I was feeling a bit immature in some of the chat rooms at the conference this weekend, made some comments, but refrained from shouting, “I love head! Give me more head!” but boy did I want to. I lazily decided not to attend the hub in London on friday, but watched some sessions at work. I sat in my armchair all evening saturday night, take-away curry occasionally landing on my pyjamas as I tried to balance my plate and type at the same time. And then sunday, I watched some great sessions while making a dress. Yep, I made a dress on sunday WHILE I WAS AT A CONFERENCE. Does this not sound brilliant to anyone else?

I’m sure I missed some great sessions, but I wanted to share some tidbits of wisdom I learned from the various speakers I did see. So, read on, kids! (and at the end, I promised to show you a full length picture of my new dress).

Paul Arnett, designer for clearleft,

spoke about easter eggs. You know, those little treasures that some people find, and when they them, they are delighted. He was talking a lot about his work on Silverback, that when you resized the window, it would create a 3-d effect. Here are some links from his talk:

http://uxlondon.com/

http://demo.marcofolio.net/a_parallax_illusion_with_css/

http://webleeddesign.com/

Stephanie Booth

talked about her conference, going solo, suggesting that when you run things, it’s always best to have a partner on board, so that you only have to shoulder half the risk.

robert Hoekman

-asked us to understand users, then ignore them. For example, they asked people if there was a low carb burger, would they hypothetically buy it? Overwhelmingly, people said yes, but not in real life. In real life they didn’t sell any. Users don’t know themselves.

-He also said that people like to feel smart. A cluttered landing page make people feel stupid. Let them get started and productive as soon as possible, so that you become an intermediate user. Make transition from beginner to intermediate as quickly as possible. Make the design make it impossible to make a mistake.

He also stressed us to “Reduce reduce reduce!”

I asked him how to get management on board for reduction and reworking… he suggested:

1. do work under the radar. find tiny things you can do

2. track success to what you’ve done

3. then approach management, saying “here’s the things I’ve been doing and they’ve been really been making a difference”

4. build up a reputation based on these things and the next time you will have their trust to go ahead with it.

Besides Hoekan’s talk, my favourite was by

Paul Boag entitled, your design sucks.

The lecture on video can be found here. I just got so much out of it, I thought I’d write a summary. These ideas are in no way mine… I just like things written down….

He said that there’s something fundamentally wrong with the relationship between designer and client. In some cases you even give up– client ends up micromanage everything for the design, and it’s a terrible embarrassment.

Designers day of clients, “You’re not letting me do my job.”

Clients say of designers, “You always say no, you’re always so negative about my ideas.”

Relationship is broken.

So why is it broken?

1. There isn’t time.

Great design takes time, but spend so much time on technology, sales etc.

You need time to brief: laying the ground-work before you start designing: fundamental to getting client to agree to design concept, time to consider: let it go round and round in your head, and most importantly, time to refine: you often have to undercharge for that kind of work (because clients often don’t see the value).

2. You produce multiple concepts.

When you offer more than one design, it creates a pick and choose environment (ie. “I like that header, but I like the menu from the other one”). This creates a frankenstein and then you take on the role of a pixel pusher. We are more than that: we are experts, so take control!

3. You’re not confident in your role.

To be confident and create confidence, you need to set things up to inspire these feelings.

How do you do this?

1. Lay the groundwork…

a) present a methodology: You need an approach, which creates credibility. Setting expectations makes you an expert.

b) Get to know the business: What are the business objectives, success criteria, competitors, priorities, personas, user expectations?

c) set the mood: gets clients feeling involved. Ask them, “what kind of sites do you like?” Give them selection, and get their opinion on them and then create mood boards.

d) Present a design. Paul says that a good design doesn’t speak for itself, you need to explain, talk about motivation. He also suggests presenting a little and often, so the client vested in the design before they sign it off.

e) Avoid the homepage. Everyone starts with the homepage, but you should establish the style before you get to the homepage. Everyone has an opinion on the homepage, so ask for a priority, make a wireframe and get signoff on it before you start designing.

f) Never ever just email a design. You need to talk through your design, referencing background information, showing that you’re giving the client exactly what they asked for. Use 3rd party data whenever possible to back up and explain what you’ve done, and pre-empt common questions with responses.

