My take on Webstock 09

Webstock is one of those conferences where it takes you days and sometimes weeks to mentally process all of the information. There’s so many little gems of information and factoids each of the speakers passed to the audience, and the discussions around the coffee machine always give you something to ponder.

I thought I’d try and distill down some of the major points while its still relatively fresh in my mind.

My top 10

As a web designer / developer I will:

1. Look at what’s not popular about my website and ask why, plan for and predict how users will use my site and participate by eating my own cat food.
2. Not get mad with “trolls” I’ll just ask them “Dude are you having a bad day?”
3. Rethink where the heavy computational stuff on my site happens, the client is king, and there are already some cool toys you can use, without waiting for HTML 5
4. Make a mashup. Take something and make it better. Find some data, combine it with something else and open it up to a completely new use or audience.
5. Embrace the chaos, “pink bits, happy endings and all”, own my failures, make lemonade, have colouring contests and cut circles out of paper so people can put their boobs through — the visual image of this being translated into sign language is just too strong.
6. Not apologise for being a geek and protecting myself by creating my own zen space geek cave, or for playing in the spaces I’ve already created, and having a talking frog.
7. Stand on the shoulders of giants and work on the size of my foo, and take time to reassess my thoughts on accessibility.
8. Continue to remind people that copy makes all the difference, and one type or level of detail is not enough, there’s at least 3 different types of users and 3 different levels of detail.
9. Recognise the genius of the people around me, and publicly acknowledge it,  starting a presentation with “I am sooo f*cked” might not be the right approach, funny as sh*t though…
10. Sign up to Damian Conway’s hippocratic oath for web developers, and ask the people on my team to do the same.

Damien Conway @ Webstock 09

First of all – do no harm

Damien recommends 5 Hippocratic guidelines for web designers:

1. Help them find you
2. Help them find it
3. Help them read it
4. Help them understand it
5. Help them buy it (or help them do something)

Webstock progress report

My brain is melting

Tom Coates @ Webstock 09

I am so f*cked!

Tom’s comment after following Matt Jones and being ahead of Bruce Sterling. It got everyone’s attention.

Tom says there’s a big future in helping people capture, manage and share their information. Personal infomatics.

Matt Jones @ Webstock 09

Environments that react, adapt and respond to us – and perhaps more importantly – each other:

The Demon-Haunted World

Joshua Porter @ Webstock 09

Designing for sign-up

Signup is just part of the overall lifecyle of how people use your software or website. The spectrum ranges from unaware users right throught o passionate users.

Getting “interested users” to become signed up “first time users” is hard.

If you get 8% of first time visitors signing up for a free account you are doing well. Only 1% will pay for an account.

Annalee Newitz @ Webstock 09

You are dreaming.

Its a good thing though. Sci-fi or “out-there” thinking can lead to work in a lab context which eventually feeds in to yoru business. Then the cycle goes around again.

Sci-fi ideas inspire lab experiments, challenge people’s perceptions about what’s possible.

Derek Featherstone @ Webstock 09

Derek’s topic is Madame Butterfly.

Hmmmmm

Intrigued.

Derek reminds us that accessibility is more than technical coding. Its about the entire user experience. Including channels other than the web.

Russell Brown @ Webstock 09

s92A Copyright legislation is not right – yet

“The law is vague. The code is not ready. Its not fair to bring s92a into effect.”

People still dont understand what the impact of s92A will be, and the potential it has to undermine principles of law.

Oh and TV is not the web. So many players in the industry still think it is.

It was around about here that Russell lost me. I’m not quite sure just what point he is trying to make.

Something about old templates, dancing in a station, bad relationships with global content companies like Google, and copyright lawyers who just don’t get it.

Oh now its zombies. Im still lost. Bad explosions. A black cat.

“Hello kitty. Nice kitty.”

Apparently, eventually TV will be more like the web. Ahhhhh finally understand what Russ was trying to say. I think.

I was at Webstock 09

Here’s me

Webstock 09 audience