Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Edge of the Web conference in Perth on UX Architecture for the Small Guy.   I will do a brief write up on the conference shortly, so standby on that one, but for now on with the talk.

Why this Topic

Too often I have been to various conferences and I have heard from some very experienced UX people discussing numerous case studies of projects.   All of them have one thing in common – large budgets or large teams.   Frankly these are not the projects that happen from day to day in Perth.  But they appear to be the mainstay of the UX designer, one gets the impression they are the general bread and butter in some parts of the world.

It is from this frustration and the lack of direct application of IA or UX in general for smaller business projects that made me rethink my design approach a number of years ago.   Why couldn’t we apply UX principles to SME projects or was it just for the larger projects?

I asked around the UX community, no one seemed to be willing to discuss applying UX to smaller projects.    I did have one amusing conversation in which the other party considered a small project being our gross income for the year.

Hence talk was born from this lack of a reality check and the need for information that could be applied on day to day basis in the real world.

So what was Covered

This presentation is aimed at people not familiar with UX Design and UX practitioners who have not considered using User Experience Design tools and techniques on smaller projects.  In a way this talk was also a lead-in for the other UX based talks that where on throughout the conference.

The talk itself dealt with the way we are still using a simple waterfall based process for SME projects, and why we are doing it – suggesting that maybe an Agile UX approach would be a better way to work.

Based on my years of experience of designing user experiences for small business I presented a dramatically shortened list of tools and techniques, for a UXD process focused on smaller projects, down from the 50 odd usually available.    Some of the tools I have discounted you maybe surprised as to why I have cut them from the process

I also discuss what happens when we go with our “gut instinct” and ignore any user research, the outcome is very interesting indeed.  Finally I look at selling user experience, be it to your boss, a boardroom or just a SME business owner.   Without knowing how to sell UX any change in the way we do things is just going to be a waste of time.   So in a way this aspect is the critical element of this presentation.

I touch on a fair number of different topics in this talk.  To really do each topic justice I’m going to present then here over the next few weeks in a lot more detail than I presented at the Edge of the Web.

Also if you were fortunate enough to be in the audience of my presentation any feedback is most welcome.

Last few weeks have been a little busy here, returning from conferences, dealing with the project backlog, and preparing for my Edge of the Web talk.

Moving on now with my fifth and final interview in the 5×5 series with speakers from the Edge of the Web conference (that’s just over a week away) , this time I’m talking with James McCutcheon. James is presenting on Why the web doesn’t have an edge anymore, he is a self confessed leader in Microsoft development community with a passion for windows mobile and a serial entrepreneur .

MWNB:

At the Edge of the Web you will be talking about the blurring of the traditional boundaries. On the web we have seen the development of all sorts of dynamic user interfaces over the years; some revolutionary and some that are better of being left to history.  Still there has been a distinct increase in usability online. With SaaS we are seeing a rapid response to our user requests and increased functionality delivery. Given this, do you think that the web has had a large influence on people’s lack of tolerance for bad desktop software, resulting in an increased pressure in the desktop software development arena?

James:

I believe both platforms have influenced each other, the rise of ajax & javascript is a response to the need to give desktop user experiences on the web. Of course a html browser is flawed application platform so we are now starting to see products like Silverlight and Flex address this need. The designers have made their mark on the web world and now customers expecting that influence to be on the desktop world, no longer is grey and blue UI acceptable.

MWNB:

With the increased focus of late on gestural interfaces, and now with even a mouse with a tactile interface, do you see these as becoming common place in the future or are they just going to remain on the fringe of the tech community like say the PC graphics tablet.

James:

The home PC is morphing and no doubt with it will be the interaction interface will change, the simplicity is the killer application feature. I am sure we will see better interaction methods than keyboards.

MWNB:

Still on the theme of gestural interfaces, there has been a lot of debate over the lack of any tactile feedback of the current crop of flat panel interface devices. I have heard there is some development going on with the use of soft touch surface devices that can provide tactile feedback. What’s your take on this?

James:

I personally never miss tactile feedback, but a lot of people do so I am sure when it works there will be a lot of rejoicing but I don’t really believe that its there or not influences heavily on peoples buying decisions.

MWNB:

Just when we have got out heads around the desktop, the web and the mobile platforms, we are now facing the prospect of a fourth player in the form of Augmented Reality (AR) entering the interface arena. I’ve always wanted one of those 3D holo-keyboards, so tell me am I going to get my dream, or am I going to be disappointed?

James:

The addition of a digital compass in devices has seen this space grow rapidly, it is a useful interface for a particular style of application … I don’t think you will be disappointed I think the next 12-24 months will see some great advances in this space.

MWNB:

With the market segment for smart phones still only being in the hands of the tech geeks, the under 30′s and the early adopters is there really a point in developing mobile web sites for a mainstream  audience, beyond the usual simple site? Particularly if you consider that the bulk of mobile phones used within Australia don’t support a reasonable user experience for web browsing. In that they are aging WAP handsets, with a screen resolution of around 128px x 128px.

