Recently Jason Beaird, author of SitePoint’s all time best selling book The Principles of Beautiful Web Design, recently visited my User-Centered Interface Design class at The Art Institute of Atlanta to share some design wisdom. Jason’s design talent and amiable personality are present in his book, making it as fun as it is interesting to read.
I recently had the wonderful opportunity to speak to the folks at Macquarium, an award wining interactive design firm located in downtown Atlanta, GA. They do amazing work, and are cool people to boot. The title of my talk was Findability: the Common Thread, and it explored how Findability touches each step of the project lifecycle. With an audience filled with diverse talents in Information Architecture, development, design, copywriting, photography, Usability, Accessibility and project management, my goal was to provide everyone a relevant perspective on the topic and how it relates to the work they do everyday. Findability is the common thread in which all members of a professional web team share responsibility, and can ultimately help drive more traffic to a site, help people find what they were looking for once they’ve arrived, and bring them back again. The net result of an effective Findability initiative is increased ROI (title: return on investment) for the client, and a broader dissemination of their message.
Here are the slides and audio from the talk, which are also archived in the resources section.
I’m currently working on a book for New Riders titled Building Findable Web Sites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond that, as the title suggests, looks at Findability solutions from the developer’s perspective, providing code examples, and best practices. It will be released in February of 2008.
This past quarter I taught a class called Findability at The Art Institute of Atlanta, in which we explored practical strategies for how to build web sites that are findable, and will draw traffic back. You can take a look at some of the student projects that have come from this course in the teaching section of this site.
Bill Flitter, the co-founder of Pheedo gave an online interview for the class that fit nicely with our course conversations. Pheedo provides a number of RSS advertising services, delivering ads that are relevant to the content they accompany. Bill shared some interesting observations about how advertising in RSS offers a more personal and unique experience for consumers, and advertisers alike. Bill spoke via Skype, which was recorded and can be downloaded below.
Jonathan Snook, who recently spoke via Skype to my User-Centered Interface Design class at The Art Institute of Atlanta, exemplifies the traits we work to instill in our students. Jonathan is a renaissance web designer who understands aesthetic principles as well as he understands web application development, project planning, and interface design. There are few such people in the industry that can bridge the divide between each facet of the web world, but Jonathan does it with grace, skill and humility.
Jonathan shared some interesting case studies of the design process of a client web application, and the design evolution of his own blog. Whether you are a design veteran or a novice, there is always much to be learned from an inside glimpse into another designer’s process. Jonathan’s slides and the podcast of his lecture are listed below for your learning pleasure.
Jonathan Snook’s Guest Lecture Podcast | Jonathan Snook’s Presentation Slides
Mark Boulton recently spoke via Skype to my User-Centered Interface Design class at The Art Institute of Atlanta on the principles of design as they apply to the web, and his experience in the industry. Mark has made a name for himself in the web industry as a typographer, designer, and a skilled writer on these topics. He’s perhaps best known for his insightful, self-published series of articles entitled 5 Simple Steps, which explores core design topics such as the grid, and typography, and will soon be spun into a PDF book of the same name. Perhaps you have seen some of his other articles on A List Part and Vitamin. Mark brings together two traits in his work that rarely mingle, brilliant design talent, and humility that seems to keep him learning and sharing his wealth of knowledge.
Mark recently spoke at South by Southwest in two panels, one with Khoi Vinh about grid systems, and the other with Richard Rutter about web typography. I recommend keeping an eye on the SXSW podcast page for the release of these lectures, as they were some of the best of the year, in my humble opinion.
Mark mentioned two important books when he spoke to my class that have guided him in his design work. For understanding grid systems, he recommends Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Muller - Brockmann, and for understanding typography he recommends the appropriately named Typography by Emil Ruder. Here’s Mark’s lecture podcast presented February 28, 2007.
