FOWD Conference in NY

Today was the last day of talks at the Future of Web Design (FOWD) conference in New York. It is amazing to be back in NY especially at an event like this. Some talks really aggregated much value to my ideas and perspective.

I strongly believe (and practice) the notion that ideas come from gathering info that is all around, processing and linking them to existing observations and conclusions which have already been internalized.

Here are some high points:

Elisabeth Hubert’s (follow her @lishubert) talk on Web App UX had some solid points, especially the fact that she believes (and I agree) where we are in terms of web maturity. She talked about Instructional Scaffolding, which means we have been following learning levels from (1) building functional sites, to (2) getting them online, (3) making them more usable and how now (4) we are prepared to focus on the actual user experience – which involves psychology and influencing behavior and not just making a site usable. We should not just make sites or apps that are useful but we should make them desirable and delightful. For that, we need to understand behavior, looking at both quantitative and qualitative data.

Tina Roth Eisenberg (follow her at @swissmiss and check out the blog) gave a very inspiring talk on The Power of Side Projects and Eccentric Aunts. I will leave you with some advice directly from her:

1- Love what you do
2- Trust your intuition
3- If an opportunity scares you, you need to take it
4- Don’t be a complainer: make things better or quit them
5- Make time for side projects
6- Surround yourself with likeminded people
7- Ignore haters
8- Seek to inspire others

(The Eccentric Aunts was a personal story, but you are all encouraged to have one as well which will encourage everything)

Whitney Hess spoke on the Philosophy of UX (follow her @whitneyhess), in which she gave some very pragmatic advices that are simple to follow, yet many people tend to ignore. They are:

- Stay out of people’s way, do not create obstacles. Pave the road for an easy ride with intentional and obvious paths
- Create a hierarchy that matches people’s needs
- Make the most crucial elements more prominent (prioritization matching the user)
- Focus on one task at hand
- Provide strong information scent
- Provide signposts and cues
- Never let people get lost
- Context sets the stage for a better experience
- Make actions reversible (an example is the “undo” button)
- Provide feedback
- Make a good first impression (First time user experience)

By looking at these, as obvious as they may seem, one can easily find a handful of improvements to add to a product.

In addition, she spoke on how companies and products should have strong principles. It is clear that product development cannot be carried in a scalable manner without principles as pillars.

Steve Fisher (follow him @hellofisher) spoke on the Future of Mobile UX. Fisher pointed out how we are experiencing a device shifting and how the web is not fixed width anymore – meaning people shift from a site to an app and that interaction is focused on the content, not the media/device.

He makes a strong point on how it is all about content (“create once, publish everywhere”) and not really the device (site, app, etc). Content should be well structured in interactions that matter to the user so that it can impact behavior and perception.

Aaron Weyenberg’s (follow him @aweyenberg talk on Responsive Web Design and Embracing the Unknown complemented Fisher’s talk perfectly.

When we are facing a shift where the focus is (or should be) much more on content, design/development should respond accordingly. Responsive Web Design (RWB) follows this thought. It adapts content to multiple devices via CSS3, which can check media conditions and adapt layouts and grids. That way you get one URL viewable in multiple devices (approachable via desktop down, mobile up or ranged media queries).

To top the cake with a nice yummy icing, this all becomes even more relevant to me since it gives me more time to plan, test and prepare the products we are running in the Brazilian market (the device shifting is not really happening so strongly in Brazil).

The future? Unknown… but definitely centered on content. Therefore Responsive Design is a wonderful way to scale and center the product on content across multiple platforms.

posted: 11 November 8
under: New York, Read this