James:

Yes the mobile web world is only for a small vocal part of the community, but its a growing one and yes it will become mainstream. It then of course becomes a business decision of being early and stake your turf or try and catchup at a later date. I think with the right architecture and design this doesn’t add a massive overhead and worth staking that early spot on the mobile web world.

MWNB:

Thanks James, See you at the Edge of the Web

Now that two big conferences are out of the way,  it’s back to the 5 x 5 interview series of presenters speaking at the Edge of the Web conference.  This time in my fourth interview I’m talking with Simon Pascal Klein, Pascal is presenting on Beautiful Web Typography at the Edge of the Web conference in Perth, Western Australia next month – eeep! is it that close, less that 4 weeks away!

He is a self confessed standardista front end and graphic designer, who is equally at home in the world of print.  He is currently based in Canberra.

MWNB:

It’s nothing new to most web designers that typography on the web just sucks.  With the cripplingly limited number of cross platform typefaces available and the different ways font render on the browsers, it’s enough to just make a designer give up in frustration.   Discounting the use of the CSS property “font-face” that only leaves the hacks from Cufón  and  sIFR to allow some alternative relief .   Would you recommend these as solutions to overcome this problem or do you have some secret designer “Foo” hidden up your sleave?

Pascal:

With no intention of being controversial right off the bat, I guess I would have to say I reject the premise of the question. I don’t really accept that web typography sucks; sure, it could certainly be a lot better, and I have good hopes for the future, however a lot can be done with what is available to us currently, even as a web standards-devoted designer. We have a number CSS Fonts options available to us, e.g. font-weight, font-style, font-variant, which combined with line-height, sizing, widths, and the actual font declared offer a lot of variety. Remember Jeff Croft’s words: “[t]ypography is not picking a ‘cool’ font”, or any font for that matter.

MWNB:

Personally I’m not a fan of the pre-rolled CSS grids that are now all the rage in some circles.   Sure I know that they help people layout a web page, and they assist with getting the rhythm on a page right.  But still I suspect that they maybe allowing some designers to be lazy and not think outside the square of the CSS grid.   What’s your view on the use of CSS grids especially from a typography slant?

Pascal:

A grid exists to help provide structure and rhythm, and so directly relates to typography. Figuring out a good grid and then turning it into versatile, good CSS is effort, and in that regard I like the pre-rolled grids — they are great for those of us who want a grid but have time constraints, or just don’t want to worry too much about them. I personally don’t use them — I use my own grids. This comes down to my enjoyment in actual coming up with one and building it (yes, I probably ought to be clinical tested for some sort of mental ailment) and finding that the pre-rolled ones don’t do things the way I want them to (usually they are over-kills for the projects I’ve worked on).

MWNB:

The debate on property font-face and the resultant licensing issues over EOT and OTF  has divided the typography community, especially the Type Foundries.   Recent upgrades of FireFox has allow for the use of @font-face, and with a few CSS tweak’s its has now effectively remove the browser incompatibility.   Personally I wasn’t a fan of the use of @font-face but I have learned to love it.  As a typeface guru how do you see this state of play?

Pascal:

Good generally. I see it as a step forward that we’ll have access to a larger range of fonts, but I am worried about their usage — again this reflects off Jeff’s earlier quote I noted. Many of the typefaces currently available for licensing from foundries are designed for print use, and differ from fonts that are designed and optimised for screen usage. There are a lot of fonts out there, and in relation only a small number of really good ones, and of that an even smaller number that have been optimised for screen use. Screen-optimised fonts need to cater for the lower resolutions of screens (apposed to printed material) and as such may feature thicker strokes and serifs (e.g. see Georgia) and good hinting tables to ensure readability at small sizes.

I am aware that Typotheque are investing in creating screen-optimised versions of some of their typefaces. I believe this may be less of a problem in fonts available for web font licensing from foundries as they will be aware of this issue and more of freely-licensed or unlicensed, lower-quality fonts that are used directly via @font-face.

MWNB:

Are the days of Type Foundries numbered for web industry (I’m excluding Print, here, ok)?  Do we really have to put up with the same old tired, font centralised ordering-distribution system?   What do you think of typographers that are shaking of shackles of the Type Foundries and marketing their works directly with designers via the likes of Typekit and League of Moveable Type?

Pascal:

I wrote on this topic in November last year and echoed my belief in the rise of hosting and licensing service. I think non-foundry controlled services like Typekit and Fontdeck who sub-license web fonts for foundries may distribute some of the centralised control that foundries historically possess. That said, I think the best way to give the foundries a run for their money and up the quality of type design all-round is for more high quality open source, freely-licensed typefaces to become available which may be freely distributed and hosted. Some in the type community see this venture as futile or even misguided but I believe it’s the best way to ‘democratise’ type and typography and educate folks about it — ‘Hey, have you heard about typography? Check out this awesome example website of good typography that features a really well-done font’ is a saying amongst non-designers I can’t imagine if ‘well-done font’ is preceded by a dollar sign and figures ranging in three digits before the decimal point (if not more).

