WebVisions 2012 in review: Part three
Friday, May 18, 2012
This is a continuation of WebVisions 2012 in review: Part two.
On Wednesday through Friday, May 16-18, I attended the WebVisions 2012 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Below is a quick overview of all sessions I attended on Friday, with links. See Twitter updates using #wvpdx.
The CSS of Design Storytelling: Context, Spine and Structure – Traci Lepore
(9:15 am to 10:00 am | session details)
Storytelling is an age-old tradition, because it’s one that just plainly and simply works. As the book Storytelling for User Experience by Quesenbery and Brooks says “We all tell stories. It’s one of the most natural ways to share information, as old as the human race.”
But to be a really good storyteller, you need to understand three basic concepts: Context, Spine, and Structure (CSS). Each is critical and necessary, and all three need to work together.
In this session I will walk through these concepts and how to understand and implement them in your user experience design work to ensure a good story that covers all of the components of CSS—Context, Spine, and Structure—and is compelling, engaging, and memorable.
- Twitter: @TraciUXD
- Slides: slideshare.net/treygd/css-design-storytelling
- Storytelling tenets: Context, Spine, Structure
- Context (Theme, Mood, Audience): setting, theme/message, the big picture, emotional aspects
- Spine (Plot, Characters, Climaxes): basic storyline(s) that runs throughout plot and characters
- Structure (Patterns, Infrastructure, Through-line): progressions of the story
- Stories are a great way to help people learn by engaging their emotions
- Book: Storytelling for User Experience
- The role of storytelling in UX design is to be the bridge: managing the pieces to communicate a compelling and engaging story
- In UX design, the plot must cover the goals and scenarios
- Source for a lot of the content: “Improving Web Site Usability and Appeal” by Kevin Keeker
Casting Off Our Desktop Shackles – Jason Grigsby
(10:15 am to 11:00 am | session details)
No matter how much we try to put ourselves into a mobile first mentality, it is hard for us to do so fully. Our access to PCs prevents us from experiencing mobile the way many in the world do.
We’re currently fighting for parity among experiences. We’re arguing that the mobile version shouldn’t be a dumbed down version of the desktop site.
Posted on May 18, 2012
| Length: 375 words
Filed under: design, oregon, programming, software, technology, web
Email me: spiralnotepad
iancavalier
com |
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WebVisions 2012 in review: Part two
Thursday, May 17, 2012
This is a continuation of WebVisions 2012 in review: Part one.
On Wednesday through Friday, May 16-18, I attended the WebVisions 2012 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Below is a quick overview of all sessions I attended on Thursday, with links. See Twitter updates using #wvpdx.
Correspondent from the Future – Baratunde Thurston of The Onion
(9:15 am to 10:00 am | session details)
In this technology and future-oriented talk, Baratunde, host of Popular Science’s Future Of on Science Channel, goes behind the scenes of his television show as well as his digital strategy work at The Onion and other companies to give a deeper analysis of the issues raised in his exploration of the future. From self-driving cars to creepy Japanese robots to a real, functioning orgasmatron, Baratunde will share anecdotes, images and a thoughtful, provocative and humorous analysis of what the future might hold.
- Twitter: @baratunde
- Book: How To Be Black
- Projects on Twitter: @jjpolitics, @FutureOf, @TheOnion
- CultivatedWit.com organization
How to Not Be a JavaScript Hack – Phillip Kerman
(10:15 am to 11:00 am | session details)
The good news is browsers have seen phenomenal performance gains in their ability to render JavaScript. But the demand for sophisticated applications has also grown. Match this with the fact mobile devices are inherently slow and you will quickly see why streamlined code is important. Not only do developers need to squeeze every drop of JavaScript performance possible, but more importantly, they need to avoid pitfalls that can cause applications to come to a screeching halt and crash.
Posted on May 17, 2012
| Length: 254 words
Filed under: design, movies, oregon, programming, software, technology, web
Email me: spiralnotepadiancavaliercom |
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WebVisions 2012 in review: Part one
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
On Wednesday through Friday, May 16-18, I am attending the WebVisions 2012 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Below is a quick overview of the workshops I attended on Wednesday, with links.
(Also see my reviews from previous WebVisions conferences: 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.)
Building HTML5 Games – Alex Porter, Andrew Cooper, Nathan Bingham
(8:30 am to 12:00 pm | session details)
HTML 5 Gaming is rapidly evolving and there has never been a better time to give it a try. This workshop focuses on using Impact JS and other libraries and tools to create amazing games in the browser without any plugins. We’ll be taking advantage of the HTML5 Canvas, JavaScript, and modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, FireFox, IE 9+) to deliver fast, fluid games directly in the browser.
We’ll be covering the basics of building an HTML5 game from the ground up, as well as touching on some more advanced topics to inspire developers to push HTML5 gaming to its limits.
Posted on May 16, 2012
| Length: 158 words
Filed under: design, oregon, programming, software, technology, web
Email me: spiralnotepadiancavaliercom |
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33 days in Peru
Monday, January 9, 2012
Last week I returned home after spending over a month in Peru. My girlfriend and I flew from Portland, Oregon to Lima, Peru on December 4, 2011. We returned on January 6, 2012 (one day later than intended due to rain in the desert town of Arequipa).
