For those of us who weren’t able to make it to New Zealand for last week’s Webstock conference, interface design Luke Wroblewski has done an admirable job of blogging key points from many of the presentations.
Here’s a choice selection:
- Jason Santa Maria on Good Design Aint Easy. Jason reflected on the fact that, unlike the Web, print design comes with fixed constraints such as page size and unchanging font sizes and layouts. However, these limitations are advantageous because they permit designers to make use of the golden ratio and the “rule of thirds” — a case in which constraints can offer a creative advantage, not a disadvantage.
- Molly Holzschlag on Why Web Standards Aren’t. Molly revisited some of the issues discussed at the recent Web Standards Group meeting in Melbourne — that what we have currently is not really a set of standards, but a set of best practices that browser vendors can choose to implement (or not). W3C specs will only become true standards if the development of them happens in a completely transparent fashion, with zero ambiguity in the outcome.
- Peter Morville on Ambient Findability. Peter described findability as “the ability to find anyone or anything, from anywhere at anytime.” Given that we are drowning in information, the challenge is no to communicate louder, but to make things findable (I love the quote “in a world of bigger haystacks, how do we make bigger needles?”) His answer: a return to meta-data, improved search, and a more structured organisation of information.
- The Art & Science of JavaScript co-author Simon Willison on OpenID and Decentralised Social Networks. Simon discussed the OpenID user experience, potential issues, and the role of OpenID in building a decentralized social network online (a topic Brian Suda covered on SitePoint last year).
… and many more from speakers such as Kelly Goto, Kathy Sierra and Dan Cederholm. Given the high caliber of the speakers presenting at the conference, I’m hoping that podcasts are forthcoming.
Thanks Luke!
Matthew MagainMatthew Magain is a UX designer with over 15 years of experience creating exceptional digital experiences for companies such as IBM, Australia Post, and sitepoint.com. He is currently the Chief Doodler at Sketch Group, Co-founder of UX Mastery, and recently co-authored Everyday UX, an inspiring collection of interviews with some of the best UX Designers in the world. Matthew is also the creator of Charlie Weatherburn and the Flying Machine.
