And the race in on, with Web Directions South 2008 a major Australian web event for 2008 looming ever closer on 23-26 September 2008. Web Directions is not like any run of the mill luke warm web conference. For me it’s like the meeting of the tribes.
You get Information Architects, Usability Consultants, Front End Developers, Project Managers and Back End Developers all in the same place, at the same time, talking the same issues, shoulder to shoulder, noobs next to seasoned professionals, it’s like a great big melting pot of ideas. Okay I’m a little bias, having been to WDS 2006, WDS 2007, and WDUX08.
Been doing an intense amount of hi-fi site design of late. Nothing wrong with that, I enjoy the creativity.
Being challenged to find the design, to produce a professional product within the bounds of the clients specifications. However moving through the process rapidly does allow you to focus on how you achieve your final outcome.
One thing I have learn over the years is to never jump right into photoshop. Regardless as to whether you have used mood boards or not, generally I don’t start the design process in photoshop or the like. I take it back old school, get out the sketch pad and paper. Walk away from the workstation, often outside and go design the site with pencils and paper.
At BarCampPerth 2.0 stepped up again and presented. This time I wanted to push things a little, well a lot. I didn’t want the standard presentation. What I wanted was something entertaining with a defined takeaway message.
Now I really wanted to focus on an introduction to User Experience. But that can be a very dry and lets be honest, boring topic.
So I opted for a thematic talk following an information journey. The slides are on slideshare. There was a video recorded, so we shall see if it is encoded, if it is, it may give you a better insight than the transcript and slide set.
During the week the general terms of User Experience and Usability become interchangeable. Huh?
Well the ISO standard ISO 13407 - the International Standard for Human Centred Design (gets a new number too! - ISO 9241-210) is being side shuffled it seems. Now it’s a standard for User Experience. Is this a good thing?
What is User Experience, really! Well for me it’s all the aspect of the front end user interaction, the emotional response to use the page, the effective usefulness, the accessibility, the audience’s perception of credibility of the site and the directive of the user towards the site’s goal. Usability (ISO 9241-11: Guidance on Usability) on the other hand is just an narrow aspect of this entire user experience
