New Adventures in 2011 Review

New Adventures in Web Design

For some reason, I didn’t book a ticket for New Adventures 2011 before they sold out. I was gutted – somehow I’d just completely forgotten to book a couple of tickets. A week or two later I remembered my failure, and made some silly comments on twitter about breaking into #naconf. Before I knew it, a rather lovely fellow found a ticket for me, and I am now able to write this informal little review of the very first New Adventures in Web Design conference, one of the most enjoyable conferences I’ve ever been to.

My focus will be on the conference content, not experience – plenty of people are writing about how the day went, but I’d like to look at the content and what you can take back from it. I’ll list the sessions, (try to) write about them individually  - whatever I remember (made no notes), and end with some general comments and constructive criticism about the conference.

The Sessions:

The New Language of Web Design – Dan Rubin

Dan Rubin spoke about the language we used in our industry. He discussed how important words as language are, and about how the vocabulary we use in web design has parts borrowed, inherited and accidentally coined. Dan set the tone for wanting to see a maturity happen in the industry – a theme that carried throughout the day, arising in most of the speaker topics. One major point made, is that we have many terms that cause confusion because we’ve borrowed them from other, or similar, industries. For example, the word Page, or the phrase ‘The Fold’. What does a page mean in web design? Can we begin to iterate over our language, and unify it to reduce confusion between agencies, clients and practitioners? Our industry is roughly 15 years old, and it is growing up.

Take back:

  • Refine our language by borrowing from similar (but different-in-kind) industries. For example, Responsive Architecture responds to it’s inhabitants. Responsive Web Design reacts to it’s users.
  • This was a massive opportunity to get a photo of Dan Rubin with some descriptive words above his head, but it was missed.

A New Canon – Mark Boulton

Admittedly, I wasn’t quite sure where Mark Boulton was going with his talk initially, but it gained pace – I think. I believe Mark Boulton has more material on this subject than he included in his presentation, but I got the gist of his message: In our age of varied viewing devices (sizes, nature, context) we need a way to fundamentally improve the connectedness of the viewer to the content (through design/grids). Mark kinda lost my attention with something he said, but I won’t get into that.

Take back:

  • Respond – Because humans have to offload ‘stuff’ to an external container other than our mind, we need things that respond, so we can complete tasks.
  • Connect – Ancient Egyptians used human-form-based units to build their structures – a natural connection made between man and structure. The New Canon should create connectedness on a fundamental level.
  • Bind – Bind the content to the device/platform/context, so the user is connected. In print, grids are based on the canvas, flowing inwards (to the content). In our digital age of screens and infinite ‘pages’ – we must design our grids from the content outwards.
  • The New Canon: 1) Design for content outwards. 2) Created connectedness. 3) Bind the information to the device. 4) Buy Mark Boulton’s book about it.

Crafting User Experiences – Sarah Parmenter

Sarah Parmenter was quite a change of scenery from the last two topics, she talked about the adaptive unconscious and designing experiences through emotional design (leading quite nicely into Jon Tan’s message later on). She went into a Malcolm Gladwell type discussion on when Coke changed their formula to react to Pepsi’s competition and realised the visual brand affected the taste etc. Sarah also talked about how she won lots of business by giving a load of businesses in one area a valentines day card, attached to balloons. The result was an inspiring display to open up shop to, and a load of new business for her.

Sarah also brought up a very good point about colour, and the differing cultural meanings (e.g. love, death, hate) – important if a worldwide audience is important for communication.

Take back:

  • Pretty slides.

With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility – Elliot Jay Stocks

Don’t over design everything. Why are you making that panel pop-out and using a hovering card metaphor? Elliot showed us loads of badly-designed stuff, and we all felt better about ourselves for it. He also had a moan.

Take back:

  • Don’t over-do ‘graphics’ in your designs
  • We used grids for horizontal flow, but what about vertical rhythm?
  • Go and read http://bit.ly/affordance_design
  • Go do some print design, and refresh yourself with the finality and natural boundaries of the medium
  • Elliot would make a great Minstrel

Language and the Lizard Brain – Jon Tan

I really enjoyed this one. Jon’s focus was about gut reaction to visual design and our resulting emotion. Many photographic examples were given – and Jon gave a background to his points by noting his discussion with a neuroscientist about immediate emotional reactions. How, physiologically, we change after emotively-inspiring visual stimuli. I’ll be honest, I can’t remember much more exact detail as I didn’t take any notes, but the major take back is below. His presentation perfectly fit his message, and Jon inspired many questions and discussions which carried through the day.

Take back:

  • We can use understanding of emotionally-reactive design, to improve the connection to our users greatly
  • “The best websites are the ones that look good at a glance but the closer you get, the better they get.”

Designing on Solid Foundations – Tim Van Damme

Tim gave some really helpful and practical advice in this session. He effectively covered the relationship of a designer to a client. Including advice on subjects like Projects, Yourself, Clients, and …something else I can’t remember (must find his slides). I found Tim’s sharing of experience quite encouraging, and the practicality of it was a nice break from the conceptual stream of the morning.

