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Brian Warren,
Happy Cog
Most of us regularly carry at least one device that's capable of being used as a book reader, and wi...
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Most of us regularly carry at least one device that's capable of being used as a book reader, and with the iPad, Apple's iBooks Bookstore, the Kindle, Nook and more, digital books and magazines are finally starting to find their way.
This panel will discuss some of the methods of creating ebooks, including ePubs and books as apps, some of the pros and cons of these methods, and technical challenges behind them. eBooks have some serious untapped potential for web designers, and this talk will show how easy it is for designers and developers to learn and excel at making digital ebooks.
Expect examples of books that work well in digital form and those that don't, including discussion of how to make them work better, including overcoming challenges in typographic consistency and formatting.
Ebooks don't need to be just about simulating print. We will dig into transmedia, and the opportunities and hurdles that come with combining multiple forms of storytelling into a single experience.
Other design, ebooks, Front End Development
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Yes
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Jeffrey Zeldman,
Happy Cog
He brought us The Web Standards Project, A List Apart, Designing With Web Standards, A Book Apart, a...
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He brought us The Web Standards Project, A List Apart, Designing With Web Standards, A Book Apart, and so much more. Now legendary blogger, designer, and creative gadfly Jeffrey Zeldman brings us a SXSW panel. There will be discussion. There will be special guests. Quotable insights will fly faster than your fingers can peck them into Twitterific. Combustible wit will fill the room. And in the end, we'll all be a little wiser than we were.
Design Thinking CSS3, HTML5, unicorns
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Greg Storey,
Happy Cog Studios
Dateline: July 2010. Somehow we're supposed to know what's super relevant and interesting in March 2...
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Dateline: July 2010. Somehow we're supposed to know what's super relevant and interesting in March 2011, nine months from now. There's not a bong hit or goofball available that is going to provide that kind of Jedi clarity of the future.
So here's the pitch, this panel could be about anything:
* Responsive design
* iPad vs. Meth: America's Predicament
* Twitterwalla
* The Roaming Laser Bison heard of the Dakota
* Copyrights: what are those and do I have to live in Iceland to get them?
* Steve Jobs' new house made out of nothing but HTML 5
Who the hell knows? We certainly don't!
This is a grab bag folks, but here's where you can be assured your vote is well placed. Your hosts Greg Storey and Greg Hoy know how to put on a good show. You might know these fellas from such SXSW panels as "We F*cked Up: Happy Cog and Friends Exploring Failures Together" and SXSW parties like Happy Cog'aoke!
Be assured, this will be a fun and informative time for everyone involved. Vote now and everyone will receive:
* A confidence booster
* Wisdom from years of industry experience
* Recommendations for the best steaks to have while discussing business
* Educated tomfoolery
* Sage advice that you can take to your boss and not get fired
* Sarcasm galore
* Shares of BP stock* (*may not receive shares of BP stock)
Seats will be limited to what SXSW provides which could mean 100 to 1000. It's SXSW Grab Bag Panel Fun!
Self-Help / Self-Improvement crystalball, pancakes, tomorrowsfuture
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Greg Hoy,
Happy Cog
Business owners and managers are responsible for a lot of stuff that requires a lot of antacid to or...
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Business owners and managers are responsible for a lot of stuff that requires a lot of antacid to orchestrate. Getting work in the door, paying people, developing products and services, keeping clients happy, and, oh yeah - keeping everyone at work happy.
The happy part is always the hard part.
How do you go about fostering an environment that's fun, rewarding and fulfilling? Does company culture just 'happen', or is it something you have to consciously work at?
* What happens when your company starts growing, and that small group you were so tight with becomes bigger and less 'connected?'
* What does it mean when everyone starts going for drinks without you?
* What do you do when personalities or work styles start clashing, and the Utopian work ship you set to build starts listing?
* What can you do to keep things fun without making it seem 'fake?'
* If someone doesn't say 'good morning', could they be mad at you?
* What office policies are fair? Which ones are bogus?
* How can you ensure people don't dread Monday mornings?
* What are the top 10 things to watch out for that turn into corporate culture cancer?
We'll look at these and other aspects of maintaining a positive and rewarding work environment, with a laser focus on sharing candid real-world stories and solutions that can help make your work environment the best it can be.
Career / Work Concerns business, Culture
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Kevin Sharon,
Happy Cog
There is a long list of trendy web design gallery blogs, starting with Smashing Magazine and ending ...
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There is a long list of trendy web design gallery blogs, starting with Smashing Magazine and ending somewhere in Eastern Europe. What do these sites offer the design community? What are students of design taking away from this content (or 'nontent')?
Design trends often ride a fine line between appropriately enabling communication and pushing tired clichés. Are we offering enough context for designers to understand the usefulness of design trends and communication or are we just homogenizing 'solutions' that sell work to clients? Is anyone doing a better job at this? Are sharing sites like Zootool and Dribbble or curated blogs like Pattern Tap offering much-needed context along with their curatorial eye that’s missing from design blogs?
Let's explore a range of viewpoints to help promote the value of sharing and inspiration to the design community, as well as to help forge a path for blogs to promote ideas as well as style.
Interface / Interaction Design design, inspiration, Trends
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Robert Jolly,
Happy Cog
As interactive designers and developers, are we working ourselves to early graves? To put it mildly,...
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As interactive designers and developers, are we working ourselves to early graves? To put it mildly, our work is largely sedentary. This panel will explore some of the long-term health risks associated with our obsession with all things digital and too little time maintaining an active, healthy lifestyle.
Learn from your industry peers about the health problems they've experienced and how they've embraced a more active lifestyle—with and without the use of technology—to reap truly amazing personal and professional benefits.
Health fat, fitness, Health
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Russ Unger,
Happy Cog
Alternate Title:
Critical Thinking for UX Designers (or anyone, really)
Proposed Session Descrip...
