Future Of Web Design 2008 (Part 1)
Posted May 4th, 2008 | No Comments
Recently I attended the ‘Future Of Web Design 2008’ conference. It was my first time at a Carsonifed event and I enjoyed it very much. I’m going to talk a bit about each of the presentations and speakers so it will be far too much for just one post and probably end up being three. Here’s number 1 anyway…
Location
The location was excellent, literally a 2-minute walk from Kensington High Street tube station, which is just 2 stops away from Paddington Station. The event was held at Kensington Town Hall, which I have to say is a lot nicer than my own town hall! The main room was spacious with a large stage & good lighting; the lounge downstairs was good for relaxing.
I stayed in a hotel just across the road yet somehow still managed to be running late the morning of the conference? (Perhaps this had something to do with the welcome party at Jewel in Covent Garden. Thanks to Media Temple for the free bar :) ) So I arrived with only 10minutes to spare and the queue for our passes was huge! I genuinely expected to be late but made it in plenty of time for the introduction thanks to the speed of the staff.
Speakers
Paul Boag was compare for the event and I thought he did a relatively good job although he seemed quite nervous and rushed. I do have to give him huge credit for the line up of the event though as apparently he chose it himself and it was an excellent mix.
Patrick McNeil - Finding Inspiration for Design
The very first presentation of the day was one of my favorites. I have heard Patrick speak on podcasts but never live. He is an excellent speaker and his talk was full of useful information.
I was particularly interested in Patrick’s opinions on the difference between ‘inspiration and duplication’. He went on to talk about current design trends with lots of great examples and perhaps more interestingly future design trends where he predicted more horizontal scrolling websites, softer colour schemes and more use of video. We shall have to wait and see how true his predictions become but his talk was a success and a great start to the day.
Andy Clarke & Steve Pearce – User Experience Vs Design
Next up was one of my favorite speakers Andy Clarke along with Steve Pearce who I have never heard before. They had a lot to live up to following the great opening. It didn’t disappoint in terms of entertainment.
Steve used some amazing hand drawn cartoons to illustrate his points, they must have taken him hours. The main idea was that the interactive experience is like an iceberg. The visual part sits above the water, which is what people see, but the main part is how people interact with it and that is below the surface. We spend too long on the part above the surface making it look good when instead we should be concentrating on the experience under the surface.
Andy then went on to talk about the importance of ‘brand’. That brand isn’t just the visual identity but the whole customer experience provided. Giving Apple and Starbucks as good examples.
Andy Budd - The User Experience Curve
Andy Budd is another of my favorite speakers since attending his CSS workshop at Clear:Left in Brighton I’ve been following his conference talks and this is one of the best.
Andy used an example of a recent holiday at a hotel with a great user experience. He explained how the experience was carefully planned from check in until check out. How important the first experience is as it sets the tone for the whole day and the end experience as it’s the most recent memory but also the whole experience is important. He maps the user experience curve on a graph and then shows another from a different hotel, which wasn’t a great experience.
Andy then went on to define the user experience in 7 points
- First impressions count – People do judge a book by it’s cover. Good design can create more value to a product or a website. Again this is something Apple are good at.
- Attentive services – Such as waiter or waitress filling your glass without you even noticing or a supermarket opening new checkout when there are big queues.
- Personalisation and Customisation – Starbucks ask for your name when ordering to be personal you can also customise your drink. Computer games allow you to create customised characters and avatars. People like when websites call them by their name and sites like MySpace allow you to customise your own page.
- Attention to Detail – Small thing like a hotel putting a chocolate on your pillow used to impress people. These days they have to try a little harder, some put hand written cards in the room with the next days weather forecast which has a positive emotional effect. Car designers go to a lot of effort to get the sound of the car door shutting just right and Disney are the best example, everything in DisneyWorld is customised right down to the rubbish bins which a different in each ‘world’.
- Feedback – Good use of feedback can save users time. For example American mailboxes that have a small flag that is lifted up if you have new mail to save checking if it’s empty. Phone queues that tell you how many people are waiting before you so that you can hear that you are getting closer.
- Make it Fun – People like games and collecting things. Flickr is like a game based around collecting photos, Facebook allows users to collect friends.
- Create a Perfect Environment – As mentioned earlier Starbucks have crafted a whole user experience, as have Virgin Atlantic in their lounges and the Las Vegas experience.
As you can see I really enjoyed Andys talk and got a lot out of it. I didn’t intend writing as much about any of the presentations but I felt this one deserved a little extra attention.
More to come…
That’s more than enough for this post though and I’ve only covered 3 of the 11 talks! Post 2 will include Larissa Meek, Elliott Jay Stocks and a Photoshop battle with Jina Bolton, Hannah Donovan and Jon Hicks!
