up all the knowledge being distributed at this year’s Web Directions @media . I wish it weren’t a double-track conference—no-one should have to choose between Lea Verou and Douglas Crockford —but I’ll be doing my best to maximise my knowledge acquisition while fending off feelings of FOMO . As well as attending, I’m also going to be facilitating. So I’m not just going there as an fomo-ing attendee; I’m also going to be a mofo-ing facilitator. Yes, it’s that grand ol’ @media institution: The Hot Topics Panel (sszzz!): A popular @media tradition, hosted by Jeremy Keith, the final session for day one will feature a selection of speakers discussing questions posed by conference attendees. A lively conversation and some passionate debate will occur, so bring along your questions and enjoy the robust discussion… Read the rest here
I spent the last few days in the beautiful surroundings of Amsterdam for Mobilism . ‘Twas an excellent affair: a well-organised, focused single-track conference. It may have helped that Amsterdam itself was looking bloody gorgeous for the duration. All the talks were great but I was particularly happy to finally hear Bryan and Stephanie Rieger having so often favourited their presentations on Slideshare . … Read the rest here
I’m off to Amsterdam later this week for Mobilism , a design and development conference with a focus mobile devices . I won’t be giving a talk—there are far more qualified and talented people on the roster—but I will be moderating a panel. I love moderating panels . My panelists will be exemplars of that strange breed of supernerd, the browser maker. Specifically, the mobile browser maker. … Read the rest here
I’m back from An Event Apart in Boston . It was quite an experience …and not just because I went to Fenway Park for my first baseball game. It was quite an experience because of the people that were there. The Brads were there. The Spiderwomen were there… Read the rest here
The final speaker of the first day of An Event Apart in Boston is Jared Spool . Now, when Jared gives a talk …well, you really have to be there. So I don’t know how well liveblogging is going to work but here goes anyway. The talk is called The Secret Lives of Links . … Read the rest here
The next talk here at An Event Apart in Boston is one I’ve really, really, really been looking forward to: it’s a presentation by my hero Ethan Marcotte . I’ll try to liveblog it here… The talk is called The Responsive Web Designer’s Workflow but Ethan begins by talking about his grandmother. She was born in 1910 and she’s still in great shape. This past Christmas she gave Ethan a gift of three battered and worn books that were her father’s diaries from the 1880s. They’re beautiful… Read the rest here
Next up at An Event Apart in Boston is Luke Wroblewski . Let’s see if I can liveblog just some his awesomeness. Luke begins with some audience interactivity. We’ve all got to stand up. … Read the rest here
The next speaker at An Event Apart in Boston is Veerle Pieters . I’m going to try liveblogging some of what she’s got to say. Veerle’s talk is called The Experimental Zone and it’s all about experimentation in web design. People often ask her how she comes up with, say, certain colour combinations but she doesn’t really have a straightforward answer—a lot of it is down to experimentation. So it’s good to learn how to experiment better… Read the rest here
The second speaker at this mornings An Event Apart in Boston is Whitney Hess . Here goes with the liveblogging… Whitney’s talk is about design principles. As a consultant, she spends a lot of time talking about UX and inevitably, the talk turns to deliverables and process but really we should be establishing a philosophy about how to treat people, in the same way that visual design is about establishing a philosophy about how make an impact. Visual design has principles to achieve that: contrast, emphasis, balance, proportion, rhythm, movement, texture, harmony and unity. Why have these principles? It’s about establishing a basis for your design decisions, leading to consistency. … Read the rest here
I’m at An Event Apart in Boston where Jeffrey Zeldman is about to kick things off. I figured I’d try my hand at a little bit of good ol’ fashioned liveblogging… Jeffrey’s talk is called What Every Web Designer Should Know—A Better You At What You Do . He asks “what does it mean to be a designer when everyone is calling themselves a designer?” 15 years ago, Jeffrey thought everyone would learn HTML and be a web designer. That didn’t happen but what did happen is social media, which is democratising online publishing. His 6-year old daughter uses an iPad like a natural, figuring out the interfaces of drawing tools. … Read the rest here
My trip to Shanghai went swimmingly. It kicked off with W3C Tech , which was a thoroughly lovely event. I gave my talk— The Design Of HTML5 —with the help of an excellent interpreter performing consecutive interpretation . It was my first time experiencing that—I had previously experienced simultaneous interpretation in Spain and Japan—and it was quite a good exercise in helping me speak in complete, well-formed sentences (the translation usually occurred at the end of a sentence). … Read the rest here