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User Experience | Web Directions

Podcasts, slides and other presentation materials

Robert Hoekman Jr - The essential elements of great web applications

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008, or in Canberra at Web Directions Government, Old Parliament House, May 19 2008.

Most great web applications have a few key things in common. But can you name them? Better yet — can you achieve them consistently in your own projects?

In this closing keynote, Robert Hoekman, Jr., author of the Amazon bestseller Designing the Obvious (New Riders) describes the seven qualities of great web-based software and how to achieve each and every one of them by learning to communicate through design. See why it’s important to build only what’s absolutely essential, apply instructive design, create error-proof interactions, surface commonly-used features, and more in this informative session that will change the way you work and enable your users to walk away from your software feeling productive, respected, and smart.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• interaction design
• user experience
• web apps

Oliver Weidlich - The mobile web user experience - we’re starting to get it right!

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Historically the mobile web has been a terrible experience, but things are starting to change. Really! We are now at the point that the mobile web is becoming easier to access, both on-deck & off-deck, there’s useful & tailored services out there, and killing some time on the train home doesn’t cost more than your weekly train ticket. We’ll check out the latest and greatest in the world of mobile web and what makes them different from the others. We will also cover the important things to keep in mind for making a better mobile web customer experience.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• design
• mobile
• user experience

Mathew Patterson - Delivering user experience to the inbox: designing for email

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

So you’ve designed a fantastic website for your client, tested in all the major browsers and everything looks great. Now they want to send an email newsletter to all their customers, using the new design.

No problem right? Just need to test in Outlook 07, and 06. Yahoo and Hotmail too, of course. Oh, and Gmail, Lotus Notes, AOL…Of course, the design may not work that well for an email anyway, and isn’t there some kind of anti-spam laws?

Like it or not, HTML email is here to stay and the responsibility for doing it right belongs to web designers. Learn how to plan, design and build an email newsletter that will provide a great user experience to the recipients, and great value to your clients.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• css
• design
• email
• html
• user experience
• visual design
• web standards

Lisa Herrod - User testing for the rest of us

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Everyone knows they should be doing it, but like software testing, it’s one of those things we often don’t get round to. In this presentation, Lisa Herrod looks at some sure fire user testing techniques that produce proven results, don’t cost the earth, and are easy to implement. After this session you won’t have any more excuses for not doing solid user testing of any site or application you develop ever again.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• testing
• usability
• user experience

Jackie Moyes - Converting research findings into business speak

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

Getting your company to adopt a user-centred design approach can be an uphill struggle. The first stage typically is to get them to agree to incorporate usability testing in to the development process, at a stage early enough to actually implement any design recommendations. The second stage is to convince them to do more ethnographic style research to understand the larger context of the task that the site is trying to support. The biggest challenge comes last – how to help the business owners make the mental leap between the in-depth findings from the research and the implications and opportunities it presents to your core business strategy and product roadmap.

This is the challenge that the User Experience team at News Digital Media have been addressing. In this presentation, Jackie will discuss this issue in more depth and present examples of ‘design tools’ the team have been experimenting with to try and bridge this gap and help the business develop more user-centric strategies.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• ethnography
• strategy
• testing
• usability
• user experience
• user research

Emily Boyd - Creating great user experiences with Ajax

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

How does the way we build user experiences change when we incorporate Ajaxian techiques? How can we delight our user, make their experience seem magical, diminish the frustration that often comes with sites and applications?

In this presentation, Emily Boyd, from the hugely successful task management web app, Remember the Milk, looks at some of the ways you can use Ajax techniques to make your user experience even better.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• ajax
• coding
• javascript
• user experience
• web apps

Donna Maurer

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

We all know that great content is a core part of the website user experience. So why is it so hard to find content that isn’t dull, lifeless and uninteresting - blah, blah, blah?

Web content can be vibrant, interesting and fun. It can draw you in, fill your head and make you learn without having to think. And it’s not really hard to write. Three simple tricks can turn poor content into a great experience - remember that readers care more about themselves than you; write in real words with authentic voice; play show and tell.

This presentation will discuss these principles, with plenty of funny and not-so-funny examples. You’ll go away with practical steps to make your writing kick-ass. And you won’t even have to think.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• content
• copywriting
• user experience

Andy Budd - Designing the experience curve

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• March 10th, 2008

Catch this presentation live at Web Directions User Experience, Melbourne Town Hall, May 16 2008.

These days people expect more from a website than a handy set of tools and a pretty interface — they want an experience. From the moment somebody enters your site they’ll be judging you on everything from the way the site looks to the tone of your error messages. And they won’t just be judging you against other sites. They will be judging you on every customer experience they have ever had, from the rude man at the train station to the lovely hotel clerk that checked them in on holiday. So in order to compete, we need to up our game and look at experiences both on and off-line.

In this session Andy Budd will look at the 9 key factors that go into designing the perfect customer experience. By taking examples from the world around us, Andy will discuss how we can turn utilitarian experiences into something wonderful.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• design
• interaction design
• usability
• user experience
• web apps

Stephen Cox - Building ethnography into the design process

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• September 29th, 2007

A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

Working in usability and user experience can give you some great insights into the product design process. Yet few organisations know how to take advantage of this information silo. As a user experience expert do you sometimes wish you could have more input into product ideas handed down from above? Ever wanted to have the ear of business strategists? Even be best friends with marketers and sales people? Stephen Cox explores some of the exciting things that can happen when the disciplines of usability and user experience are allowed to seep out into the realms of strategic and tactical design innovation. He approaches the field of ethnographic design research in practical terms illustrating how News Digital Media has come to embrace the idea of extensive customer research, and the benefits that this has brought to different levels of the organisation.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• design
• ethnography
• innovation
• strategy
• usability
• user experience
• wds07

George Oates - Human traffic

• In: Resources
• By: maxine
• September 29th, 2007

A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2007.

If there’s one thing about Web 2.0, it’s that we’re realising that there are actually people using the internet. It’s no longer about Human to Computer interaction, but rather Human to Human. Discover some of the user experience ideas and strategies behind the design of flickr.com, one of the richest Human to Human places on the web today.

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• Tags
• design
• online communities
• user experience
• wds07

Andy Clarke - Creating Inspired Design

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• September 30th, 2006

A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 29 2006.

Designers are more than mere pixel pushers. The role of the creative designer working on the web has changed and will continue to change faster than ever before. In this session, Andy Clarke will discuss how designers should now play the pivotal part in the creation of engaging user experiences, binding together the roles of information architects, content authors and technical developers. It’s time to put designers in the hot seat.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• copywriting
• design
• information architecture
• user experience
• wds06

Kelly Goto - Designing for Lifestyle

• In: Resources
• By: Guy Leech
• September 30th, 2006

A presentation given at Web Directions South, Sydney Australia, September 28 2006.

Interaction design is no longer limited to the web. The concept of user experience is being redefined as multiple delivery methods of social and business interaction merge into our lifestyles. As design migrates from the web to mobile devices we carry and interact with on a daily basis, our approach must also shift into cycles of design and research centered around the way people actually live. In this enlightening session, design ethnographer and web veteran Kelly Goto discusses the evolution of Web, handheld, and product interfaces and their cultural impact. Learn how companies are utilizing ethnographic-based research to conduct rapid, immersive studies of people and their lifestyles to inform the usefulness and viability of interfaces both online and offline.

See the slides and hear the podcast »

• Tags
• ethnography
• interaction design
• mobile
• user experience
• wds06