My favourite example was that on white space… Asking them “which one do you like better, google or yahoo homepage?”, you will be told “google”.

h) Manage feedback. Control the client’s role: define it upfront: be problem-focused, not solution focused. They say, “I don’t want blue, I want pink” but you don’t know why they want it. Then get what the real problem is. Get them to focus on the business objectives. Stop worrying about the design esthetics (easier said than done!). Encourage them to be user focused… get them away from their personal preferences. In the end, limit that role, but make sure they have a valued contribution.

My worst habit is this one… I say, “What do you think?”, but this is the wrong question, because their personal impression doesn’t matter. Instead say, “How do you think your users will react?”

j) Committees. Design by committee sucks but it happens. So, try and present to all the stakeholders. He suggests that because certain individuals are always going to be troublemakers, and try and go talk to them individually, and get them on board. Always try and control the type of feedback you get and don’t allow them to meet in a group. A group will try and reach a compromise if they’re in a meeting room. This will lead to design on the fly (bad).

l) Record all the feedback you get from the client. Written record. Even over the phone, email them back confirming what they said.

m) Don’t ever say no to a client. But then tell them the consequences of the action and offer alternatives.

So yes, I learned a lot at the head conference, and I highly recommend people watching the recorded versions when they become available.

And here’s the dress!

(sorry, it’s from my iphone… will try and update it soon!)

In css, it’s

.keyContact li{

border-bottom: 1px solid #000;

}

.keyContact li:last-child{

border-bottom: none;

}

But this doesn’t work in IE7 or IE6. In this case, it makes a crappy double line thing, and looks shocking, so I can’t be a progressive enhancer. In my jsp, I’m not sure how many key contacts I’m going to have as it’s running through a loop. But for each item we determine their status:

<c:forEach items=”${contacts} var=”contact” varStatus=”status”>

<li class=”contact ${status.last ? ‘noBorder’: ”}>

Contact info

</li>

</c:if>

So this sets the variable so each time it goes through the loop, it knows which is the first, last etc. And when it determines that it is the last element, it will add the class “noBorder”, otherwise it will add nothing. FYI this is called a JSTL loop status. Hope that helps!

This is probably really REALLY obvious to other front-end coders, but I didn’t know how to do it. It’s a great way to save room on a design, but still label things clearly. So here it is….

<input onfocus=“this.value=”” type=“text” value=“sometext” />

So you can put an id or class on this as you normally would, but the words ’sometext’ will appear until someone clicks on the input box. If you want them to have to select and delete the text before they enter in their own text….

<input onfocus=“this.select()” type=“text” value=“sometext” />

Update: My good friend Andrew, of Pepsmedia, has informed me that this is a bit naughty, as I’m putting a javascript function on an actual html element. He suggests going to this link and using the jquery method.

http://docs.jquery.com/Events/focus#fn

Bonnie thinks we need heros. It’s true. But I was getting worried when all of my web design heros were men. I really didn’t think that there weren’t any girl heros to be had…

Lots of girls are fantastic graphic designers or illustrators, but that’s not enough for me. I’m talking about the whole package here, with extra emphasis on webdesign. So many of the girls’ sites I looked at had glimpses of genius, but when you’re looking for a hero, you want someone whose complete portfolio blows you away, and makes you wish you were a better person. And some lists, including this one from Just Creative Design, made me embarrassed that these women, although very talented, were not heros, especially not to us girl web designers, as some of their websites were unprofessional, badly designed, or just PLAIN plain (the exception being Marian Bantjes who is my typography hero… from both genders, but this is supposed to be about webdesign, so she’ll go on my “general hero list”).

I’m just beginning my web career… I need heros to look up to!

Here’s the attributes I was looking for in my heros.

1. Every piece was polished

A lot of people have one nice piece, or others had a beautiful personal site, but their portfolio was mediocre. She needs to inspire awe with every piece of work she has done.

2. They have their own website portfolio

I know some girls that have designed a site I really like (perhaps being the art director), but they don’t have their own portfolio, so how can I be sure of their greatness? I don’t want to be disappointed

3. They create something awe-inspiring

I know how to make mediocre stuff already. There is a lot of good stuff out there, but the stuff that inspires needs to achieve a whole new level.

4. Made me wish that I had done it.

If it doesn’t make me feel inferior, if it doesn’t make me feel like I have no talent at all, it can’t be from my hero. Design heros are there to smash your self-confidence. Period.

5. I didn’t just pick them because they’re a girl.

There’s a debate on whether it matters if a designer is a girl or a guy. For my list, I wanted my choices to be so good that it could be a list of just “web design heros”, not just because they’re girls. Does it matter? Maybe it shouldn’t, but I just haven’t seen that many girls around, and I really want to relate to other women designers. I’m sorry, but girls and guys ARE different, even if I don’t agree that one sex is more capable than the other.

