Simon Collison - The Designer's Guide to Being Essential
The first speaker of the day was Simon Collison. Simon was very smart in combining his life story with his message. Simon explained how his life was modular and how he forgot some modules of his past and refound them over the past years. He continued that robots know it all. All the modules in webdesign can be designed by robots. So what makes a human webdesigner better than the machines?
The answer to the question would be empathy. Simon quoted from an article by Travis Gertz. I've read it and I think its a must read. The part about AirBnb is very sadly so true. Its the most asked question of 2015 for me: can we have something like AirBnb? Great article, be sure to read it!
Simon also said some things I found very interesting as I have been doing it all my professional life. He told us to embrace change. Tools come and go. They sure do. I started my career building presentations in Macromedia Director. About 10 years ago we stopped using Macromedia Director...
He also told us to sketch. Sketching is the beginning of the design process. He didn't necessarily mean to take out pen and paper. Digital tools can be used too. The big thing is to sketch a lot. Don't go with your first idea or visual. Explore.
Susan Robertson - Collaborative Style Guides
I loved Susan's talk. Mostly because I happened to be at the event with a Front-End Developer of our company. When I started at Insiders I also started making my own type of style guides to brief the Front-End team. When Susan talked about the awesomeness of style guides and how they are a team effort our Front-End Developer looked at me and he understood what I had been doing. Awesome feeling.
Susan talked about how it takes time to develop decent style guides - but it is so worth the effort. Her best quote on the subject: "Slow down to speed up!". Its a reference for the whole team, not just for the Front-End developer or Visual (UX) Designer. It also helps in finding inconsistencies.
Susan herself also writes (and talks) about style guides. Great talk and for me one of the highlights, because I got great feedback of our Front-End Developer on using style guides. Now we gotta take them out of Photoshop and together build it in the browser.
Geri Coady - How to Design for Colour Blindness
Another talk suited for me. Since working for various insurance companies I got to know more about colour blindness. Geri gave some clear tips, like avoid red or green, use opposite colours of the colour circle for better contrast and including colour names. That last one became pretty clear when watching at webshops for clothing. Just imagine watching for a blue sweater when you can't see the difference between blue and green for instance.
Geri also gave some nice tips when working with tables or infographics. Instead of only showing different colours, why not also include textures or other markings? That creates a bigger difference for the colour-impared. And before you say you are seeing colours correctly: are you really? Many people can't see colours correctly. Just read this article and be amazed. Or you can find Geri's book right here.
Geri's talk was very nice, I recognized many issues she talked about. Having worked on various websites that wanted to deliver to the WCAG standards I didn't hear new things - but Geri is very passionate about it and she talks about it very well!
Bram Stein - The Science of Typography
When Bram started I was wondering a bit where he would take this. And boy, did he know how to captivate the audience and show his passion. I had dived into typography myself a couple of years ago - after a colleague pointed me to the book 'The Elements of Typographic Style' by Robert Bringhurst. Bram also mentioned Bringhurst during his presentation.
Bram started by saying the web is not a good platform for high quality typograhpy. He showed some of the basics of typography to show us why. He also helped the audience understand how we view text on the web. Here's an awesome link that would've helped me explain to more clients why I wanted to up the font-size.
Bram continued to explain more about typefaces, font sizes, line length, line height and typesetting. I would like to hope students learn this at school - but looking at my own experiences with colleges - they don't. Bram then introduced a tool he had created himself. And what a tool it is! I've added it to my all-time favourites.
Ida Aalen - Getting to business while making friends
Ida had a very hands-on approach in showing us the Core Model. One of the biggest challenges for anyone in the field is how to achieve the best for your clients. Very often a client dictates what he wants - but just as often he doesn't really know what he wants. Remember the first speaker? Clients want to be the next AirBnb...
Ida explained there are business goals and user goals and the Core Model helps focusing where the two overlap. That's where to start. You can read more about the Core Model in this article by Ida.
Ida talked about the way she works with the Core Model and where it helps Netlife, the company she works for. I often feel we don't really tend to help clients, but manage their expectations. The Core Model was impressive and I am most certainly going to give it a go. It looks very promising. You can also only respect the results Ida showed us. To sum them up: 'off the chart!'
The Core Model isn't only interesting for UX/Visual Designers. When you're a Consultant or even Account Executive - this model is interesting.
