..and some terrible sketches by Duo Consulting’s Creative Director, Yvonne Doll
Duo Consulting sent a crew of 9 to the much anticipated “An Event Apart” in Chicago, a two-day seminar intended to provide a deeper understanding of web standards and emerging best practices. Myself being one of the lucky crew to attend, I was very excited to get in the same room with the some of the “best of the best” in digital design & technology. With speakers like Jeremy Keith, Jim Coudal, Eric Meyer, Derek Featherstone, Jeffrey Zeldman, Jason Santa Maria, and Dan Cederholm, it really was a veritable who’s who in all things “Web Geek”.
Autographs were signed, rock and roll horns were thrown, there may have even been some who were overcome by fits of fainting in the back (think 60’s Beatles concerts) when Eric Meyer presented “Secrets of the CSS Jedi” and put up a slide of Yoda.
The conference itself was very well coordinated, organized and impressive. For the most part, all of the speakers were very engaging and obviously seasoned presenters, this alone really made this conference “An Event Apart.”
The Presentations
Secrets of the CSS Jedi: Eric Meyer
Findings & Impressions:
- Eric Meyer’s head can be drawn using less than 30 lines.
- Rethinking CSS elements and what they “do.”
- Progressive Enhancement with graceful degradation in mind.
- Making a visual bar graph out of pure CSS.
- Diagnostic Styles.
The biggest thing I took away from Eric Meyer’s presentation was to broaden your thinking when it comes to CSS elements. Often looking at what a specification doesn’t say can give you new ideas on how to use it. His creative use of scope selector was a great example of coding to standards and for accessibility, but also using the element in a way you may not have thought of.
Eric also presented a pretty groovy, pure CSS visual bar graph which garnered some “Oooohs and Ahhhh” from the crowd.
Writing the User Interface, Selling Design: Jeffrey Zeldman
Findings & Impressions:
- Jeffrey Zeldman is very much fun to draw. If there were a job doing just that, I’d apply for it.
- Every site should have a “Content Czar.”
- Freshness Counts, Content is Still King.
- Sell ideas not pixels.
- Fostering collaborative partnerships with Clients.
Jeffrey Zeldman delivered two great presentations at An Event Apart. His first presentation “Writing the User Interface” put the focus on web content. All of the Duo crew was on board with this sentiment of course (visit our Content Matters Seminars site). The funny thing about content is that it really is the most important element of your web site and usually the thing given the least amount of budget/time. His presentation was really engaging and offered some great reminders like:
- Design on the web should help users read less
- Create clear, concise, guide copy
- All copy on your web site IS brand copy
His second presentation “Selling Design” focused mainly on the importance of creating a strong, collaborative relationship with clients. The key word being relationship.
He presented the idea of selling ideas not pixels. Which I think is a great way to encourage designers to really push their designs past looking good to really translating the essence of client’s business goals and value to it’s customers in a meaningful way.
I especially enjoyed his thoughts on web design projects as having an “endless scope.” Obviously that does not mean that every design project should have an endless bucket of design time (as much as we’d all enjoy that), it’s really just a reminder that the web is an organic and living medium, it’s constantly changing and to be successful on the web you should really always be redesigning, tweaking and making improvements.
Designing Your Way Out of a Paper Bag: Jason Santa Maria
Findings & Impressions:
- Jason Santa Maria has a Superman curl, coincidence? Hmmm.
- Get out the old sketchbook.
- Seek design inspiration in the “real world.”
- Brand Equity: What do people associate with you?
- Ahhhh, white space.
- Thinking with type.
Jason Santa Maria can design his way out of a paper bag (see aiga.com, happycog.com and more.) Cruise through some of Jason’s work on the web, he’s beautiful designer and I really enjoyed getting to meet him at An Event Apart. As a designer who comes from the ol’ fashion pencil on paper days as well, it was really cool to see some of Jason’s hand sketches for sites and logos. It’s a good reminder of how to get some quick ideas down before you hit Photoshop.
Just as an aside, the Duo crew had a good time teasing our own, Jeff Kenny, whose hand was raised during questions for Jason Santa Maria, but never got called on. In fact, everyone AROUND Jeff got called on. Maybe Jeff is the Lex Luthor to Jason’s Superman…something to think about.
Search Analytics for Fun and Profit: Lou Rosenfeld
Findings & Impressions:
- The “close trimmed beard” seems to be the current web guru uniform.
- Using internal search data to drive new products.
- Help users find what they want.
Lou did a great job of keeping a topic that can be sort of confusing and overwhelming, at a good accessible level for those of us who don’t spend our days knee deep in data.
Fred Salchli and Adam Howitt are our resident analytics experts at Duo. Lou’s talk was right on par with what we’ve heard from Fred and Adam, it was really cool to see it pushed to the forefront at An Event Apart.
