Web Directions Podcast

Remote research can raise the quality and lower the costs of your user research efforts; using a combination of surveys, video, screensharing, and phone, you can connect with a much broader range of users than you could using traditional lab-based usability tests, while using resources more efficiently than you would doing contextual research. In this workshop-style talk, Juliette Melton will cover recruiting sources, technology tools, and caveats you might not have thought of, including managing time zones and participant distraction. We will also address pros and cons of increasingly popular non-scripted research services. Juliette Melton is a user experience researcher and design strategist based in San Francisco. Her background in web development and product management gives her a practical perspective on how to conduct effective user experience research. She advocates building products that delight users while supporting organizational realities. Juliette holds a master’s in education from the Techno

When I first picked up Matthew Frederick's book: "101 Things I Learned in Architecture School" I was struck by the number of principles of architecture that can be directly applied to interaction design, but also disillusioned by the fact that Interaction Designers generally do not have a similar body of knowledge to draw on. Sure we have lots of "process", but relatively little "wisdom" of the sort found in this book. The field of Interaction Design isn't very old - If we're talking purely software interface design, then let's say about 25 years old. No surprise, then, that we borrow heavily (and unashamedly) from a range of other, more established, disciplines. We try to compensate for our relative lack of a history, tradition or body of knowledge by leveraging others'. That's entirely appropriate - but how far does it get us? Interaction Design is an essential component of the delivery of virtually any product or service today. Many of us may already be at the point where we interact with more digital pr

Web standards might be second nature to all of us here, but they don't always fly so easily in the enterprise. Obscure browsers and CIOs watching their bottom line can often leave a passionate development team feeling stifled. In this session we'll look at how a number of large scale websites successfully adopted new standards and opened their content to more audiences and devices than ever before. We'll explore techniques for deciding what client technologies to use on your projects, how to drive the adoption of newer techniques and how not to leave your audience behind. We'll even talk about how to make all of this possible with Internet Explorer in the room. Tatham Oddie is a technical strategist and roaming consultant. For the third year in a row he is a recipient of the Microsoft-​​issued "Most Valuable Profes­sional" award, and a regular presenter and participant at conferences and industry groups throughout Australia, New Zealand and North America. His business experience includes the launch of a su

Libraries contain masses of beautifully structured data collected over many years. But these records may have their flaws and might now want to be used in ways, such as location based services, that weren't imagined 30 years ago. How can we use existing API's and web services to enrich this data to enable it to be used in a variety of ways. This data also needs to be exposed for others to use and build upon. With the recent release of the Government response to the Web 2.0 taskforce, how can institutions comply with these recommendations by providing their data in usable forms for the public. What's involved in building an API into our resources and how can our data be given more meaning through semantic linkages like RDFa? Paul is the Senior Web Designer at the National Library of Australia and has been working on the web in cultural institutions since 1999. His job entails a mix of design, coding, and accessibility. He is a thinker and "ideas" man. He finds cultural institutions fascinating because of wh

Today's web is being defined more than ever by buzzwords, catchphrases, fads and trends. Startups are being created for startups sake, standards are being hijacked by so-called "social media gurus," and investors are piling on one after another looking to hop on the next big wave. And we, the designers, developers and innovators actually building the web, are left to wonder if we're still in the drivers seat. During this brisk discussion we'll separate fads from the future, debate native apps versus the mobile web, take an honest look at the hype behind geo-location, then take a step back to ask ourselves where the web-and we ourselves-are going. Hold on, it's going to be a wild ride! Josh Williams is CEO and co-founder of Gowalla, a mobile and Web service that gives people around the world a new way to communicate and express themselves through the everyday places and extraordinary settings they enjoy. Gowalla empowers everyone to capture and share their journey as they go while following the happenings

RDFa is a W3C standard for embedding semantic metadata directly into HTML web pages. While early work on RDFa dates back to 2004, it recently gathered a lot of uptake and traction through the adoption by big players such as Google, Yahoo! and Facebook. This has put the Semantic Web into the attention of a much wider public, setting RDFa out the be the technology to finally bring the Semantic Web into the mainstream. The language gained the status of a W3C recommendation in late 2009 as RDFa 1.0. Since then, the RDFa working group has been established to improve and extend the standard. Eventually, this work will result in a new version of the language, which is set to be released as RDFa 1.1 in 2011. In this talk, an overview will be given of the RDFa technology in general, followed by an outline of its latest developments, such as the RDFa API, or the definition of RDFa Core, which prepares the standard to extend its scope beyond the context of web pages, by allowing it to be included into any other markup l

By now we all know that the web is not a publication - that it's a living, evolving thing. But a lot of content I see still appears to be 'published' once and then left alone. This talk is about what happens after content is published. We'll talk about how to: - decide what to create in the first place (and what the best format is) - identify which content types need to be left alone, and which need to be looked after - revive existing content and give it a second wind - check your content is still working for its readers - put it to sleep when it is time - put a process in place so you can do this yourself and with distributed content creators We'll also discuss how this varies depending on your industry, size of site and type of content. Donna’s a freelance information architect, interaction designer and writer. That’s a fancy way of saying she plans how to present the things you see on your computer screen, so that they’re easy to understand, engaging and compelling. Things like the navigation,

