May 8, 2014 - Comments Off on An Event Apart • Boston • 2014

An Event Apart • Boston • 2014

Here are some thoughts on talks at the recent An Event Apart, in Boston.

Understanding Web Design - Jeffrey Zeldman

  • Web Design is held to the expectations of other media. Often ignoring the intrinsic strengths of web
  • Like typography, web design's primary focus is communicating content
  • Technology is often a hangup for people, when the user and their needs should be the primary focus of designers. "Design for people, not browsers!"
  • Design is about detail
  • A great website will subtly guide the user to their desired destination

Designing Using Data - Sarah Parmenter

  • Design is no longer a differentiator. Making things look nice is common. The differentiator today is designing with purpose — answer the question 'why?'
  • When the right metrics are studied, data offers objective and actionable feedback
  • Data should allow a team to unite behind an objective goal — such as: Increase clicks etc.
  • Customer facing advertising is most effective when honest and transparent
  • Iterative design allows you to be flexible and try new things

Responsive Design is Still Hard/Easy! Be Afraid/Don't Worry! - Dan Mall

  • Frameworks rather than processes, mean you define a set of constraints within which a project exists, and within this you find out what you can do that's unexpected
  • Be active within your framework and volunteer/get involved with stages of production outside of your discipline
  • Each member of a team will have divergent perspectives at the start of each project cycle, they should become convergent by the end. These are focal points
  • Rinse and repeat the cycle, getting smaller each time to increase team involvement
  • Extensive preparation should make the assembly part of the process the shortest

Screen Time - Luke Wroblewski

  • Mobile is the dominant web browser worldwide
  • Responsive design includes additional considerations than just screen size (multiple input types, variable ambient lighting etc)
  • Screen size is a poor proxy for many of these considerations (screen size does not reveal input type)
  • A user's posture or distance from device will also affect it's design, independent of screen size or number of pixels
  • Design for human proportions, not pixels.

Content/Communication - Kristina Halvorson

5 key points for working with a client:

  • Principles: these are internal motivators based on our better intentions. They can unify a team
  • Strategy: pinpoint your goals and provide helpful constraints with which to execute
  • Process: the process is not God, it should change and grow as needs change. Regular post mortems are encouraged
  • Roles: RACI key for each agent on the client end. Responsible. Accountable. Consulted. Informed
  • Perceptions: Translate to facilitate communication between different disciplines

UX Strategy Means Business - Jared Spool

  • Design is the rendering of intent. Both user and provider
  • Content delivery is as important as the content itself and vice versa. Great UX cannot exist without great content
  • Advertising is unhelpful for all parties involved
  • Strategic priorities in business can inform design considerations (increase revenue, reduce cost etc)
  • There are a variety of models for monetizing the web

The Long Web - Jeremy Keith

  • HTML allows for fantastic accessibility, deprecation and backward compatibility
  • New HTML specifications can be adopted early as they will be skipped over when unsupported
  • Progressive enhancement means you start with the lowest common denominator and then enhance as much as you like
  • Progressive enhancement protects the experience from unaccountable errors such as unrelated javascript errors
  • Text formats will last longer than binaries. Binaries are forever changing and becoming outdated

Responsive Design Performance Budget - Paul Irish

  • Mobile users expect their content to load faster than the desktop
  • Web growing is latency limited. The nature of requesting many small files means that a user's experience is improved by reducing the number requests
  • UX can be greatly enhanced by prioritizing critical data and rendering early on
  • Separate the critical CSS from non-critical. Load non-critical at the end of the page. Aim for main content to load in 1 sec (< 14kb)
  • The number of higher latency users is increasing

The Chroma Zone: Engineering Color on the Web - Lea Verou

  • Colors in web browsers have many nuances and limitations
  • Hex and RGB are poor representations for human reading
  • HSL and HSLa are better although they are not perceptually uniform (we perceive 50% yellow as much lighter than 50% blue)
  • New color properties in CSS level 4 will make color coding more human readable (HWB = Hue Whiteness Blackness)
  • There is room for much more improvement in web colors

Mind the Gap: Designing in the Space Between Devices - Josh Clark

  • Designing for the space between screens. Not content but tasks. Verbs not nouns
  • The technology is available today, we just haven't imagined the possibilities yet
  • Interfacing with machine is likely not going to change much (touch and mouse are great interfaces)
  • Physical things are beginning to have digital representations (avatars)
  • How about affecting how we interface with physical world and communicating that to our devices.
  • Software makes hardware scale, The endless possibilities

Web+: Can the Web Win the War Against Native Without Losing its Soul? - Bruce Lawson

  • Web technology has inherent strengths, despite the popularity of native apps
  • Web tech should not try to replicate — though it can learn from native. Build to the strengths of web
  • Progressive enhancement and interoperability make web accessible and global. Always accessible by everyone
  • Widgets failed as they were a poor imitation of native apps. They existed as a snapshot without the ability to update
  • W3C is built for accessibility and interoperability. This means that it is designed for low level functions. Can be complicated but powerful

How to Champion Ideas Back at Work - Scott Berkun

  • Great things are achieved in difficult circumstances
  • Success and acclaim only arrive once a project is complete
  • Charm and convincing people of your ideas is important!
  • A network increases your potential. Reach out and get advice to harness that potential
  • To enact change, start small with something you can excel at and expand from there
Comments are closed.