So here they are in my personal order…

5. Alyssa Tucker

Alyssa impressed me because she’s a clean coder (her homepage validates) but she’s also a beautiful, clean, simple web designer, who puts playful details into her work. She’s young (only 23!) but when someone’s got talent,you just feel it. Her turkeywithsound project shows how well she combines her great design with her funky personality.

4. Susan Kare

Susan Kare should be well-known everywhere as a designer. She’s not a webdesigner, but I don’t care, because she’s a hero. She’s the original producer of the apple icons, and she basically revolutionalized the look of the computer back in the day. Her personal site is clean and simple too.

3. Eva-lotta Lamm

Go to Eva-lotta’s homepage. Refresh it a few times. Be thrilled. Seriously.

She’s got one error (her ampersand wasn’t coded out), but I can forgive her for that, because she’s not only an incredible illustrator, she also makes games and loves to learn new things. Currently working at Yahoo, she works on animations and other cool projects in her spare time. Oh, and it looks like she’s a bit of a grammar nerd (Yay!).

2. Veerle Pieters

Veerle is a lot of people’s hero. Her blog is beautifully designed. Her site validates. She writes great posts. And, of course, she’s a fantastic artist. No contest on this fine lady being on my list!

1. Esti Landa

I found Esti’s design when I heard about She Says, an organization encouraging women to enter into multimedia. I don’t even think I need to say anything about her design. Go look at it. Look at her portfolio, and you will drool. Even though her portfolio page doesn’t validate, I don’t care (it’s not broken, the styles are just put at the top, but she’s obviously not a coder), she deserves to be number one hero on my list!

Is there any girls you think I’ve missed? Let me know!

Coming soon: top 5 favourite male designer heros…

p.s. this is my article submission this contest on designer-daily.com.  Hopefully I will win a copy of David Carson’s new book!

Let’s face it. If you’re a regular developer or web designer, your day job isn’t going to allow you to put all those cool things you keep reading about into practice, are they? A lot of people suffer from the old problem that they do something cool, only to have it thrown into the garbage. My work isn’t bad actually– they want to put some cool stuff in, but let’s face it… I’m never going to have complete freedom. And neither are you, most likely.

So I suggest you start your own project. If you have such good ideas, stop your whining and SHOW people.
I got tired of whining, so here’s a little sneak-peak at the project Ollie and I are working on right now. It’s all about getting and sharing ideas. It got me thinking about working on your own projects… So I made a list of 10 tips to working on your own mini dev projects.

1. Make sure it’s original

There’s nothing worse than doing something that has been done many times successfully already (especially if they have a team of people working full time that have done a better job than you). Try and think of something really new, or at least approach a known solution in a new fresh approach. You want people to get excited about it and talk about it!

2. Make sure it solves a problem that exists.

Besides unoriginal apps, second worst sin is a useless app. Well, maybe not nothing worse, but if there is no point to what you’ve built, why are you doing it? Always ask yourself, “How does this make anyone’s life better/ more exciting/ easier etc?” If you have to say, “It doesn’t”, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. If it solves a problem, ask yourself, “Does it solve a problem that needs solving?” If people don’t care about it, and won’t use it, then you’re lost.

3. If it takes you more than 1 minute to explain your idea to someone, then it’s too complicated.

Sure, it can take more than a minute to explain the details on how it works, but with the idea, it should be simple. The shorter amount of time to explain it, the better. Ollie and I can explain it in 10 words.

“It’s about giving people interesting things to do.”

Okay, that’s only 8, and it’s a concept that hasn’t been done in the same way that we’re doing it… at least not that I can find. (If someone has seen something like our app around somewhere, please send me a link! I’d love to see how other people are doing it.)

4. Do your research.

Maybe you think you have a brilliant idea. Maybe you do. But there are so many ideas out there that can help you make your app absolutely STUNNING. This means going around and seeing all the cool things that are out there. Don’t plagarise, but do get inspiration from people that have done something similar. Besides seeing things you like, you can also learn about potential mistakes you could make.

5. Plan Plan Plan (on paper).

You probably hate the planning stages of work projects. This is different, don’t worry. You won’t have to deal with people who don’t have a clue what you’re talking about (because you’re talking to yourself), but don’t think that because it’s a brilliant concept in your head that you don’t have to write anything down. As you write down your plans or make your wireframes (even just roughly is okay), you find the gaps in your thinking process, and you nail down a tighter app.