Over time, Web developers have feared, hated and loved Web caching, at times trying to kill it, at others professing undying love. Mark Nottingham (chair of the IETF HTTPbis Working Group and author of its revised Web Caching specification) will examine how browsers (mis)-treat your content today, as well as where your relationship with browser caching might go in the future. Mark Nottingham is a Principal Technical Yahoo!, putting together Web-based infrastructure for sites like Yahoo! Finance, Sports, Tech, TV and Movies. He has spent the last fifteen years designing, debugging, serving and caching Web content, with past stints at Merrill Lynch, Akamai and BEA Systems, along with scars from writing specifications like the Atom Syndication Format, WS-Policy and the WS-I Basic Profile, and chairing both IETF and W3C Working Groups. Right now, his focus is on using HTTP for what the rest of the industry calls Web Services. Past occupations have included being a photojournalist, Volkswagen mechanic, graph

Web technologies are evolving at such a frenetic pace that it becomes almost mandatory to learn on your own. A lot of us still depend on other people to do this learning for us, and we tend to use their answers to solve our everyday problems. Inconsistent implementations, rapidly evolving specs, questionable performance impacts and maintenance implications mean we cannot always depend on others for answers but must involve ourselves actively in the process of developing specifications for new Web technologies. But how do we go about it? There are some simple rituals we can all do, which can have us be better-informed and also better inform the people and groups who are most directly involved in the development of new Web technologies. Divya Manian is a Web Designer in Seattle. She made the jump from developing device drivers for Motorola phones to designing websites and has not looked back since. She takes her duties as an Open Web vigilante seriously which has resulted in collaborative projects such as H

Despite being an option on web servers as early as 1995 with Netscape's LiveWire, JavaScript has long been regarded as a language only of the browser. Approaching sweet sixteen JavaScript has evolved in the community and gained acceptance as a general purpose programming language. In this session Patrick will be looking at JavaScript outside of the browser, focusing on how to use it for web server applications. Starting with the old in Helma and progressing through various usages to the most new and exciting with node.js, Patrick will talk about why JavaScript on the server matters right now and show you how to get started using it. Patrick is a computer programmer and interaction designer. Usually at the same time. He thinks JavaScript is an important language. He works for ThoughtWorks. Follow Patrick on Twitter: @boundvariable Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

There is no denying that the Apple App Store is huge, but who wants to have to deal with Objective-C? Thankfully, technologies like PhoneGap and Sencha allow web developers to work in languages they know (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) while still making them look native. PhoneGap also allows us to port our apps to other platforms, like Android. This session will look at the mobile web development lifecycle from building a prototype in the browser, integration with the phone, app submission and some basic marketing tricks. Myles is a Perth-based Web developer who feels as at home building INNER JOINS as he does calculating the specificity of CSS selectors. He has worked in all the major web languages, with his weapon of choice being Ruby on Rails. During his 8-years in the industry, working under the moniker of MadPilot Productions, he has worked with pretty much everyone in Perth. He started 220, a cooperative workspace in Leederville and currently has a position on the committee of the Australian Web Industry As

HTML5 introduces several so-called "offline" technologies: application caching, local storage, and file access, to name a few. But these technologies are not just for purely offline apps; they boost startup performance, overcome network outages, and partition content away from the server. This talk will explain how you can incorporate these technologies into your work today and identify the features browsers will be supporting in the near future. Michael Mahemoff is a Chrome Developer Advocate for Google, based in London, always looking at ways to make the web a more habitable place for users and developers alike. He’s been programming on the web since the mid ’90s, in a range of public-facing and enterprise (Java, what else?) contexts, and is the author of Ajax Design Patterns (O’Reilly, 2006) and a blogger for Ajaxian.com. Server side, he’s mostly a Ruby, PHP, and NodeJS guy and sushi is his preferred coding fuel. Michael holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, covering software design patterns for

Andy Clarke’s Hardboiled Web Design is an uncompromising look at how to make the most from modern design tools and browsers, up-to-date techniques and processes. In this practical, design focussed talk, Andy will discuss the ‘how’ as well as the ‘why’ and will challenge your preconceptions to help you make better work for the web. Andy will demonstrate the most modern, forward-moving and sometimes experimental CSS techniques while emphasising why a forward looking approach to CSS will pay real dividends. Andy Clarke has been called a lot of things since he started working on the web ten years ago. His ego likes words like "ambassador for CSS", "industry prophet" and "inspiring", but actually he is most proud that Jeffrey Zeldman once called him a "(triple talented) bastard". Andy took ten months of his life to write the best-selling Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design, but his passion is amazing web design. He loves designing for the web, writing about design, and teaching it at workshops and co

