before we get started…

if anyone can help me find
a decent coffee later today,
that’d be great

ruby on rails, communities,
platforms, web 2.0, web 3.0,
wikis, css 3, html 7, apis,
microformats, tags, iphones,
mobile content, javascript,
rest, crud, standards, feeds
& social networks

seriously, why aren’t you
listening to cam adams
speak instead?

does my head look really
shiny under these lights?

pushing beyond design

pushing beyond design
web designer 2.0

pushing beyond design
web designer 3.0

pushing beyond design
if i have to design one more perfect tabbed
interface or login screen, i’m going to scream

pushing beyond design
steal your bosses job

pushing beyond design
what are you doing for the next 30 years?

pushing beyond design
ten things you probably already know

pushing beyond design
ten things so conveniently vague and subjective
that you can’t tell me i’m wrong at the end

pushing beyond design
ten things you may or may not want to think
about if you’re sick of thinking about design

who should be listening,
and who can leave already

the obligatory bit
about me

i’m really a graphic designer
faking it as a web geek

first year was absolutely fantastic

second year was a complete
waste of time

by third year, i figured out
that it was nearly impossible to fail

they didn’t invite me into the
post-graduate fourth year

✗
the freelance thing

✗
the freelance thing
✔

✗
the freelance thing
✔

✗
the freelance thing
✗

✗
we really need a
flash intro screen
the freelance thing
✗

✗
we really need a
flash intro screen
the freelance thing
✗
you could get
a real job,
you know?

a real job
(sort-of)

a real job
(sort-of)

a real job
(sort-of)

then a really
real job

then a really
real job

then a really
real job

then a really
real job

then a really
real job

then a really
real job

we’re hiring
jfrench@redbubble.com

without
any further
boredom…

shake things up a little

a change is as good as a holiday

“If you do what
you've always
done, you'll get
what you've
always gotten”

“If you do what
you've always
done, you'll get
what you've
always gotten”
— Tony DiNozzo

“If you do what
you've always
done, you'll get
what you've
always gotten”
— Anthony Robbins

if you’re working full-time,
take on some freelance work

if you’re freelancing,
go work with a company full-time

get a different job in a
completely different company

get a completley different job
in the same company

accept that designing
a website is much more
like software design than
graphic design

we’re usually just dealing with text
files which are interpreted and
rendered by a web browser

you don’t just read a web page.
you interact with it like software, and
it’s an incredibly dynamic medium

we’re also dealing with files on a
server, not things on a printing press,
a DVD, a billboard, or television

which means you can iterate
and constantly refine

so that sounds a lot like
software development to me

use verion control

have a one step build process

push out daily builds

track progress,
features and bugs
in a database

find a development process
that works for you

“but you’re cramping my style and
starving my creativity, man”

learn enough to
build things that work

“a user interface is well-designed
when the program behaves exactly
how the user thought it would”
— Joel Spolsky

any sane business person
will take something that works
over something that's pretty

if you can design something that looks
beautiful and actually works, you’re
much more valuable to your client

make the transition
from photoshop mockups into
real html prototypes and pages

dig into a little javascript
(yes, ok, ajax too)

play with a pre-built
content management system

move into server side scripting
with php, ruby or perl

find the patterns in what you
do, and exploit them

“a design pattern is a general
repeatable solution to a commonly
occurring problem”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_pattern_(computer_science)

tabbed navigation, 2 column layouts,
headers & footers, underlined links,
page titles like “home” and phrases
like “login” are all well established
design patterns for the web

your client probably has an existing
color pallet, a style guide and an
established personality

you probably have a preferred way to
mark-up forms & navigation, common
ids and class names for your mark-up
and a preffered coding style

talk about them, document them,
refine them and keep using them

share them with the world
by writing tutorials or even a book

bundle them up as plugins,
frameworks or libraries, and
share them with the world

leverage the power of
frameworks and platforms

rails
cake
merb
code igniter
django

plugins & libraries

prototype
scriptaculous
YUI

textpattern
wordpress
movable type
expression engine
mephisto
radiant

facebook

respond well to change

change can come from your
insane client or boss

change can come from moving
technology and best practices

change can come from finally
understanding and distilling
a problem

you can ignore the problem
lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

you can get defensive

the best defense
is a good offense

programmers call this “dry”
(don’t repeat yourself)

i call it “doing the least amount of work
possible, establishing a pattern,
predicting the future and giving the
client what they need, rather than what
they asked for”

i call it “doing the least amount of work
possible, establishing a pattern,
predicting the future and giving the
client what they need, rather than what
they asked for”
(dtlaowpeapptfagtcwtnrtwtaf)

really think about your role

where do you sit in your team?

specs are written by people in suits
estimates are given
databases are built
programmers write code
templates are built
designers make it look pretty

specs are written by people in suits
estimates are given
interfaces are designed
templates are built
someone makes it all work

you know what works on the internet

you think like a user

you work on the only customer-facing
part of most applications and websites

you can speak the lingo

so why are you consulted
so late in the process?

chances are, you’re the best person
to drive the project forward

talk about what the user needs
find out what the suits want
sort out the information architecture
wireframe the interface
ask how hard it is to build
make sure it gets done

obsess over something

user experience, the customer,
processes, prodcedures, community,
information architecture, search
engine optimisation, accessibility,
standards, the future of the web,
html 7, css 9, databases, plugins,
interaction, semantics, copywriting
symbolism, ajax, e-commerce,
flash, flex, conversion, marketing,
blah, blah, blah…

so pick something that interests you
and imerse yourself in it and obsess
over it until you become an expert

experts write books, speak at
conferences, work on the best
projects, earn the respect of their
peers and make loads of cash

start something big

keep doing
what you’re doing

some things you probably
don’t want to try…

reseller web hosting

donation-based
open source software

anything to do with bands

anything that takes too long

anything that needs lots of lawyers

questions?

thank you for listening
justinfrench.com
redbubble.com