My take back:

  • “Clients are kids with money that need educating” (What a quote!)
  • Have a beer with, and get to know your clients – earn their trust.
  • After a project, write a Good / Bad list. If your ballsy enough, ask your client to make one. Every time you start a new project – review your lists

Art Direction & Editorial Design on the Web: Does it Work?

Yes.

Greg led us through some A/B testing of two sets of 50 users viewing regular (text-only, basic styles) content and Art Directed content. The content was a Jamie Oliver recipe, and an educational article about dinosaurs.

The conversation that Greg dipped into is one that inspired torrents of thought. It’s something not many people do (well), and yet the web is about communication. It has certainly inspired me greatly, and will no doubt influence my progression as a designer.

Take back:

  • The concept of designing content, is almost against the prevalent paradigm that content on the web is just dropping things into generic templates.
  • Art Directed content makes users consume information more efficiently, and keeps them interested
  • “Art Direction is about evoking the right emotion, it’s about creating connection to what you’re seeing and experiencing”
  • Triceratops are not real dinosaurs because they don’t eat meat.

Unraveling the Mysteries of Inspiration – Veerle Pieters

I’ve always wondered who Veerle is, and now I’ve seen her in person, I can understand a little better what influences her visual style. She loves experimentation, and especially colour – a focal point in this session. Veerle attempted (her words) to describe how one gains inspiration in her line of work, and led us through some of the processes she went through with specific pieces. There are some simple take back points here.

Take back:

  • Don’t focus too much on finding the answer. When you focus intently on solving a problem, the moment you stop is often when it comes to you.
  • Experiment – ideas lead on to other ideas, which lead on to solutions.

Once Upon a Time on the Web – Andy Clarke

The Bastard. Andy Clarke’s keynote cowboy-themed foray into the world of comic books completely and utterly engaged me. He really is excellent at what he does, but I almost hate him a little bit because he is so aware of this fact.

Andy did something quite different, rather than the usual detail about technology, Andy introduced the idea of story telling on the web, and pace through techniques used in comic books such as panel size contrast. The size of panels in comics indicates how much time you should spend reading it – this is an intuitive thing for a comic book reader to understand. In web design, we tend to give content just enough space.

Andy was definitely a highlight of the conference, it’s amazing that he can be so engaging and informative while actually saying very little. Andy opened an interesting discussion of pace, and how we visually infer meaning from design techniques.

Take back:

  • Detectives are so last year
  • Everyone should buy Hardboiled Web Design and every recommendation Andy’s ever made ;)
  • “Getting the reader to think can be a very good thing in the right context.”
  • That’s a nice suit

Produced for Use – Brendan Dawes

“I wish Brendan Dawes was my dad.”

You would resonate a little with this comment after seeing him in this session. Brendan was a fantastic session to end the day, he holds his own on-stage and inspires a feeling of excitement and experimentation. He also makes you piss yourself with laughter.

Brendan started by telling us how he’s having this big change in his life, where he’s trying to get rid of all the crap (mediocre, bad) in his life, and replacing it with good, wholesome things. I think the context is products, and things he uses – but I suspect there’s more to it.

Brendan Dawes is obsessed about pencils. He only uses one pencil – and I can’t remember the name of it.  In case you don’t know, he created the successful MoviePeg, and discussed the iterations he went through when designing it. He ended up on the first design he made.

Take back:

  • When designing something, think about it’s context
  • We have to be responsible for the things we make
  • Recycle your shit.

Why I think New Adventures 2011 was fantastic

Because Colly put his heart and soul into it. Thank you.

What other people said

  • #naconf had the best community feel of any conference since [@]media 2005. @Colly just set a new standard for everyone to meet. - @malarkey
  • #naconf restoring my faith in the industry after 5 hard years involved in a startup. [...] - @colbrewer
  • #naconf the friendliest conference I’ve ever had the pleasure of attending. Really hope @colly does it again next year. - @northerndesignr

What I loved

  • The detail – from the name tags to the sessions
  • The venue – an inspiring building to experience, the staff were very friendly
  • The community feel – as Andy Clarke rightly said, it’s had the best community feel in years
  • The versatility – Organisers and speakers reacted to the needs of the audience, cut slides out and shortened messages
  • Meeting people – though so many..
  • The after party – epic!
  • The New Adventures Newspaper – a beautiful item
  • The topics, themes, and streams of conversation that carried through the day – thought provoking and related
  • The Lunch – convenient, varied, and a good size
  • Value for money – great price

What I didn’t

  • The registration queue in the morning
  • The Q&A – it didn’t seem to work.People asked stupid (obvious) questions, and the flow of conversation didn’t seem quite right, though not sure why
  • The toilet queue wasn’t great, but it’s the most efficient toilet queue I’ve ever experienced in my life.
  • The upper seats

Summary

So there you have it. Great topics, great speakers, great value for money. I’ll be there next year, if I remember to buy a ticket!

If you’re thinking of going next year, connect with me on Twitter, or Lanyrd.


Review, Web Design

Leave a Reply