6. Talk it through with someone who isn’t in the industry.

Don’t underestimate the value of talking to someone. Try to explain how your app works to someone who can use computers but doesn’t develop on them. You’ll quickly find out if your app is too complicated for the real world, and it will help you think about the messaging you have on your site.

7. Language matters.

Not only is it important to choose which language you develop in (we’re using ruby), it’s also important to think carefully about the language on your site. First time users will get frustrated with your site if it’s riddled with grammatical mistakes and incoherent sentences. Not a good writer? Get a good friend or family member to edit your material, and make sure it makes sense. Nothing makes you look worse (and slightly incompetent) than grammar and spelling mistakes on your beautiful polished app.

8. Develop within your capabilities.

We all have ideas that would be great, if only I had a physics professor and an olympic pole vaulter involved. Make sure it’s within your grasp. Yes, challenge yourself, but if you can barely grasp html, you shouldn’t be trying to build the new facebook.

9. Make sure your work doesn’t feel threatened.

Does your app do ANYTHING the same thing as your work? If it does, and you don’t plan on handing it over to them, prepare for them to be very very nervous. And probably start looking for a new job. Make sure that you don’t work on your app during work hours, and that you still get all your work done. It’s all good and well being secretive about it, but in the web world nothing stays secret for long, so make sure you approach your work carefully. If you think they will be angry, best to talk with them about it and reassure their fears. If they start talking about owning rights to your intellectual property and that you’re not allowed to work on other things outside work, I think it’s time to find a new job in anycase. You don’t want to have your “baby” stolen after all your hard work is finished!

10. Stop procrastinating and get it out there!

If you have good ideas, you’re going to have to give up those three hours of CSI followed by two hours of Mario Kart if you want to get it out any time soon. Bootstrapping takes longer, but all those evenings and weekends mean that you have made something awesome.

Besides making a kick-ass app, you’ll learn a lot, and your work will see loads of benefits from you, including a renewed sense of enthusiasm, an upgrade in your skills (working on my own projects has made me a MUCH better designer, which has made me a better designer at work), and the benefit of learning new technologies.

If you want to sign up for when my app comes out, go to theboxcat.com, and sign up. We’ll send you an email when it comes out! Ollie and I very excited about it!! Remember, your project should be fun, and the more excited you are about it, the more excited other people will be too.

I sent a little safetygoat to Joy, a prize winner from my bview “take the cake” competition I’m running at work, and boy did he get up to some mischief! She sent me some photos of his shenanigans and I thought I’d share them with you.

P.S. if you happen to see a safetygoat around causing trouble, take a picture and send it over to me!

Moving in can be stressful, but safetygoat is loving his new home!

What shall I have for breakfast, safetygoat wonders….

MMMMMMMMM! DELISH!

Cleans up before….

Heading out on the town!

I was introduced to Final fantasy (aka Owen Pallett) probably 3 1/2 years ago, but I didn’t really get into it until the last year. The song, “This lamb sells condos” has an incredible piano line, and I’ve spent a few hours trying to figure it out. Thank you last.fm and their great community I got a copy of the sheet music…

Here is is.

(Thanks to turnaroundfool on last.fm for giving this to me!)

I think he is my favourite artist right now….

Top 5 favourite albums right now…

1. He Poos Clouds by final Fantasy - amazing violin and piano, favourite song is This Lamb Sells Condos

2. At Mount Zoomer by Wolf Parade - Driving tunes, favourite song is Kissing the Beehive, followed closely by Language City

3. Heart Attack by Woodhands - great electro band from Toronto… favourite song: Dancer

4. Tromp- L’Oeil by Malajube - cool french Canadian band… favourite song is Le Crabe

5. Good News for People who Love Bad News by Modest mouse - Loved these guys for years, and Float On will probably be one of my favourites FOREVER!

The very nice people at carsonified are putting on a competition to win a golden ticket to one of their events. Of course, the goat would love to go to their events, not only because it would mean hanging out with nerds, but also because I probably wouldn’t get to go otherwise.

*sniff*

I’d appreciate all your help in getting me there… all you have to do is comment on this post… I need 25 to enter. If you could include a haiku about goats, I would be sooo excited!

Here’s my haiku:

I need your comments
To become a golden goat
Give me some sweet love

Sorry, that was terrible.

They have arrested the whole herd. Charged with what? Being illegally sold. Those goats are tricky.

To read the whole story, go here.

But those spuds were no match for the safety skills! Woot!