One big take away from Lou’s talk, for me, was the idea of taking what folks are searching for on your site, and letting that drive new product development. It’s really a quite simple and compelling idea. The people searching your site are telling you what they are looking for, so why not give it to them? Seems like a good bet to me!
The Seven Lies of Information Architecture: Liz Danzico
Findings & Impressions:
- This drawing looks nothing like Liz Danzico.
- Rethinking the “magic number 7 plus or minus 2 rule.”
- The rules can change based on audience.
- Broad and shallow navigation structures are easier to navigate than deep structures.
- Are shorter and fewer clicks really better?
Liz Danzico came closest to having a silence web geek uprising during her talk. There were some folks around us that let out a couple of grunts of discontent with some of her comments on consistency. But overall I think what she was saying is that we need to make sites appropriate to the audience and subject. Sometimes we apply a general rule across the board that may actually hinder rather than help our cause.
She presented a pretty compelling argument about the “magic number 7 plus or minus 2 rule” (one of the 7 lies). Liz points out that this “rule” is based the number of items the average person can retain in their short term memory, and when you think about navigation, it’s not something you are asking a user to memorize and then taking away from them (at least we hope not). So really, it sort of makes sense to re-consider this “rule” when appropriate.
Interface Design Juggling: Dan Cederholm
Findings & Impressions:
- Dan Cederholm had the roundest head at the conference. Jim Coudal came a close second.
- Choose color palate from real life photos.
- Great Typography is invisible.
- Micro formats are here.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of Dan Cederholm’s talk was the bit on “micro formats.” It really seemed to tie into the theme of An Event Apart. The idea of creating a universal standard for how information is described down to a code level on web sites. The idea of using what “works today” to create a universal standard is kin to how many of our current patterns in design and code have come about, but micro formats, from my understanding of them, strives to create an even more specific and concrete set of consistent data formats across the web. Whew, I’m exhausted!
Be Pure, Be Viligant, Behave: Jeremy Keith
Findings & Impressions:
- Jeremy Keith looks a bit like Alan Richman’s Severus Snape in Harry Potter.
- The concept of progressive enhancement: begin with the content.
- Write out Javascript in plain english before you start to code.
- Create content first, then, structure and then presentation. Finally behavior.
- Avoid the Javascript pseudo protocol!
Jeremy Keith’s presentation really kept the theme of the two day conference at heart.
- Keeping presentation, structure and behavior separate
- Semantic code- down to choosing the right element based in it’s function
- Keeping web standards at the core of every site
Best Practices in Form Design: Luke Wroblewski
Findings & Impressions:
- Luke Wroblewski has a square head and very strong jaw line, perfect for form design.
- Illuminate the user path.
- User studies on form label and button locations.
- Get rid of “optional form fields!”
- Grouping pieces of information in forms helps user understand the form.
Luke Wroblewski has a new book coming out “Web Form Design Best Practices.” He gave us all a glimpse of some of his findings on form design from extensive user studies he did and his years of experience in the field of usability and web design. It was really interesting. He illustrated how subtle changes in location can change the speed, comprehension and comfort level of the user.
There were some great nuggets of info in his talk- just enough to really compel you to buy the book! Darn you and your brilliant square head, Luke Wroblewski. But I have to say on of Luke’s earlier books, “Site Seeing: A Visual Approach to Web Usability,” is one of my favorites! So when the “Web Form Design Best Practices” comes out, yeah, I’m in.
Accessibility:Lost in Translation: Derek Featherstone
Findings & Impressions:
- Derek Featherstone has a little “swoop” in his hair. A refreshing addition to the standard “closely trimmed beard” seems to be the current web guru uniform.
- Going beyond the accessibility checklist.
- Making Google Maps accessible.
- Accessibility as user experience.
I think the main take away from Derek Featherstone’s presentation, Accessibility:Lost in Translation, is to remember that accessibility is more than a check list of items that your site should “pass.” It’s much more than that. It’s ensuring a good user experience for all of your users, whether they are using screen readers, keyboard, voice systems or the traditional mouse. He also emphasized that accessibility is something that needs to be at the forefront of your build process from the start. It’s much easier than having to retro-fit your site later.
Dealing with Both of You: Jim Coudal
Findings & Impressions:
- Jim Coudal has exceptionally stylish eye glasses. They are, in fact, too stylish to be able to be rendered in pen and ink. We’re talking very stylish.
- Jim Coudal: Embracing your artistic ADD.
- Closing the divide between art and science.
- Follow your creative instincts, even if it leads nowhere.
Jim Coudal showed us funny movies. A really nice way to end two days packed with code, info and questions. Jim Coudal is a a great speaker, and hey anyone who’s an advocate of following your creative instincts is okay in my book. It was a very inspiring presentation, looking at the nature of web folks: having to quickly jump into one piece of developing technology to another, continually learning and our exploratory and curious nature.