Stephen Hay - From Deception to Clarity
The most entertaining session of the day was by Stephen Hay. He started by mentioning his book - which I've actually been told to read before by a former colleague. He then started showing some examples on how people get decepted - not neccessarily with intent though. He showed the websites of ANWB and RTL as an example.
That was actually funny. I had seen the attendee list and knew there were folks of RTL in the audience. It wasn't difficult to spot them when Stephen showed the RTL example...
Stephen has various amazing quotes. One of them was "Deceit is the low-hanging fruit of persuasion.". Enabling is not deceiving. Stephen showed us 8 clarifying techniques. You can read them all in his presentation.
Stephen also delivered the quote of the day for me: "We are not design monkeys". We actually have to power to prevent user frustration and deliver user delight. We can make sure the audience is never made to work, as quoted by Darwin Ortiz, a magician favourite of Stephen Hay. If Stephen had done one of his magic tricks his presentation would have been complete... ;)
Trine Falbe - Designing Web Interfaces for Kids
Another presentation I could relate to - but I have said it with all presentation already, haven't I? Having worked for Nickelodeon, Studio 100 and more clients who's target audience are kids - I recognized many of the results Trine showed from her research.
Trine explained how kids now grow up in a digital world, yet we still have the digital native and digital illiterate. The graphic above show that younger children are focused on tablet and smartphone and only start using computers (mouse) around age 10. Looking at my own children this is very true. My son (3) unfortunately knows where to find Carmageddon on our tablet without a problem...
Trine prepared various tips when designing for kids, ranging from using buttons not text links to providing instructions - they were all very good. And I remember them from my own projects. Trine also had a quotes I really liked: "Be the designer that empowers". You can find an article about of all of this on Smashing Magazine.
Dan Mall - So... What do I make?
Dan Mall was the final speaker of the day. Dan talked about the role of the (Visual) Designer and where it may go in the near future. Very inspirational talk and some clear pointers. Dan first focused on three rules he follows: 1. Highest fidelity in shortest amount of time. 2. Remove abstractions and 3. All deliverables come with conversation. The last one was hitting home for me. Too often the communication with the clients is so-so...
Dan also presented a new framework for designers, consisting of 4 items. The first is that designers plan. Your first steps shouldn't be opening Photoshop or Sketch. They should be in writing. Write a creative brief, a creative direction. Make sure it contains a point of view. Step 2 is that designers inventory. Constraints are good for a designer, constraints actually fuel creativity.
Step 3 is that designers need to sketch. Turn powerful phrases into visual hooks. This will help in the conversation with the client. Remember, every deliverable comes with conversation! Dan also talked about prototyping - prototypes should be done in less than 1 hour and build ugly. Step 4 is that designers assemble. Don't continue making comps. Use various tools, create creative cloud libraries.
Dan focused on having a vision. I for one recognize that. But having a vision has actually gotten me in trouble before (lost my previous job because of it) - I would have love to talk to Dan about that actually. Dan's presentation was very inspirational and he is a natural presenter. Great last talk!
Overall
I feel the organisation also deserves a lot of credit. The talks were very balanced and very interesting. Its been a great 2nd edition and I am most certainly interested in edition 3 already!
For me personally I found the day deliberating. Since getting fired at my previous job I was doubting myself a bit. Did I really push it? Was the road I was paving that bad? Were my ideas that bad? Last Friday it hit me that I actually know a lot and I am passionate about it. Passion was the message of the day for me. All of the speakers were passionate about their work. As am I. And I should be. Just remember that quote by Stephen Hay: "We are not design monkeys".
I feel like I had dozed for a few months, but last Friday my fire has been fueled to the max again. I am ready to get fully back into kicking-ass-mode. I needed Dsgnday. And what a day it was.
Thanks to the organisation for Dsgnday and Insiders for allowing me to go.
Cheers and all the best,
Corné
Links:
- Travis Gertz: Design Machines- Anna Debenham: Style Guides
- Website Style Guides
- Susan Robertson: Creating Style Guides
- The Magic and Logic of Color
- Geri Coady - Color Accessibility
- Robert Bringhurst - The Elements of Typographic Style
- Size Calculator
- Bram Stein - Science of Typography
- Ida Aalen - The Core Model
- Stephen Hay - Responsive Design Workflow
- Stephen Hay - From Deception to Clarity
- Trine Falbe - Designing Web Interfaces for kids
- Dan Mall - Visual Inventory
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