webdirections

Following the success of WE04 and WE05, Maxine Sherrin and John Allsopp announce Web Directions 2006. Over two big days of WD06, plus two days of workshops, you'll hear from international speakers: Kelly Goto, Derek Featherstone, Jeremy Keith, Thomas Vander Wal, Andy Clarke and Molly Holzschlag, as well as all the local folk, who have also been doing some pretty exciting things this last year:

• standards based development with (X)HTML, CSS, DOM scripting and AJAX
• the latest design approaches
• web app design and development
• user experience interaction design
• information architecture, including tag clouds and folksonomies
• website and web app accessibility
• workflow and strategy
• RSS and syndication
• designing for mobile devices
• user generated content
• moving your organisation to web standards

WE05 sold out with more than a month to go: if you work with the web, you can't afford to miss this. Read more about WD06 and the workshops, check out the full list of speakers, and details about the venue and pricing, and register now for early bird tickets.

Web Directions News

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Additional Workshop - Designing for Interaction

Designers take note: we’ve just added in a fifth workshop to the Web Directions program. Dan Saffer of Adaptive Path is now going to be teaching his new workshop Designing for Interaction - Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices on Tuesday the 26th September.

This broad and deep examination of the discipline of interaction design will feature activities and seminars that take participants from the prehistoric roots of interaction design to its future in transmedia interactions, ubiquitous computing, and digital tools for making digital tools.

This is a day not to be missed for anyone interested in design, focussing as it will not just on design as it applies to the web, but how web design fits into the broader discipline.

Starting with a brief history of interaction design, the workshop will cover the four approaches to interaction design; the elements, principles, and attributes of good interaction design; design research techniques; documentation; designing for multitasking, adaptation, and hacking; and service design.

Designing for Interaction is for new designers and anyone interested in interaction design, as well as more experienced designers who want a deeper view of and new methods for practicing interaction design. Participants will walk away with not only a firm grasp of the underlying principles of interaction design, but also the tools to put those into practice.

Dan Saffer has worked in interactive media since 1995 as a webmaster, information architect, copywriter, developer, producer, creative lead, and interaction designer. Currently, he is an interaction designer at the design firm Adaptive Path and is the author of the book Designing for Interaction: Creating Smart Applications and Clever Devices (New Riders, 2006).

The deal

All Web Directions workshops are $395 all inclusive when purchased with a ticket to WD06, or $495 for workshop only. Read more about Dan’s workshop, or Register Now.

Posted by Maxine on 6/06/06 at 4:21 pm | No Comments »

Web Directions: what’s in a name?

Quite a few people have asked about the name change for the conference. Web Directions is something of a new start, but most importantly, we wanted to capture both the continuity with WE04 and WE05, and something of a change in focus reflecting the change in the web development world since 2003. When we started planning the WE conferences, in very late 2003, they were pretty dark days for standards based development, accessibility, and in many ways the web in general. An aging Internet Explorer 6 (and even 5.5 and 5) really set the “standard” (or lack thereof) for development best practice (after all, these accounted for over 90% off all browsers in user), and alt text was about as far as most sites went toward accessibility.

How times have changed. Developing valid, accessible sites, using CSS for presentation, focussing on usability, all these are becoming accepted best practice, right across the board. The rise of Firefox and Safari, as well as the emerging importance of mobile devices, means that the original dream of a device independent, interoperable web is becoming a reality. “Real world semantics” like microformats, structured blogging and webpatterns all show enormous promise for making a far richer web. The birth of Web 2.0 (a real phenomenon, but vastly overused label to the point of meaninglessness), the explosive growth of RSS (not just for blogging), the rise of wikis, and continuing strong growth of blogging, user generated content and the increasing importance of online communities, are all phenomena which have gone from peripheral to central since 2003.

So rather than just focus on the essentials, wd06 focusses on the directions we are heading, with speakers like IA superstar “Mr Folksonomy” Thomas Vander Wal speaking on Information Architecture for the “Come to Me Web”, renowned designer Kelly Goto on “Designing for lifestyle”, Jeremy Keith on Ajax, Derek Featherstone on webapp accessibility, fantastic britpack designer Andy Clarke on Creating inspired design, as well as wonderful local speakers.

These speakers will help us map out current and new directions for our web endeavours, whether we are designers, front end developers, back end developers, managers, strategists, content developers, whatever our roles on the web.

We are proud of the lineup we’ve put together, humbled that so many wonder wonderful people have agreed to come and speak, and excited to hear what they have to say. WE04 and WE05 both had a profound impact on the way we work and think about the web. I am sure WD06 will do so too.

john

Posted by John on 26/05/06 at 2:20 pm | 4 Comments »

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