Sessions

We've tried it all in our pursuit to create the next runaway software success...fancy processes, expensive tools, powerful computers, bigger budgets, smaller budgets, swankier offices, 'expert' consultants, astrology, rabbits' feet, you name it. But it seems like most of us still fail. We ship late. Our products suck. Our employees quit. Our customers hate us. Why?

Mobile has been described as the wild west of the web. It is untamed. Pitfalls abound. And there are plenty of bad characters ready step between you and your customer to “help” them have a better mobile experience. Choosing the right path can be daunting, but just like the wild west of old, there’s gold in them hills.

Web typography is changing dramatically thanks to browser support for @font-face and server-based fonts. Web designers now have thousands of font choices where they once had just a dozen. But beyond @font-face, CSS 3 introduces myriad new OpenType typographic controls, bringing a level of typographic precision to web design previously seen only in print.

Design serves one purpose and one purpose only: to gain the trust of its intended audience. Whether the need is for clarity or to obscure information, design is a tool we use not to convey information, but to present that information in a way that the viewer will perceive as confident and competent. Once that basic line of trust is established, it is only then that design can clearly work to help turn data into knowledge and knowledge into understanding.

Jim Henson started working as a puppeteer in 1954, a fair 40-50 years before many of us even considered User Experience as a career. He did, however, take it upon himself to apply many of the core principals that UX Designers are falling love with today (or are at least using as part of our everyday lives). Hang out for a quick dive into the life of Jim Henson, with a view into his work from the perspective of how it pertains to what it is we’re doing today, that promises to even leave Waldorf and Statler happy. 

As the pace of change accelerates around our businesses, and the sheer volume of information explodes, we're under incredible pressure to connect just in time with the people and ideas we need to make breakthrough progress. We can no longer research, plan or process our way to success.

How you design web pages is changing — rapidly. Styles that once could only be accomplished by kludging together graphics, are now easily achieved using pure code. Part of being a great web designer is understanding the medium you are designing for, recognizing its weaknesses and pushing its strengths. Understanding this balance is also core to creating web sites using the philosophy of progressive enhancement, a web design philosophy that says that pages don't have to look the same in every browser, they just have to be usable.

HTML5 isn't just about markup; there's a lot more to care about. This talk will cover "why" you should be using HTML5 today, clear up some of the confusion around what it is (and isn't), introduce you to some cool stuff you can use to impress your friends (and the marketing dept.), and how you can help make the web a just little bit better place for us all.

Interfaces from SciFi films offer examples to realworld design issues that are humorous, prophetic, inspiring, and practical to interaction designers. SciFi interfaces are both fun, inspiring examples and reflections of current interface understanding.

Join mobile app development experts, developers and designers Shawn Wildermuth (phone dev guru), James Ashley (designer) and Moses Ngone (PhoneGap)  on Thurs., Nov. 17th in an all day Mobile Hackathon for Good, held at Macquarium.

The day will begin with short presentations by educators and representatives from non-profit organizations, followed by informational sessions on building apps for Windows Phone and other mobile platforms. Session participants will include programmers, designers and UX practitioners.

Thanks to web technology, an explosion of content showers us from every direction. Content curation is the buzzword de jour and on the surface seems as simple as aggregating and sharing interesting links and resources via various social media tools. The truth is, it’s not really quite that simple. Just ask a librarian…ever so quietly, of course.

From Facebook identity to ubiquitous mobility, technology is changing what what "here" means, and confounding deep assumptions our brains make about perception and meaning. But too often, design efforts don't address these invisible issues of context, sometimes leading to catastrophic failure.

As storytellers that love content, Second Story is adept at implementing great technology to support engaging design. However, while we seek to push the limits of what is currently possible, we also look to the future of interactivity and what it means for user experience, not only for museums, but all audiences. People are moving from traditional information consumption and in this session, we'll look at a number of new trends and their implications for the future.

Get a behind the scenes look at the design process used by four different UX designers, all working to solve the exact same problem with the exact same set of requirements. We'll identify the right way--for you--to wireframe.

Just as pilots and doctors improve by studying morbid-but-fascinating crash reports and postmortems, user experience designers can improve by learning how products failed in the marketplace when the determining factor was experience design. As opposed to proselytizing a particular approach to design, these case studies from Victor's forthcoming book "Why We Fail" will illustrate what teams actually built, how the products failed, and how we can learn from that experience.