FOWD2007
I was at FOWD2007 on Wednesday - Future of Web Design (I'd missed Future of Web Apps) with Rory, Nicki and Joel from de-con. It was an interesting mix of speakers and topics, some more compelling and attention holding than others. Some downright boring and I switched off (sales pitches, or showing sites from 4 years ago?), and some completely engrossing (Ryan Freitas from Adaptive Path was really good, Denise Wilton of moo.com/b3ta and George Oates of flickr were both great, and i had the opportunity o of meeting them over lunch in the sun with a pint).
I have to say - i'm not sure anything truly groundbreaking was said - but many valid points were made - primarily with regards to making a user feel engaged and more importantly 'comfortable' in their experience with your app/site. This doesn't mean everything has to be soft/wacky/zany and say "yay, you've saved your profile", its about getting the tone right for your audience. Lots on the experience is as much a part of the content as the core product/message - which i'm not sure i agree with 100% of the time - you have to consider some things are utilitarian, and work well, unobstrusively, just get the job done, let other things worry about bevelled edges and light language, but everything has its place - choose the right tool for the job - even Florian from hi-res! was saying HTML has its place.
The most interesting aspect was how 'geeky' a large portion of the day was. It was not a design conference, it was a web technologies conference, of which design plays a massive part. There was, based purely on anecdotal evidence, and a quick glimpse of namebadges, an equal measure of people calling themselves 'developers' as well as 'designers'. Many of the discussion was around new technologies, such as Apollo and Silverlight, and of course, many of the most popular sites are very much technically interesting, perhaps more than design interesting (i'm sure many people would disagree). Convergance is certainly here now, but i wonder if its more convergance of roles (designer/developer) than anything else. And quite neatly, the end panel debate touched on this topic - is everything moving to fast, do you need to be a jack of all / master of none?
I've always felt specialising is a more sensible route - yes, new technologies and tools crop up, and its important to stay aware of them, but in the inevitable shakedown, knowing how to do something really well will always stand you in better stead than being second-rate at many things (of course depending on your job, if you're consulting, or overseeing a wide range of people, your speciality is knowledge of a wide range of areas perhaps, rather than hands on practical syntactic knowledge).
I have to say - i'm not sure anything truly groundbreaking was said - but many valid points were made - primarily with regards to making a user feel engaged and more importantly 'comfortable' in their experience with your app/site. This doesn't mean everything has to be soft/wacky/zany and say "yay, you've saved your profile", its about getting the tone right for your audience. Lots on the experience is as much a part of the content as the core product/message - which i'm not sure i agree with 100% of the time - you have to consider some things are utilitarian, and work well, unobstrusively, just get the job done, let other things worry about bevelled edges and light language, but everything has its place - choose the right tool for the job - even Florian from hi-res! was saying HTML has its place.
The most interesting aspect was how 'geeky' a large portion of the day was. It was not a design conference, it was a web technologies conference, of which design plays a massive part. There was, based purely on anecdotal evidence, and a quick glimpse of namebadges, an equal measure of people calling themselves 'developers' as well as 'designers'. Many of the discussion was around new technologies, such as Apollo and Silverlight, and of course, many of the most popular sites are very much technically interesting, perhaps more than design interesting (i'm sure many people would disagree). Convergance is certainly here now, but i wonder if its more convergance of roles (designer/developer) than anything else. And quite neatly, the end panel debate touched on this topic - is everything moving to fast, do you need to be a jack of all / master of none?
I've always felt specialising is a more sensible route - yes, new technologies and tools crop up, and its important to stay aware of them, but in the inevitable shakedown, knowing how to do something really well will always stand you in better stead than being second-rate at many things (of course depending on your job, if you're consulting, or overseeing a wide range of people, your speciality is knowledge of a wide range of areas perhaps, rather than hands on practical syntactic knowledge).