Devices have caught up; That is, our technology dreams from the mid 90's have finally been realised. However since this time, HTML has lay dormant. We've been through a decade of tech wasteland. It's time to change the status quo and take back the web. During my session we'll look at where the future of HTML lies, including new structural elements. You'll also grasp an introduction to associated technologies that have come into popularity with the steam of HTML5: SVG, Web Sockets, Web Workers, Geo-location and making applications useful offline. Ben Schwarz is a well known Melbourne Rubyist who funds his love of good food (at home) and sake (in bars) by designing sophisticated web applications using standards-based technology. More than anything else, he is driven by a maniacal desire to produce not only elegant code, but also beautiful software in the hands of its users. Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenSchwarz Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

People are redefining the relationship they have with the organisations they interact with, empowered by social technologies. They are seeking: - Human-ness: as organisations have grown in size and become more and more depersonalised, people are wanting more human interactions and personal response - Trust: from greenwashing to the GFC, the market's trust has been eroded - people are looking for organisations to say what they mean and mean what they say - Co-creation: people are taking a more active role in developing the products and services that they use. And if they don't find what they're looking for, they will often create it themselves - Responsibility: people want to engage with organisations that are genuinely addressing the complex issues of sustainability and wellbeing Building a brand, service or product offering that resonates in this new "economy of meaning" requires a rethinking of an organisation's relationship to the "market" - their customers, stakeholders and the environment. In thi

Phones with GPS are now widely available and the growing support for the JavaScript geolocation API means location based services aren't restricted to the realm of native applications. Now is the time to learn how to take advantage of this information and add provide your users with the best personal and contextual experience. This session will take you through building a location-based mobile app using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Including cross-platform techniques for figuring out where your users are, and providing graceful fallbacks options for devices that don't have geolocation support (or users that don't want to tell you exactly). You'll learn about geocoding to a physical address (and the other way around) and look at how to build a mobile-friendly map with local points of interest. Ben Schwarz is a well known Melbourne Rubyist who funds his love of good food (at home) and sake (in bars) by designing sophisticated web applica­tions using standards-​​based technology. More than anything else, he is

Web typography has in the past two years seen a resurgence in interest and many would agree only rightly so, with most of the content on the web still textual. However the range of technical options available for setting type on the web is quite broad-not to mention the range of stylistic choices available-and often confusing. This session aims to demystify the current techniques available to set type on the web by comparing and contrasting the various options at hand while offering a set of good defaults and safe advice for not only making it accessible but also pleasurable to read. Simon Pascal Klein is a graphic, web and interface designer, front-end developer, rampant ‘typophile’, UI and accessibility aficionado. Born in Mainz Mainz, Germany - the birthplace of Gutenberg - he now works in Canberra as a freelance designer while studying at the Australian National University. Simon is actively engaged in the Open Source community and local web industry, notably as one of the unorganisers to first bring B

Considering how many businesses depend upon the web for their income, it’s shocking how poorly designed most shops are. Not only aesthetically, but also as far as ease of use, retail psychology and user experience are concerned. How can we design better shops? If customers enjoy shopping more, won’t our clients earn more? Can forms be fun? What’s the psychology behind online purchases? How can online and offline buying experiences be harmonised? Matt Balara will share some of his 15 years of experience designing web sites, the vast majority of which have sold something or other. Matt Balara is a freelance web designer, was a child prodigy violinist and is unintentionally bilingual, all of which has been vitally important to his success in designing for the web since 1993. Despite years of experience, he still can’t understand why so many websites are so useless and ugly. Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattBalara Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-

The internet has been around long enough now that it has a proper history, and it has started to produce media and artefacts that live in and comment on that history. James will be talking about his work with writing, books and wikipedia that hopes to explain and illuminate this temporal depth. James Bridle is a publisher, writer and artist based in London, UK. He founded the print-on-demand classics press Bookkake and the e-book-only imprint Artists’ eBooks, and created Bkkeepr, a tool for tracking reading and sharing bookmarks, and Quietube, an accidental anti-censorship proxy for the Middle East. He makes things with words, books and the internet, and writes about what he does at booktwo.org. Follow James on Twitter: @stml Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).

We need to decouple the idea of 'book' from the mental image we carry around of 'book.' The innovation and benefit that digital brings to books and publishing lies less in how digital affects final artifacts, and more in how digital affects the systems leading up to and extending beyond those artifacts. Craig Mod is a writer, designer, publisher and developer concerned with the future of publishing & storytelling. In 2010 he founded publishing think tank PRE/​POST. He is co-​​author, designer and publisher of Art Space Tokyo. He is also co-​​founding editor and engineer behind TPUTH​.com, co-​​founder and developer of the story telling project Hitotoki, and frequent collab o rator with Infor mation Archi tects, Japan. He’s lived in Tokyo for almost a decade and speaks frequently on the future of books and media. He is the worst speller you will ever meet." Follow Craig on Twitter: @craigmod Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).