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Alternate Title:
Critical Thinking for UX Designers (or anyone, really)
Proposed Session Description
Love creative problem solving, but need something more practical— something specific to User Experience? Russ and Stephen will share with you the exercises they use to solve the REAL problems.
You'll flex your critical thinking muscle through a series of jumpstarter activities. Even better, attendees will be encouraged to participate, if not embarrass themselves in front of a room full of their peers as they challenge themselves to see past the first, obvious—and often incorrect—answers, and start to flip problems on their heads to see solutions from a different view.
Session Takeaway
* Gain a better understanding of what critical thinking is, why it is important in the world of User Experience Design
* Identify ways to evaluate the visual and verbal messages in your work
* Spot artificial constraints to focus on the root problem(s).
* View problems from a different perspective and remove yourself as a consumer/user.
* Learn how reframing problems can lead to radically different solutions.
* Dissect problems to uncover solutions you may have previously overlooked.
User Experience Critical Thinking, design thinking, Problem Solving
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Jenn Lukas,
Happy Cog
This panel will take a look at some of the top front-end travesties on the web that make us develope...
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This panel will take a look at some of the top front-end travesties on the web that make us developers scratch our heads; from mistakes of HTML 5 implementations to browser text resize fail to why CSS frameworks are not the answer. We will explore these enemy practices and provide solutions to solve these issues , and more, without the help of either halves of the power sword. We will take a look at some of the heavy hitters on the web and take a look at what they are doing wrong from a front-end development point of view and then provide solutions to these commonly seen offenses. We will debate and determine some of the best new practices to take on for your development, while keeping web standards in mind. You will hear from each of the five of us on our "favorite" examples of misinformed development. All these examples will provide you, our fellow internet makers, with some good take home practices. As well explore a healthy, way to examine the internet and to question it, to keep pushing toward the best web we can make and keep coding standards high. We are all in this together!
Front-End Programming accessiblity, usability , web-standards
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Brett Harned,
Happy Cog
Whether it’s on the front lines or behind the scenes, Project Management is critical to every disc...
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Whether it’s on the front lines or behind the scenes, Project Management is critical to every discipline in web development projects. Keeping your internal project team and your clients happy while making sure that the project runs smoothly are not easy tasks, but you don’t have to be a robot to run a project! Simple humans can make sure a project is delivered on time and on budget.
This session will cover the basics on how to manage your project like a pro and keep your clients happy. A group of seasoned project managers will share their experiences (and horror stories) on projects they’ve worked on, and point to specific, useful methodologies that have helped them to gracefully manage large and small projects alike.
Other Communications, process, project management
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Kevin Hoffman,
Happy Cog
Your meetings are stale, remote, and awkward conversations. You know you rock, but not everyone in y...
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Your meetings are stale, remote, and awkward conversations. You know you rock, but not everyone in your meetings is rocking to the same tune. Sometimes you aren't even sure you are in the same rock band anymore.
After having one too many unproductive (and occasionally sleepy) meetings, Happy Cog reinvented it's approach to meeting design around interactive activities, informed conversation, and collaborative design exercises. Happy Cog’s Experience Director Kevin M. Hoffman will review the key ideas from the history of meeting design and good facilitiation, then explore approaches for meetings that have proven engaging and successful to Happy Cog clients.
This talk will cover business strategy and project definition activities, conflict resolution processes, big group/small group conversation management, simple research engagements, deliverable presentations, and finally, post mortems. Many expamples will be pulled from Happy Cog's meeting approaches for clients like ecommerce (Zappos, Groupon), tourism (VisitPhilly.com), higher education (Georgetown University, MICA), and museums (the National Holocaust Museum).
Design Thinking collaboration, Design Process, Meetings
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Joey Pfeifer,
Happy Cog
As many young designers take their first jobs in the industry, they're expected to work on projects ...
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As many young designers take their first jobs in the industry, they're expected to work on projects alongside experienced professionals who are often several years—if not decades—older than them. We'll discuss whether these significant age and generation gaps between coworkers make communication more difficult, more engaging, or both. We'll also explore the differences between those of us who grew up with the internet, and those of who have inherited it—and what the advantages and disadvantages are for both sides.
Each year, young designers are also faced with a common dilemma: is higher education worth the price during today's crappy economy? Can a young designer make it on just talent alone, or is college still expected from employers despite rising tuition costs?
Join us for a sure-to-be interesting discussion between a panel of industry veterans and industry newcomers alike. If anything, there's sure to be plenty of name calling between the elderly designers and the toddler designers in training.
Design Thinking age gap, education, generation gap
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Christopher Cashdollar,
Happy Cog
Changing public perception of a city is a tricky problem to solve. Philadelphia is the 5th largest c...
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Changing public perception of a city is a tricky problem to solve. Philadelphia is the 5th largest city in the United States yet most people can only describe it in a few choice words; “cheesesteaks,” “Rocky,” or “Independence Hall.” The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) understood the gravity of this issue. Their former site “gophila.org” was the official website tasked with providing visitors a way to plan and book a visit. In the winter of 2009, Happy Cog was hired by GPTMC to aid in changing the course of the Philly “brand.” The task was daunting; can a regional website be a memorable enough experience to change brand impression? This presentation will attempt to answer that by exposing the mix of design-related exercises, methods, and tactics that the Happy Cog design team employed to design "visitphilly.com." I will cover it all; the initial anti-Rocky inspiration, our early failed concepts, even the mind-numbing iterations involving a rather simple user-interface element. Attendees will learn from our mistakes... as well as borrow from our triumphs. Walking away, everyone will be able to answer the questions, "can a website change the perception of a city brand and can I bring this type of thinking into my work?
Design Thinking brand, process, web design
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