MWNB:

Moving on further with groups like the League of Moveable Type popping up all over the place, what’s your take on the matter?   Are they providing for the service that designers need?  Do you see their product as a general benefit to fellow designers or are they simply ripping the bread and butter from the mouths of the typographers.

Pascal:

Yes, absolutely. Time to get a bit progressive and perhaps transgressive. Continuing on from the topics and organisations raised in the last question, I hold organisations, communities, and single type designers who provide considerable and usable parts of their work at no cost (gratis) and under licensing terms (libre) that make distribution and improvements viable in high regard. I think a simple comparison may be drawn here to the personal computer. The personal computer is largely responsible for many technological and general societal advancements due arguably to its increasing affordability. Likewise, the more affordable, or rather the more accessible typefaces and good typography becomes the better the state of typography will be — the more accessible something is the more attainable are the positives (and negatives) that that something provides. People, either individually, in commercial corporations or as self-structured communities who provide fonts, the means of making them, and educational material on the first two and their use for free will better the state of type, type design, and typography.

There is a common argument by critics who suggest that there is a lack of people to do this task or to do it well. I disagree; where there is a will there is a way — look at the many successful free and open source software (FOSS) projects that have bettered the world in one way or another. I think to suggest that type designers are in some fundamental economic way different to programmers, web developers or other smart people who render their time and knowledge in some form to create or better free software to be false. For proof look at organisations like the League of Movable Type and the type designers behind it or working individually: Linux Libertine by Philipp H. Poll, Gentium by Victor Gaultney, and a lot more. It is true that the number of skilled type designers who release freely-licensed works is limited; there are less FOSS type designers than FOSS programmers or web developers, yet compared to software development or web development, type design is a relative niche industry.

Continuing and concluding with economics, of course free typefaces, freely-licensed written material, and type design software will compete in quality and price with commercially available equivalents. The better the quality and variety of these free things, the cheaper and/or higher in quality the equivalent or related commercial products will be need to be. Who benefits? ‘Consumers’ — we do.

MWNB:

Thanks Pascal, see you in few weeks.

This is part three of the 5 x 5 interview series of the speakers presenting at the Edge of the Web conference in Perth next month. This time I’m interviewing Ruth Ellison, she will be presenting on Guerrilla user & design research: undertaking research on a shoestring at the Edge of the Web.

Ruth is a user experience practitioner originally from Perth, who has been lured over to the not so bright lights of Canberra, she has a wealth of experience in Information Architecture with a passion for accessibility and usability. Ruth also has this thing for Robots.

MWNB:

Ruth you have a bit of an eclectic background, you aren’t traditional trained in design. How do you think your background has contributed to moulding your unique skill set into what it is today?

Ruth:

Having an eclectic background has certainly made life interesting! Although my background did not involve the ‘traditional’ design professions, design is essentially about solving a problem. As designers, we have to identify the problem, strive to come up with the optimum solution and communicate the plan for solving the problem. I come from a formal background in information technology, information systems and human factors and I’m particularly interested in sustainable and inclusive design. I’ve found that having an eclectic and diverse background helps to provide alternate perspectives and approaches to solving the design problem. Being a designer is about having a curious mindset and approach to how we view the world and the way we go about solving design problems.

MWNB:

You have been working in the user experience area for a while now. What advice would you give to someone that isn’t that familiar with the user experience field and its various techniques but they would to learn more and maybe more into this area?

Ruth:

As cliché as it sounds, it’s really important to be passionate, have an overly curious mind (preferably your own) and a penchant for coffee meetings. Working in the user experience field may be a challenge but it is extremely rewarding. People seem a bit surprised that our work crosses over such a large number of domains, from traditional design professions, cognitive science, psychology, project management, usability engineering, understanding of technology…the list goes on. It’s this meld of knowledge that makes our UX work really exciting.

One of the best ways to learn more about the field is to get involved with your user experience community through events such as the UX Bookclub, UPA meetings, IA Cocktail Hours (we have a fantastic group in Canberra) and attend conferences. These types of events provide great opportunity to find out what’s happening in the field, learn from personal experiences and find out what blogs, books and twitter streams to follow.  What I find most valuable is the personal relationships and friendships that you establish at these gatherings. I love the satisfying and often mind-blowing discussions we always seem to have every time we get together.

MWNB:

There has been a lot of discussion of late indicating that maybe the field of information architecture (IA) is in fact a dying art. And that generalist user experience practitioner is slowly making the role of an IA especially redundant. As an IA specialist in this area what is your ground level take on this?