We had an amazing trip to South America, but it is so nice to be home again. A few small luxuries I missed while in Peru for 33 days: safe drinking water, reliable hot water, toilet seats, being able to flush toilet paper. Two of my new favorite fruits are granadillas (gelatinous, pulpy passionfruit) and shimbillo (sweet seed pod fruit). I kind of wish I could live in Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu town), which has natural thermal baths and serves as the gateway to the famous Inca ruins of Machu Picchu.
Lima, the capital and largest city, is the hub of travel to anywhere in Peru, so we were there on four separate occasions. We spent the weirdest Christmas ever in the dirty jungle city of Pucallpa (including a breathtaking 360 degrees of fireworks at midnight on Christmas Eve). We spent New Year’s Eve in Lima (including dinner in Barranco in a 1909 train car with stained glass cathedral windows and wood paneling, and dangerous seaside fireworks in Miraflores).
I have almost 3,000 photos to sort through. My girlfriend is already posting her photos to Flickr, but it may take me forever to do the same. Back in Oregon, our cats definitely gained weight while we were in Peru. Even Tanuki looks chubby now. Emotional eating? Or sheer laziness plus unlimited food? Reminds me of this classic A Softer World comic.
Posted on January 9, 2012
| Length: 271 words
Filed under: animals, art, cartoons, food, music, oregon, photography, plants, travel, video
Email me: spiralnotepadiancavaliercom |
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A war on Saturn’s return?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
About two weeks ago, my girlfriend was playing with a Saturn return calculator and contemplating the impact of celestial bodies, specifically Saturn, on her life. A Saturnian year takes roughly 30 Earth years. In astrology, the Saturn return is an alleged phenomenon that influences a person’s life development at around 29-year intervals.
A magic realism tangent
Because of my current state of mind, the idea of Saturn’s return makes me think about the (unrelated) war on Saturn that takes places in the amazing, surreal The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia, which I am currently reading. People hide under the lead shells of mechanical tortoises to evade Saturn’s voyeuristic gaze!
For more fantastic works of magic realism, see the likes of Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Haruki Murakami and Aimee Bender (specifically the books above). I had the privilege of meeting Aimee Bender on November 11 (yes, on 11/11/11) on the Oregon State University campus as part of the 2011-12 OSU Visiting Writers Series. She read a chapter from her new book The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (which I love) and a fantastic short story about prosopagnosia (i.e., face illiteracy or face blindness) called Faces. Magic realism is currently my favorite genre of fiction. Note to self: remember to read more absurdity from Richard Brautigan.
Back to Saturn’s return
The Saturn return calculator revealed that my girlfriend’s Saturn return started on Halloween 2011 and it doesn’t end until July 2012. She deemed this a disturbingly long duration and shook her fist at Saturn for cursing her to suffer its trajectory-altering, life-changing transformations for longer than most. I’ve since learned that Saturn returns usually last about a month.
Being curious, I entered my birthday into the calculator and found that my first Saturn return was of normal length (one month), during which I bought my house and took a two-week trip to Hawai’i. Both of these events had great significance to me. Intrigued, I looked at other notable positions of Saturn throughout my life and immediately noticed a clear theme emerging: transformational travel.
Posted on November 20, 2011
| Length: 343 words
Filed under: art, books, family, oregon, web
Email me: spiralnotepadiancavaliercom |
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Magical books I read in October 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
If I look back and think about the most memorable, inspiring pieces of literature I consumed last month, four books clearly come to mind. Each one explores parallel realities (or supernatural realms) and the magical creatures and animals that inhabit these universes. Naturally, three of the books were written for children.
The first two are out-of-print children’s books written in the 1970s by American author Tomie de Paola. I tracked down copies of these short stories after my dad visited Oregon in September and helped me remember a few books he used to read to my sister and me. When Everyone Was Fast Asleep (1976) and the more obscure Songs of the Fog Maiden (1979) both feature the magical, singing Fog Maiden and her blue cat Token. These two characters visit the children of Earth at night and bring them enchanting, fantastical experiences:
When everyone was fast asleep, the Fog Maiden sent Token to wake us up. And we slid through the curtains into the night. We floated across the grass, dancing on the dew, and met the elf horse. We all sang, “Tra la, tra la, too lay, too lay, hop-a-doodle, hip-a-doodle, flip-a-doodle day.” Down the road we went, counting moons until we came to the troll house, but we were not afraid. We ate hot buttered bread and drank warm milk with honey, and dressed for the ball at the palace. The crocodiles danced a quadrille and the peacocks waltzed with doves and we all sang, “Tra la, tra la, too lay, too lay, hop-a-doodle, hip-a-doodle, flip-a-doodle day.” When the king and queen arrived, the play began. The lion roared while the gypsy slept, and the princess was saved by the sand serpent. The night was over and the Fog Maiden came to cover everything with her dress. She picked us up and floated over the trees to our very own window, where she tucked us into our beds and kissed us asleep.
Now if that isn’t an alien abduction story, I don’t know what is. You miss some context without the illustrations, but the premise of When Everyone Was Fast Asleep is that a large-eyed animal (or therianthrope) peers into your bedroom window at night and whisks you away to an alternate, overwhelming realm of anthropomorphic entities.
(Note: I have illustrated the Fog Maiden and Token the Cat as 8-bit characters for Mascot Mashup, my daily pixel art project; they are scheduled to appear on November 10 and 11.)
Posted on November 1, 2011
| Length: 409 words
Filed under: animals, art, books, cartoons, family, food, music, nostalgia, oregon, web
Email me: spiralnotepadiancavaliercom |
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