WebVisions 2010 in review: Part two

Thursday, May 20, 2010

This is a continuation of WebVisions 2010 in review: Part one.

WebVisions 2010 On Wednesday through Friday, May 19-21, I attended the WebVisions 2010 conference at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Below is a quick overview of all five sessions I attended on Thursday, with links. Many of the slides from these sessions and others are available at SlideShare. See Twitter updates using #wv2010.

Thinking the Unthinkable: How To Spark Disruptive Innovation Speaker – Luke Williams (frog design)
(9:00 am to 10:15 am | session details)

  • The iPod design references cleanliness (bathrooms).
    • iPod: clean design
    • iPad: smoothness
  • This presentation:
    1. Bob Dylan songs
    2. Disruptive Innovation
    3. The Expectation Gap
  • “I want Bob Dylan songs.” – Steve Jobs said about what he wanted for computer design. Bob Dylan was continually innovating and creating counter-cultural approaches.
  • Book: How the Weak Win Wars
  • When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win. Choose an unconditional strategy. Disruptive thinkers.
  • Need beginner’s luck (a fresh perspective), so you don’t become trapped by your expertise.
  • Pattern switching: Remixed The Shining trailer.
  • Humor and creativity in the brain work in the same way. A punchline jumps the pattern and is unexpected (and it’s logical in hindsight). The same can be had for a creative insight.
  • We’re dealing with models that were conceived with the logic of another age. Global financial crisis, etc.
  • Flips your expectations: Tarantino (Patriot Games: the hero is not the murderer; American morality tale). Tarantino: In my world, the hero is the murderer.  Blair Witch Project marketed a myth two years before the movie release.
  • Getting people to stop and pay attention to something that is routine, that people sleepwalk through. Far more creativity goes into people’s attention in advertising than to creating the actual products.
  • Expectation gaps.
  • Soda marketing as aspirational (freedom and democracy in a can).
  • Comedians are experts in disruptive thinking. Eddie Izzard. Think about what you take for granted (the pattern) and then how to switch/disrupt that pattern. What would happen? Let’s imagine that. Must crack the expectation gap.

Mobile Web UX – Nick Finck (Blue Flavor)
(10:45 am to 11:45 am | session details)

  • Fitts’s Law – how long it takes to acquire a target (click on a link/button on the screen). Mobile devices need larger target spaces.
  • Optimized Markup and Optimized UI
  • Readability & Page Width – fits with horizontal scrolling and zooming. Avoid microscopic hotspots.
    • Put navigation along side the content (maybe so that it stays with the content as you scroll)
    • Big hotspots
    • Visually called out navigation (with icons/buttons)
    • Pagination solutions (or (AJAX auto-load when you scroll to the bottom)
    • Make large buttons specifically for mobile devices
    • Give phone numbers the functionality to be dialed
    • Make calls to action very obvious
  • Visual recognition on posters that you can play/access by holding up your phone. See devices in 3D, play games, barcodes.

Zooming in on Mapping and Location on the Web – Adam Duvander
(1:15 pm to 2:15 pm)

  • @adamd and mapscripting.com
  • Mapping APIs
    • Google Maps v3 is the way forward (v2 is no longer supported); has Driving Directions and StreetView;  by the most popular API
    • Yahoo Maps has automatic geocoding and the licensing is less restrictive
    • Bing Maps has bird’s eye view (overhead, better than satellite)
    • MapQuest API is really good; has decluttering built in (pins can be clustered)
    • CloudMade is a company is based on open street map data, and has custom tile generation (different, customizable  map styles); cloned Google API
    • Other APIs are available
    • Mapstraction is an open source tools that allows you to switch between maps (even live swapping), but keeping the same markers; wrote a book called Map Scripting 101: A guide to building interactive maps…
  • 3 quick ways to make your maps stand out:
    1. Shed the default teardrop icons (make shadows at cycloloco.com)
    2. Interact outside the map (have popups and info that shows via context of zooming on the map)
    3. Clean things up (declutter the markers, etc.)
  • Geocoding services get your coordinates from human-readable street addresses.
    • JavaScript geocoders: Google, Yahoo, MapQuest, Mapstraction (works for Google and MapQuest). JS geocoders will give the the data client-side, but you don’t store it permanently either.
    • Server-side geocoders: Google, Yahoo, MapQuest, Geocoder.us (open project, but still chargers). Licensing restrictions.
  • There are JavaScript directions via Google, but server-side directions are more exciting (mobile apps). Until yesterday, MapQuest was the only free provider of server-side directions, but Google announced this yesterday.
  • HTML5 video – Android and iPhone
  • Locate your users: W3C Geolocation Standard for location guessing on the mobile Web:
    • Usage examples: Twitter.com (Wi-Fi geolocation on desktop and/or GPS on mobile), MapQuest.com (only works on mobile)
    • Wi-Fi triangulation can work even better than GPS in large, urban areas. GPS is better for rural
    • Cell towers as a backup on mobile, IP address as a backup location identifier too
    • Location based on IP address: MaxMind (open), hostip.info, Google Ajax loader (google.loader.ClientLocation)
    • Google Ajax loader can be used to load maps
    • Roll your own: IP Geo Database (based on MaxMind data set): IPinfoDB.com
  • Location sharing
    • PleaseRobMe.com: FourSquare/Twitter: raising awareness about over-sharing
    • You are probably not a celebrity if you use location sharing
    • FourSquare turned location-sharing into a game; offers mayorship for benefits
    • Others: BrightKite (write & read API), Gowalla (read API), Check.in (lets you check-in via multiple location APIs)
  • Open source decluttering algorithms: Clustering for Google Maps.
  • SimpleGeo is a platform for storing your geo data.
  • The future of real-time location sharing and mapping is the end of being able to lie.

Designing Our Way Through Web Forms – Kimberly Blessing, Christopher Schmitt
(2:45 pm to 3:45 pm)

Keynote: Design Matters: Visual Personality on the Web – Agnieszka Gasparska
(4:15 pm to 5:15 pm)

  • What is the future of web design?
  • Kiss Me I’m Polish is a creative studio specializing in interactive, brand identity and editorial design.

Continue to WebVisions 2010 in review: Part three »

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