Ruth:

I don’t believe that information architecture (IA) is a dying art. IA is  about the “organisation and construction of shared information spaces” - Information Architecture Institute . While IA has been ‘traditionally’ undertaken by information architects, the actual process of organising, structuring and labelling information still needs to be carried out no matter what label you’ve given to yourself while undertaking this process. Ultimately, we’re solving a design problem, whether it’s at the screen level, a business flow or designing for a specific experience. This doesn’t mean that the IA speciality is redundant but that IA is a specific set of skills that we use at the appropriate point in time.

I like Eric Reiss’s recent comment on twitter about UX and IA: “Pitting UX against IA is like having your toolbox pick a fight with your wrench. UX is a cognitive container for a variety of skills”.

MWNB:

Accessibility is bit of the hobby-horse of yours, do you see the slow adoption of WCAG 2 within Australia as a major stumbling block to its general community acceptance and the elimination of the WCAG1 checkbox tickers.

Ruth:

The problem with WCAG 1 or 2 isn’t the slow adoption and acceptance by the general community. Rather, it’s our general perception and understanding of accessibility. I frequently come across people who have some level of  awareness of accessibility but there’s often this slightly-negative attitude of “doing accessibility because you have to”. There are still many project teams who focus on the perceived negative aspects of accessibility. I rather see the Australian community adopt a more holistic and inclusive approach to design, instead of treating accessibility as a series of checkboxes.

MWNB:

User research in web design is one of my passions; I know it is yours too. All too often we have to deal with projects, particularly in Perth where there is no budget at all for any user research. As a UX practitioner what methods and techniques would you use to overcome this major stumbling block?

Ruth:

It still amazes me to this day to see the number of web projects where no budget and time has been allocated to the user and design research of the product. There are misconceptions that undertaking user and design research will significantly slow down the project or cause it to go over budget. What people forget is the ongoing costs of having to redevelop the product or the costs associated with cross channel support of the product (such as increased contact points with the organisation) when our designs don’t meet the user and business needs.

To overcome this ‘no budget’ stumbling block, we may have to resort to guerrilla user and design research. The key principle is grasp any opportunity to do some design research! This often involve informal methods and techniques such as very quick iterative usability testing (I love testing in cafes, lunch rooms etc), short sharp interviews with key stakeholders and users, surveys and heuristic reviews.

The idea of investing more money into research is a big leap for many of the decision makers. We need to make the business case for user and design research by doing and showing – doing the research and showing the results to help influence the decision makers.

MWNB:

Thanks Ruth I’ll see you on the Edge

It’s time for part two of the 5 x 5 interview series, covering a range of speakers from the upcoming Perth web conference the Edge of the Web. Next I caught up with Ash Donaldson.

Ash Donaldson is one of those old school User Experience Designers that are the main stay of our industry. He’s the type of person that just extrudes knowledge and a passion for his craft . It’s well worth having a chat over a beer or two with Ash, you’ll come away with your head spinning, and not from the beer.

Ash is presenting on Designing to persuade: Shaping the User Experience at the Edge of the Web.

MWNB:

You have an extensive background in Human Centred Design, and not just from a theoretical viewpoint, but also from a practical standpoint as well. In this digital age of computerisation; we as designers often forget the base human element of design. How do you believe we can reinforce the “human” element of the design process.

Ash:

Pick up a pen and paper, walk out the door, and involve your users.

Contrary to popular belief, they enjoy being involved. People like that someone is willing to listen to them. At the end of the day, not only do they think you, as a designer, are the best thing since sliced bread for actually involving them, they also feel a bit of ownership for what they contributed to the end product. If you did your work right, that end product is also a joy for them to use. It’s a win-win when you make humans the centre of your design strategy.

MWNB:

I know you have been a little busy of late with various volunteer and human interaction design projects. You are the representative Australian expert for the human-centred design International standards; also you’re involved in OZCHI and CHISIG. For people that aren’t in the know, what do all these groups entail and why are they so relevant?

Ash:

The International Organisation for Standards (ISO) recruits the services of experts from all over the world to develop thousands of standards that ensure products, systems, machinery and devices work well and safely. Most people in Australia don’t realise that there are quite a number of ISO standards in human-centred design, human factors, usability, and software engineering.

Since 2004 I’ve been working with a range of amazing experts on standards for software quality, usability reporting, and the human-centred design process. These experts generally come from large organisations (Microsoft, Sun, IBM, etc), national standards bodies, or Universities. For me, it’s important to provide a voice representative of the smaller operator – people who don’t have the luxury of expansive time and budgets on their projects – to help make the ISO standards more pragmatic and accessible for everyone.

The Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group (CHISIG) provides a forum for people working on all aspects of interactive technology to bounce ideas off each other and seek guidance. In the past, I’ve acted as the Queensland and ACT representative, and helped out in NSW because, with the explosion of the user experience industry came a bevy of new faces with no idea where to turn for training, mentoring, and advice. Back then, it felt like there were only a precious few of us trying to help everyone by giving presentations, answering questions, and pointing people in the right direction when they were first starting out. These days, it’s great to see many more groups springing up to help fill those niche support roles for the industry, like: the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA), Interaction Designers’ Assocation (IxDA), and more recently (and rampantly), UX Bookclubs – all over the world!

OZCHI is the Australian conference for Computer-Human Interaction. There’s always been a bit of a disconnect between academics and practitioners in our industry. Many practitioners don’t have the benefit of a formal education in Computer-Human Interaction or Human Factors. This lack of theoretical underpinnings of our techniques can lead to the development of bad habits. On the other side of the fence, academics without access to industry tend to research esoteric topics – missing opportunities to make real advances for our industry. As someone who wore both academic and practitioner hats, I whinged about this quite loudly to the OZCHI committee in 2004 (OZCHI was purely an academic conference back then). They simply put it back on me and told me to fix it. The next year, I was the Chair of OZCHI and we had an industry track alongside the academic track. Despite many speed bumps, more and more industry practitioners are coming along to OZCHI these days. The cross-over between academics and practitioners is rewarding for everyone. (Pssst. For anyone who’s interested, OZCHI is in Melbourne this year: 23 – 27 November www.ozchi.org – Bill Moggridge (co-founder of IDEO) is one of the keynotes!)

MWNB:

The application of user research, iterative design and usability testing play a big role in your design process. These techniques could be seen to be only relevant to larger projects with endless budgets. Do you see a place for them across the entire design project spectrum, regardless of budget?

Ash:

Designing a product, service, or environment without involving the people that are going to end up using it is a bit like driving with your eyes closed: You might know how to drive and the general direction you need to go when you start, but you’ll probably veer off, cause untold damage to your car, and get lost along the way – then have to just put up with where you end up when you run out of fuel.

Involving users is not and should not be expensive. I say “is not” because most of the time, if you’re designing something for someone, they LOVE being involved and it doesn’t take much time or effort to get some great insights. I say “should not” because unless I’m making tiny refinements to a mature product, or really need to convince managers/developers of the need to fix something, I’m not a big fan of lab studies. It’s an artificial environment, the users are stressed, and the things you can reliably discover are quite narrow compared to if you did a little ‘guerilla research and testing’ in the field.

When gathering requirements, people are notoriously bad at telling you how they do stuff (due to a whole list of cognitive and perceptual biases). Managers or user representatives are even worse. Observing people as they work in their own environment provides much richer and more accurate insights. Not only do you get to see the constraints they actually work under, there’s also a whole heap of value-added opportunities you can discover when you watch them work: From something as simple as adding a quick lookup calendar for users who constantly refer to their desktop calendars; to something as complex as combining parts of multiple applications into a common workflow with a new interface. This can be the difference between a functional application, and one that’s a joy to use.

The same goes for testing your product. If you’re designing something from scratch, it’s more the high-level stuff you want to concentrate on (like how well someone understands a label or how a process matches the way the users think of it) than the nitty-gritty (like how many fractions of a second will moving a button 12 pixels closer to the final form field save users?). You can get more realistic feedback by spending 5 minutes walking through a paper prototype at a few people’s desks, or loading up a functional prototype on their screens to see how they would actually use it ‘in context’. No matter how many times I do this, I always discover a number of the assumptions I made while designing the screens and workflows were wrong. This is why it’s essential to keep testing small, focussed, and iterative. Your users will keep steering you in the right direction.

MWNB:

Is there any truth to your 300,000+ km that you have travelled in recent years? It seems that you are constantly on the go, be it attending or speaking at international conferences. Come on you are among friends here, what’s your secret?

Ash:

Recent years? That’s just since last May, isn’t it?

Some great conferences are overseas, so yes, I spend a good part of my year in the US and Europe. Also, working with ISO means going to a new city for every meeting. I tend to work a few months on, then take some time off for conferences and meetings. To let you in on a little secret: I’ve only ever been overseas four times in my whole life for pleasure. All the hundreds of other trips have been industry-related. Jet-lag sucks too much to waste a holiday suffering it.

MWNB:

Ash you must be one of the most physically active geeks that I know. With our occupations often requiring extremely long hours at the keyboard, do you have any suggestions for how people can get out from behind the computer, and improve their physical well-being. Also what’s with these crazy frog shoes?

Ash:

If I didn’t exercise, I wouldn’t get half the things that I wanted to do, done. I learned years ago is that if you’re not physically active, you’re not mentally active. If you start your day with 30 minutes to an hour of exercise, you’ll more than compensate for it by knocking over much more work in less time than if you just grabbed a coffee and sat and stared at your computer all day. It’s amazing what a good kick of endorphins can do to help you whistle through the piles of work.

