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Web Directions North » Workshops

All our workshops run from 9:00am to 5:00pm, are fully catered, and feature the best in the business giving you hands on practical, yet inspiring training. Whether you are a designer, developer, producer or product manager, there’s something for you.

Monday January 28th 9:00am – 5:00pm Andy Clarke — Transcending CSS 9:00am – 5:00pm Tara Hunt and Chris Messina — The Enterprise & Government in the 2.0 era: what’s next? Tuesday January 29th 9:00am – 5:00pm Cameron Adams — Frontiers of JavaScript 9:00am – 5:00pm Jared Spool — Designing Really Usable Websites

• Transcending CSS, Andy Clarke (Almost Full)

  Modern techniques for designing a beautiful web

  Presented by Andy Clarke

  At the Hyatt Regency, Vancouver, BC, Canada

  Monday 28th January 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

  Description

  Do you feel that we have reached our full potential for what is possible using currently practical CSS? Do you wish that there are ways to achieve the striking, the radical, the beautiful with CSS?

  In this full-day session, designer and author of the best-selling Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design will challenge you to think differently about creating inspired design for web using meaningful markup and CSS. The session will be packed full of visual inspiration, backed up by practical techniques for creating amazing work for the web.

  Who is this workshop for?

  This workshop is not designed for beginners or newcomers to CSS. It will not teach you the basics. To get the most of this workshop you will be an intermediate to advanced user of CSS and be familiar with meaningful, accessible markup.

  If you are a visual designer looking to advance your CSS skills with new techniques and technologies, or a technically minded developer who wants to understand more about working visually, this workshop will take your knowledge of CSS to the limits of what is currently possible and beyond.

  What are the learning outcomes?

  By the end of the day you will be able to

  • see markup in a new light, from the content out
  • create ‘advanced’ CSS selectors and know how best to use them
  • know how to push what is possible with today’s CSS floats and positioning
  • create exciting layouts and interfaces from the most minimal of markup
  • tackle browsers issues within a progressive web design workflow
  • move forward with progressive techniques in actual client work

• The Enterprise & Government in the 2.0 era: what’s next?, Tara Hunt and Chris Messina

  Presented by Tara Hunt and Chris Messina

  At the Hyatt Regency, Vancouver, BC, Canada

  Monday 28th January 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

  Description

  Web 2.0 is all about the principles of openness, collaboration and community. What does this mean for enterprise? For government? Is this a positive thing? What are the changes that need to be made to become 2.0 ‘compliant’? How does one balance the traditional enterprise and public services concerns for privacy and security with the burgeoning of openness and transparency?

  This workshop will not only go into the explanation of what it means for companies and government services to become more 2.0, but also will go in depth into how to become more open, encourage more collaboration and create the conditions for creating real community engagement while creating a culture of positive growth and security.

  Who is this workshop for?

  This workshop is designed for businesses and government organizations with a basic knowledge of Web 2.0 tools and the desire to use them correctly. A basic understanding of web tools such as wikis, blogs and social bookmarking is useful to get rolling.

  What are the learning outcomes?

  By the end of the day you will be able to:

  • understand the key building blocks needed to connect to your customers and citizens
  • have a basic understanding of how to implement tools such as wikis, blogs, chat and social bookmarking
  • understand which tools to use for which purpose
  • cite various examples of successful implementations of these tools
  • understand basic use of web standards like microformats, OpenID and OAuth and how they can be leveraged for building citizen and customer relationships
  • put together a basic community strategy

• Frontiers of JavaScript, Cameron Adams (Sold Out)

  Presented by Cameron Adams

  Hyatt Regency

  Tuesday 29th January 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

  Description

  JavaScript has been one of the fastest growing areas of web development in recent years, and the introduction of technologies such as Ajax have meant that it is allowing the investigation of whole new areas of interface development.

  In this workshop, Cameron Adams will share his love of playful code and explore the latest developments in the field of JavaScript and interface design.

  Who is this workshop for?

  This workshop is designed for those with a strong grasp on the basics of JavaScript (particularly) and CSS, although it will also be interesting for those who wish to see the possibilities of interface design with a fully featured front-end toolkit.

  What will you learn?

  By the end of the day you will:

  • Have a knowledge of the pros and cons of different libraries such as Prototype, jQuery and MooTools
  • Understand the capabilities of frameworks such as Ext and Interface
  • Be able to work with real-time data formats such as XML and JSON
  • Create mashups using APIs
  • Work with browser-native vector graphics (SVG/VML & Canvas)
  • Pick up advanced code tips
  • Understand why coding JavaScript is so darn fun

• Designing Really Usable Websites, Jared Spool

  Presented by Jared Spool

  Hyatt Regency

  Tuesday 29th January 2008, 9:00am to 5:00pm

  Description

  In this in-depth program, Jared M. Spool will share the results of years of research examining how the best sites navigate users to their content. In just one day, you’ll see the techniques behind successful designs including Lands’ End, A.G. Edwards, Staples.com, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, CNN.com, and the BBC.

  You’ll come away with the practical insights that will change your perspectives on web design forever. You will learn about:

  The “Scent of Information” A lack of scent in a site s design explains why users consistently fail to find their desired content. If you haven’t been designing your site to have good scent, everything you’re doing could be at great risk. You ll learn the key secrets for ensuring every page on your site has the scent it needs. The 5 Types of Navigation Pages on Web Sites The designers of the successful sites know the secrets to each type of page and use that to their advantage. They know that, as users traverse through a web site and encounter different types of pages, they need each type to fulfill its own special requirements. You ll learn the secret requirements for each type of page a user can encounter. 3 Ways to Predict Where Users Are Failing Our research has uncovered three primary indicators that you can use to pinpoint when users are having trouble achieving their desired goals. We ll show you how to spot these predictors and what you can do to eliminate them. UIE’s Usability Toolbox Jared will share the groundbreaking techniques User Interface Engineering’s top researchers leverage to uncover user needs, including 5-second usability tests, inherent value tests, surrogate tests, focus groups, surveys, web log analysis, and field studies. Best Techniques for Getting Teams Onboard Usability testing, field studies, and other techniques produce massive amounts of information that a design team needs to make the right decisions. UIE s research shows that many teams have tried style guides, templates, and design guidelines, but have rarely achieved their objective of creating uniform designs. You’ll learn the common failure points of these techniques and explore new techniques that are gaining good traction: design pattern libraries and personas.