iPhones & shiny stuff - fluffypig.com » Conferences

Things Now Syncs Between iPhone & Mac

Shaun — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:03:19 +0000

Things has been my favourite Task Management app for a long time, after previously loving OmniFocus.

When I got my iPhone 3G the very first thing I did was purchase Things App for it. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that it was not yet capable of syncing lists with the desktop version. This effectively rendered it useless as there was no way I was going to have two versions of my list and edit them manually.

Things Updated

Yesterday the Things iPhone app update finally arrived and syncing is now supported. Not only is it supported, but it’s brilliant! It syncs over wi-fi and is amazingly fast. All you need to do is have both the iPhone app and desktop app open and they will instantly sync.

This means that I can now add things to do throughout the day on my iPhone and automatically sync them with my MacBook when I get home.

I love it!

Buy It Now And Save Money!

Things for OSX is currently free, when the final version is released it will cost $39.99 (£20) you can download it here.

Things for iPhone is currently $9.99 in the US App Store and £5.99 in the UK store. The developers say that this is an introductory price and it will be increased as more features are added. You can download Things for iPhone from here.

Future Of Web Design 2008 (Part 2)

admin — Fri, 09 May 2008 18:58:38 +0000

This is part 2 of a long detailed 3 part summary of my day at the Future Of Web Design 2008 conference in London. Part 1 is here and Part 3 is here coming soon.

We left part 1 after 3 exceptional presentations from Patrick Neil, Andy Clarke and probably the best so far Andy Budd. Could the next 3 possibly be as good as those 3?

Microsoft water

No. In a word. And it’s all Microsofts fault. Well I suppose it is Carsonifieds fault really for allowing sponsored speakers (didn’t we pay enough already?) But that’s no excuse for Microsoft delivering a 100% sales pitch when they could have easily made it interesting. I suppose we should thank them for the MS branded water though!

I admit that I am a Mac fanboy. I hate Windows and Internet Explorer (i’m a web designer!) However, i’m not anti Microsoft, I have always used Office (nothing comes close to Word & Excel). I had an X-Box and would have a 360 if I had time to play (they are awesome) and the Zune is getting better all the time and is a real alternative to iPods.

Silverlight

I’m very interested in what Silverlight can do, I’m not one of the people saying it has no chance of competing with Flash. I think there is plenty of room for both technologies and I for one will be keeping up to date with both. So surely I would enjoy the Silverlight ‘demonstration’?

Corporate Lecture

Maybe if it didn’t feel like a corporate sales pitch! I’ve no idea who the guy was, he was called Benedict Ireland and he either worked for Microsoft or Aston Martin. The lecture was about Aston Martins new car customiser website which is powered by Silverlight. It could have been great but it wasn’t, there was no useful information just typical sales talk. I can’t help thinking that after such a great start the decision to allow sponsors to speak has devalued the event a little for me.

Larissa Meek – Getting your Designs Approved: 12 Simple Rules

It was refreshing to see a woman speak, the audience obviously agreed as there were countless camera flashes throughout the whole of her speech. I wonder why? (see pictures).

As well as looking great Larissa delivered a good presentation. I could go into detail about her 12 points but this post is already long enough so I will summarise.

Make friends with your client.
Ask lots of questions. What does the client want out of the site?
Ask more questions! Who will use the site?
Use wireframes, but don’t be tied to them
Take about the design before opening Photoshop
One design direction will do. Too many options are overwhelming
Present in the browser. Walk client through the design if possible
Prototype as needed. Very important for web apps.
Ask from consolidated feedback and limited revisions
Be confident in your work. Difficult for new designers but important
Getting sign off gets easier the more you work with a client.
Be positive. Take the most even from difficult situations

All good points i’m sure you will agree! I was particularly interested in number 6 about only supplying one design which is something I believe in myself. Many web companies offer 3 or even more designs and allows the client to chose. For me this is never a good idea but I that is a whole other blog post! I’m glad somebody as high profile as Larissa agrees though :)

Larissa finished with something that may turn out to be very interesting. She mentioned that a group called SoDA (Society of Digital Agencies) has been formed by several leading design agencies. They plan to agree best practices, processes and guidelines for the design industry which is something I think we are lacking at the moment.

Live Photoshop Battle: Battle of the Sexes

This session was straight after lunch which is known as ‘the graveyard shift’. I can understand the need for a light hearted bit of fun and I was looking forward to this when I read the lineup for the day.

However it turned out to be a little disappointing. The idea was that the 2 teams (Hannah Donavan & Jina Bolton against Elliot Jay Stocks and Jon Hicks) would take turns and have 5 minutes each with Photoshop to come up with a design with Andy Clarke to commentate. As it turned out, Andy didn’t commentate, instead he interviewed the team not working on the design. I’m thankful of this as the interviews were actually very interesting whereas the Photoshop side of it really wasn’t.

There is no doubt at all that all 4 are extremely talented designers, I follow Jon Hicks and Elliot Jay Stocks personally so know this for a fact. However, due to the time restraints and the nature of the ‘battle’ and the fact that there was a live audience they basically took a picture of Andy Clarke and made it ‘funny’. No advanced techniques were shown and it felt like a bit of a waste of time.

The only thing that saved this session for me was that Andy Clarke and especially Jon Hicks are perfectly capable of entertaining an audience. They didn’t need the gimmick.

Elliot Jay Stocks – Print Is The New Web

Elliot is somebody I have been interested in for a while via his blog and articles he writes for .net magazine so I was looking forward to his talk. It was about websites taking inspiration from print design.

Nothing new..?

This is nothing new at all but Elliot is a good speaker and had good examples. He started with lots of book covers, mainly George Orwell. He then went on to talk about the two types of web design HTML/CSS and Flash and that there should be more cross over between the two.

Your design is your business card..

He also showed us lots of cool business card designs which was very inspiring. He explained that your homepage is not your business card, neither is your contact page. Your design is your business card. This is something I have never though of before but I think I agree with it.

I think the main point I got from this presentation was that we should embrace the freedom of print design and take inspiration from areas outside the web, things that we wouldn’t normally do. You can impress more with brave design than just good design.

Enough!

That’s it for part 2! Part 3 will be along in a few days and will include presentations from Jon Hicks, Paul Farnell and Digg’s Daniel Burka! Oh and another corporate sales pitch, this time from Adobe.

Future Of Web Design 2008 (Part 1)

admin — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:02:41 +0000

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!