I find the best time for me to exercise is early in the morning. I used to be a late-night worker, but that was because I couldn’t concentrate earlier in the day, and I’d end up making little progress until the sun went down – then work late into the night. These days I’m up at 5:30am and I’m working efficiently by 8am. What used to take 14 hours to do now takes only 7 and I have the evening to read, research, and relax.

The crazy shoes are my Vibram Fivefingers. It’s kind of an anti-shoe. Wearing them is like being barefoot, but with thick skin on the soles of your feet. I run in them because, well, against what people tend to believe, running shoes cause injuries. Don’t take my word for it though, search the medical literature of running barefoot versus shod (with shoes). If you’re interested, I even wrote a blog post about it recently.

MWNB:

Thank you Ash, looking forward to chatting some more at the Edge of the Web.

Last year the Perth Web community celebrated with the highly successful inaugural Edge of the Web conference. Well that conference is on again, with workshops and ending in the massive geek black tie party that is the Australia Web Awards Dinner. You wanted it over two days – you got it, you wanted more locals – you got it, you wanted more workshops – you got it.

To help celebrate this year, I’m putting together this five part interview series with speakers from the Edge of the Web conference, this is part one.

One of the speakers presenting at the Edge of the Web you may not know of is Matt Balara. Matt hails currently from Sydney, he recently spoke, in Canberra, at the highly successful UX Australia.

At the Edge of the Web Matt will be presenting on Flogging Design – Daily Disasters & Best Practice in Online Shop Design.

MWNB:

Of late there seems to be a need to justify ones job title in the Web Design field.  You are a visual designer by training.  However times have changed a great deal since your formal training.   What would you classify yourself as now in the new fields of Web Design and why?

Matt:

Firstly, I’d like to suggest that we all stop using the term “visual designer”. It seems to be a label invented by UX designers and IAs (and maybe devs) to mean “the poor bastards at the end of the food chain who get to try and beautify what we thought up.”

What I studied is called graphic design, which is a lot more than designing visuals, or decorating someone else’s thoughts. It’s first and foremost about solving communication problems, not aesthetics. Being a thinking graphic designer who has always been fascinated by what technology makes possible, I started a long time ago to try and influence web and app projects above and beyond what they look like. Since I studied, I’ve been drifting more and more into the territory traditionally owned by Information Architects and User Experience Designers (although neither term was much used back then) – I make sitemaps and wireframes and do user research and testing, and so on – but I also obsess over elegant typography, colour palettes and just the right shading on buttons.

I’d be deeply indebted to you if you’d give me a job title that covers all of that and is comprehensible to clients, but doesn’t put me in a box so small I can’t enjoy what I do any more. I doubt you can, so for now it just says “Designer” on my card.

MWNB:

Your background in the field of design, you have had an very extensive career, having designed with some big names in the Europe. Can you tell me a little about your journey in the design field from the US, Europe and now Australia and the differences you encountered?

Matt:

I studied in the US 15 years ago, but I’ve hardly worked there at all, so I can’t say much about it. And I’ve only been back in Australia since October last year and haven’t worked with anyone in Australia yet, so I can’t say too much there either. The last ten years I’ve worked in Germany, but other than the language and the weather, I don’t really think it’s that different.

One thing maybe: when I look at the web in Australia, I get the feeling there’s a lack of sensible graphic design. I don’t know if the designers aren’t there, or if the people commissioning sites don’t value design enough. There is lots of useless, beautiful advertising wankery out there, and lots of ugly, confusing sites which should be elegant and usable. It reminds me of Europe 3 years ago or the US 5 or 6 years ago.

MWNB:

It’s no secret you are a photography nut.  It is amazing the number of web people that have a passion for photography. Do you have any theories on this, is it a lost desire to satisfy the repressed designer or just to document ones life story?

Matt:

Before I studied design I was a painter, so for me photography is a low commitment way of making something visual and creative for myself, like painting without the weeks in the studio. But I rarely make an image I’m happy with.

In general I’d say digital photography is extremely democratic – everyone can make not-so-bad images with a camera with almost no effort. Combine that with the internet enabled superpower we all have, that we can share anything we want with potentially millions of people, and I’m sure the bosses at Nikon and Canon are happy men.

MWNB:

Augmented Reality (AR) seems to be the buzzword on everyone’s lips this season.  I know personally I see it as just an alpha pipedream. Do you ever think that AR will be ready for the big stage of the general public main stream of social communications and informational management?

Matt:

Back in 1993 I helped found the Virtual Reality lab at my university. That was an alpha pipedream. What we’re seeing AR now is much of the stuff we dreamed about back then, which was impossible at the time due to missing tech and a lack of interested users, becoming suddenly possible now that an iPhone is more powerful than the Silicon Graphics refrigerator that we had in the VR lab. Read “Artificial Reality 2″, written by Myron Krueger in 1991, and you’ll see that none of the ideas are new, they’re just finally possible.

