An Event Apart - FlashForward Conference Notes (Part 1)
(FIRST INSTALLMENT ) - I just came back from "Flash Forward (FF)" (end of September in Boston) and "An Event Apart (AEA)" (last week in San Francisco) Conferences. FF was mind-blowing, and using AEA's promotional copy --- it was "Not your father's web conference."
AEA is associated with "A List Apart" and their logo states that they are "For people who make websites." That is a simple explanation for what they manage to do as their speaker forum was well-prepared with a variety of agenda items.
For example, the following topics were covered in the two days:
To start with, while at FlashForward, I listened to John Maeda's ( MIT Media Lab ) Friday morning keynote address and I was bowled over by his ability to communicate complicated design in an entertaining way. He gave a funny and entertaining presentation about his personal history up to his current work at the MIT Media Lab. He then turned the stage over to four of his graduate students. I will just say that you should check out their website to see what they are doing. I think that they are having some trouble putting things up, but they say that: "E15 is an experimental architecture that places the power of presentation of web content into the hands of those that use it."
I know I will not do justice to the implications of their work and so check it out and be patient (http://e15.media.mit.edu).
There was other great information gathered during "FlashForward," which I will capture here, but I inadvertently left my notes in San Francisco (no, my notes not my heart), and so I will have to wait for the notes to catch up to me by snail mail.
But I do have my notes from AEA, and so here goes to the best of my ability:
It started off with Eric Meyer, CSS Jedi and author of many texts on the subject (meyerweb.com). He showed us how to best use CSS in displaying tabular data. This was very apropos for me as I had just seen a presentation the week before at the Boston Flash User Group (at The New England Institute of Art) on visual data (http://www.visual-io.com). I guess this is basically a confirmation of how important visual data is.
In addition to a hands on tutorial at efficiently using CSS to display tabular data, there was some good information that caused me to pause:
AEA is associated with "A List Apart" and their logo states that they are "For people who make websites." That is a simple explanation for what they manage to do as their speaker forum was well-prepared with a variety of agenda items.
For example, the following topics were covered in the two days:
- in-depth development/design advice using tabular data in CSS from Eric Meyer
- As well as current news about CSS and IE7
- developmental insights in controlling FORMS
- great information on design conceptualization
- writing considerations for the user interface
- the current status of web accessibility issues
- a great overview (and sage advice) on content strategy
- the "scent" of great content from Jared Spool
- designing to development scale from Doug Bowman of Google
- interface cosmetology from Jina Bolton (Apple Designer)
- enterprise standards
- and, finally a funny and engrossing Jeff Zeldman take on selling design
To start with, while at FlashForward, I listened to John Maeda's ( MIT Media Lab ) Friday morning keynote address and I was bowled over by his ability to communicate complicated design in an entertaining way. He gave a funny and entertaining presentation about his personal history up to his current work at the MIT Media Lab. He then turned the stage over to four of his graduate students. I will just say that you should check out their website to see what they are doing. I think that they are having some trouble putting things up, but they say that: "E15 is an experimental architecture that places the power of presentation of web content into the hands of those that use it."
I know I will not do justice to the implications of their work and so check it out and be patient (http://e15.media.mit.edu).
There was other great information gathered during "FlashForward," which I will capture here, but I inadvertently left my notes in San Francisco (no, my notes not my heart), and so I will have to wait for the notes to catch up to me by snail mail.
But I do have my notes from AEA, and so here goes to the best of my ability:
It started off with Eric Meyer, CSS Jedi and author of many texts on the subject (meyerweb.com). He showed us how to best use CSS in displaying tabular data. This was very apropos for me as I had just seen a presentation the week before at the Boston Flash User Group (at The New England Institute of Art) on visual data (http://www.visual-io.com). I guess this is basically a confirmation of how important visual data is.
In addition to a hands on tutorial at efficiently using CSS to display tabular data, there was some good information that caused me to pause:
- using percentages rather than pixels allows you to recalculate data within your tables effortlessly
- relative positioning rules
- got to start thinking about "speaking browser" capability
- Use a sketch book to archive ideas (no matter how bad an illustrator that you may be)
- Use you iPod / iPhoto to archive ideas that you might be able to scan from newspapers, magazines, journals, etc
- Loved his description of his work with Comhaltas (http://comhaltas.ie) --- not to mention that he got to go to Ireland and drink a pint or two --- does it get any better than that for work?
- He also works on "A List Apart" and AIGA websites, which I'd like my students to go to
- I loved his take on the "design process" and what to do about the "iterative agony" process --- it was great to hear what he had to stay and how he backed up what I often say and do in the classroom
- He does a variation of the 'wireframe' that he called 'grey comp' and I love that I can go back to my students and once again reiterate the importance of 'wireframes'
- Branding comment: "A brand is a person's gut feeling about a product, service or company." = Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap
- the importance of gridwork within the design process and how great The New York Times website speaks to that (Jina Bolton also confirmed this in her presentation --- notes to come)
- Gotta get some texts on gridwork and typography, particularly Ellen Lupton's text" "TYPE"
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