There is a recurring tendency among many web designers, developers, and agencies to get stuck in the occasional rut, become stagnant, and sometimes even lose perspective about the evolution and direction of web design today.
We believe it is absolutely fundamental to dedicate time to listening to the great visionaries of your chosen field who can help you see things from a different, innovative, and enriching viewpoint. These forward thinkers can help you attack projects with a renewed determination and encourage you to step out of your comfort zone - dive in head first to an unfamiliar sector, or experiment with the latest technology or programing language!
We have hand-picked 15 videos of the most important creative thinkers for today’s article which features the likes of Jeffrey Zeldman, Ethan Marcotte, Simon Collison, Shelly Bowen, or Bruce Lawson. We hope they can inspire you and give you a clutter-free vision of the current state of all-things web.
Content First by Jeffrey Zeldman - An Event Apart Boston: The rules of design engagement are changing. You may no longer be in control of the user’s visual experience. Learn the number one job of every web designer, how to persuade clients and bosses not to subject users to dark patterns, why the days of “Best Viewed With…” are finally behind us, and how a mobile (or small screen) strategy can help you improve your content, rethink your web experience, and put the user first.
Ethan Marcotte - The Map Is Not The Territory - Build Conference: When we create for the web, we participate in a kind of public art. We code, we design, we build for an audience, and our work feels successful when—if—it’s met with their delight. We shape digital experiences that provide a service, or that create joy, or that simply connect readers with words written half a world away. But in this session we?ll instead look at some ways in which our audience reshapes the way we think about our medium, and see where they might be leading us—and the web—next.
The Curious Properties of Intuitive Web Pages by Jared M. Spool - An Event Apart Boston: When a web page works, your users know exactly what to do. Everything makes sense, and they accomplish their goal, pleased with your site. Yet, often pages don’t work, and users get flustered and confused. It turns out that intuitive web pages abide by a set of curiously unintuitive properties. Watch Jared explain how to merge interaction design, visual design, information architecture, and other skills together to assemble web experiences that delight your users.
Simon Collison — Crafting the Progressive Web // Ready to Inspire'12: For many of us, the work we most value is imbued with a sense of craft, honesty, and purpose. We're at our best when responses are instinctive, not bound by rigid tools or inflexible methodologies. Craftsmanship makes our work more meaningful to us, and more valuable to those who commission or consume it.
Shelly Bowen — How Content Strategy Makes Design Shine // Ready to Inspire'12 A cohesive, effective design depends on all the parts in play ... including content. But content is often left until last, isn't well thought-out or well crafted, and then may even compromise the integrity of the design and the business. Shelly Bowen will share 5 simple steps to integrate content strategy into your process to ensure all the parts stick together nicely (and your business goals are achieved).
RDO - Bruce Lawson: Bruce Lawson is a married, 40-something year old English graduate and web developer. He has lived in Turkey, Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Russia, but now lives in Birmingham, UK. Bruce works for Opera as an evangelist of Open web standards, based on his firm belief that the web is a revolutionary communication mechanism and should be available to all
Karen McGrane: Adapting Ourselves to Adaptive Content - An Event Apart: For years, we’ve been telling designers: the web is not print. You can’t have pixel-perfect layouts. You can’t determine how your site will look in every browser, on every platform, on every device. We taught designers to cede control, think in systems, embrace web standards. So why are we still letting content authors plan for where their content will “live” on a web page? Why do we give in when they demand a WYSIWYG text editor that works “just like Microsoft Word”? Worst of all, why do we waste time and money creating and recreating content instead of planning for content reuse? What worked for the desktop web simply won’t work for mobile. As our design and development processes evolve, our content workflow has to keep up. Learn how to adapt to creating more flexible content.
Jason Santa Maria - On Web Typography - Build Conference Achieving a thorough grasp of typography can take a lifetime, but moving beyond the basics is within your reach right now. In this talk, we’ll learn how to look at typefaces with a discerning eye, different approaches to typographic planning, how typography impacts the act of reading, and how to choose and combine appropriate typefaces from an aesthetic and technical point of view. Through an understanding of our design tools and how they relate to the web as a medium, we can empower ourselves to use type in meaningful and powerful ways.
Tim Brown — Universal Typography // Ready to Inspire'12The web is universal, so we should practice a typography that is equally universal. By focusing on traditional typographic principles, embracing progressive enhancement, and understanding how fonts, CSS, web-enabled devices, and user contexts coexist, we can reevaluate what it means to successfully set type — and inform the decisions we make about typefaces, font sizes, and white space. Let's practice future-friendly, responsive typography.
Brad Frost — Death to Bullshit // Ready to Inspire'12More information exists now than ever before. 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. 10% of all photos ever taken were taken last year. 700,000 apps in the App Store. The list goes on. We're being inundated with more information than ever, but there's still only 24 hours in a day. With more stuff out there, people are forced to focus on what truly matters to them, and their tolerance of unnecessary noise is rapidly diminishing.
Tiffani Jones Brown - True Story - Build ConferenceWe are all storytellers. Everything we create—from opinionated tweets to designed products—says something about who we are. At their best, these stories help us relate and call us to great acts. At their worst, they reduce us to absolutes like “Top 10 ways to win” or “Here’s how to fail” when the truth is rarely so clear-cut.
Mandy Brown - The Cut - Build ConferenceTo edit is to cut: to remove, to shear away, to crumple up on the floor. We edit so that the message can get through, so that what we say is clear. It’s a necessary skill no matter the medium in which we work. Whether editing words or film or designs, a good edit requires the right combination of timing, compassion, and ruthlessness.
Luke Wroblewski – Mobile To The FutureWhen something new comes along, it’s common for us to react with what we already know. Radio programming on TV, print design on web pages, and now web page design on mobile devices. But every medium ultimately needs unique thinking and design to reach its true potential. Through an in-depth look at several common web interactions, Luke outlines how to adapt existing desktop design solutions for mobile devices and how to use mobile to expand what’s possible across all devices.