Personally I’m pretty excited about AR – not the marketing gimmicks, and not the thought of holding my iPhone in front of my face while walking around the city, but the excitement and energy that’s going into figuring it out, experimenting, playing, and the magical results. There’s plenty of “wow!” out there right now, and when was the last time you thought that about the 2D web in a browser box?

Do I think your gardener is going to use AR to plan what to plant where this spring – will it be that mainstream that soon? No. And if iPhone based AR really takes off, it’ll mostly just fill our hospitals with people who’ve been hit by buses while staring at their hands. Until AR becomes a constant layer over what we’re seeing – and that’s a hardware issue – it’ll stay pretty gimmicky, but I think it’s starting to make a move towards useful.

MWNB:

You recently very bravely stood up at a major Australian UX conference and declared – “ I know nothing about Agile development”. You went on to detail your experiences with Agile methodologies and their implementation in the web design field.  Given this background do you see Agile as having a place for designers or is it best left just for the developers over the fence?

Matt:

Crap! I said that? Why didn’t you stop me?!

Okay, yes, I did say that. Because it’s true. Agile has almost become a religion, and I’m not officially indoctrinated. I’m excited by the ideas, and I’ve tried some of them out as much as I could in a big agency, but I’d definitely like to get my hands dirtier and participate in a process that’s agile from start to finish.

Agile is about making things, and let’s face it, we designers (UX, interaction, interface and web designers that is) don’t make things. We talk, plan and agonise about making things, but we’re not the actual makers. If you work in Photoshop, you’re painting pretty pictures of something someone else will make. If you’re wireframing you’re even further from the action.

I’m personally getting  sick of being so far from the things that are being made, so I’ve been brushing up on my HTML & CSS again, to be as useful as possible in the process of making – to contribute more than just my thoughts to a project. I think as long as designers are willing to drop some of the virtuoso attitude, and get their hands dirty making functional prototypes, they can absolutely enrich and profit from agile processes.

MWNB:

Thanks Matt, see you at the edge.

In a few weeks there is going to be the biggest web event of the Western Australian calendar year. Not just the Edge of the Web conference, there is also Webjam, four workshops and the WA Web Awards all in one roller coaster week.

One of the keynote speakers and workshop presenter at the Edge of the Web conference is Derek Featherstone. Derek is particularly renown for his straight forward and often enlightening approach to accessibility.

The other day I took the opportunity to discuss with Derek his motivation, the future of accessibility and his forthcoming workshop.

MWNB:

You were recently in Australia for Web Directions South 2008, last month, and previous to that in 2006, and 2005. And now in a few weeks you are making the trip back down to Australia for the Edge of the Web. So what is it really about Australia that makes it so attractive, or are you just returning to get more triathlon tips?

DF:

Since my first trip down under in 2005, I’ve just wanted more and more! The timing always seems perfect – just as we’re starting to turn cold here at home (Ottawa, Canada) – I get to sneak away for a while to the beautiful weather. And, now that I’ve been there for several trips, it really does feel like another home. I’m always welcomed by wonderful people that are really switched on to accessibility, user experience and the web in general. For me, it was a no-brainer to accept the invitation to EOTW.

MWNB:

Recently, in Australia at least, there has been a lot of promotion and discussion on accessibility. To the point that in many circles the case for considering accessibility appears to have been won, allowing web designers and developers alike to relax their guard. This is turn has allowed the government and corporate sector to fall back on believing that accessibility issues are no longer important at all. Given Australia’s soft legislative approach to accessibility how does one get it back on the corporate agenda.

DF:

The case for considering accessibility appears to have been won

I’m not sure this is the case at all. I mean, we all say we consider it, but what do we actually do about it. Yes, I’ll admit that in many cases, the battle for “old school” accessibility may have been won, and there are scores of people that put that into practice every single day. But — we need to keep plugging away to move things beyond consideration into action. And – as we continue to innovate on the web, so too, we must with accessibility.

Getting it back on the corporate agenda might be somewhat difficult – I suspect a lot of people think they’re already doing accessibility really well. However, if we simply ask them if their innovations in accessibility are keeping up with the rest of the innovations they are pushing, I think a lot of people will answer that it hasn’t.

MWNB:

Within web application development circles there is a slow
movement off the corporate intranet of RIA systems into the web space. Traditionally this has been seen as a bad thing in terms of accessibility, as Flash and Silverlight have always been seen as the
evil ugly sister in terms of accessibility. But of late there seems to be a change in this perception in terms of accessibility. So is RIA the future over HTML?

DF:

Ah, to have a crystal ball

For certain contexts, both now and in the forseeable future, HTML of some sort is a perfectly capable format. For documents, certainly, and even simple web applications, what we have now works, and works quite well.

It can easily be argued that more interactive technologies such as Flash and Silverlight hold much promise and can be much more usable than the most static and traditional HTML format. E-learning and data visualization experiments are prime examples of how these technologies can be used to help communicate our messages in an engaging and interactive way to everyone.

There are loads of great examples of how these technologies come together to create interactive narratives at (the aptly named) http://www.interactivenarratives.org. The site was founded by Andrew DeVigal, who currently serves as the multimedia editor of The New York Times. The work he has done there is brilliant in terms of how it
engages the person viewing the site. What if we could take that same approach to web applications and create an immersive means to interact with data and with each other?

Yes. I’d still like that crystal ball, please.

MWNB:

Over the last two years the relevancy of the W3C and all it’s
forcoming guidelines has been drawn into question, time and time again. Of note in this area in terms of accessibility are the upcoming WCAG 2 and WAI-ARIA, are you confident these two are going
to make any impact at all.

DF:

Yes, actually, I am.

WCAG 2 takes a big step forward to provide guidance for making things accessible that aren’t necessarily HTML. It will help with creating accessible PDFs, Silverlight, Flash, and other technologies that are yet to come. For that reason alone, I’m excited about WCAG 2 — its technology agnostic approach will help developers meet accessibility needs.

Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) has been in the works for some time, and we’re finally seeing support in mainstream browsers and assistive technologies. I’ll be perfectly honest – we needed it to be ready about three years ago, so when it finally does come about, it’ll be most welcome. It is a missing piece to the puzzle of accessible RIAs right now, so I’m very happy to see continued progress on that front.

MWNB:

While you are in Australia next month you are presenting a workshop at the Edge of the Web. Hat tip by the way for your Web Directions Workshop. Is this workshop going to be the usual cold theory of accessibility 101 that we have seen trotted out by various accessibility consultants over the years or will it be different and have that “Featherstone” magic.

DF:

I’m ecstatic you enjoyed the full-day version in Sydney at Web Directions South — the workshop I’m doing at EOTW will be the same core content in a half-day. Our goal is to share experiences, ideas and solutions with designers and developers so that they can walk away with concepts and techniques that help them question their practices and those of their teams. Definitely not Accessibility 101, and hopefully magic!

MWNB:

Thanks Derek and I’ll see you at the Edge of the Web.

So if you are interested in accessibility or just feel you need to learn a little more on this critical subject, I would be getting along to Derek’s keynote Journey to the Edge of the Web and workshop Real World Accessibility for Ajax and Web Apps on the Edge of the Web.

You know in Perth people complain and carry on that nothing comes to Perth, all the good events, concerts, show and so on, all by-pass Perth.

Well with the Edge of the Web this all changes, forever.

The Australia Web Industry Association (AWIA) has given you a world class conference on your doorstep.

The Edge of the Web is a web design and development conference that you see only on the east coast. But it’s in Perth.  When 6-7 November.   But wait there is more.  There are 4 workshops from leading experts.  And wait there is even more.  To finish it all off there is the WA Web Awards Dinner (you have entered haven’t you) on the Friday night.  This makes it one rocking web blast of a week.

Glance over the speakers for the Edge of the Web, Chris Messina, Derek Featherstone, Cameron Adams, Sonja Bernhardt, Ben Buchanan, Stephen Collins, Kai Koenig, Lisa Herrod, Nick Hodge, Marc Lehmann, Tim Lucas, Laurel Papworth, Donna Spencer and Russ Weakley.

I’m not trying to spin BS to you these people are the leading lights in their fields.  The best in the region, the best in the world.  This is a chance to see, hear and learn from the best in the web industry.  You don’t have to go flying all the way to Sydney or the US to see these people. No incurring the travel and accommodation costs.

Forget about taking a course or workshop from someone you never heard of, with some company that has a secondary motive to sell you other services,  these are the real deal, go on Google them, I’ll wait!

I’ll let you into a little secret when we drew up the wish list of speakers we wanted to talk at this conference we expected at lot of people to just brush us aside.  But this was not the case, in fact we ended up with pages of world class speakers all wanting to talk in Perth, to come and see the web community that in some areas are world leaders.  This stunned us a little, and of course it made the selection even harder.  So this speaker list isn’t just those that would come.  It’s the best of the best.

Now you maybe thinking, “Yeah, yeah, I can’t afford to go, I’ll do it next year.”  Well think about it, if this conference is not successful with the core of the WA web industry backing it, do you think anyone else is ever going to run a web conference of this scale again in Perth with world class speakers.  I think not.

Take it from me hearing just what a few of these people had to say (from other conferences) has totally changed the direction and way I deliver web sites.  If you want a long term career in the web industry, then I would be trying anything to go to this conference.

As a web professional the cost for this conference is money well spent,  considering it will change the way you work on the web.

You still have three months until the Edge of the Web, 6 and 7 of November.   But if I where you I would take advantage of the early bird special and the discounts for AWIA members and get my tickets ASAP.

And after all this is said an done you also get to experience the Perth Port80 Posse parties first hand!

So are you up for going to the edge?