One of the key components I see to inspire and motivate people who are getting things done is a support system of like-minded friends and peers. BarCamp creates this kind of environment for the technology industry, and the related fields of design and business, which is why I keep going back.
I attended Saskatoon’s 7th BarCamp on November 5th 2011. It was the 3rd one I’ve been to and the best one so far.
James examines how the growth and segmentation of the design industry is causing disconnects between specialized roles, where projects suffer and what industry professionals can do about it.
James talks about the field of UX and it’s growth away from the user’s experience with the business itself, and how as UX professionals we must teach our clients why we built experiences the way we did so that users can have a consistent experience across all forms of communication with the company.
This past weekend, James had the opportunity to attend Startup Weekend Toronto 2011 where he met loads of amazing people with more amazing ideas and motivation to create them. In 54 hours, he worked with a team to go through two ideas, and a hell of a lot of tallboys. Here’s his side of the story!
Here at The Phuse, we do a lot of design and front-end development for web apps. Tables have a bit of a bad reputation in the web world but there are a lot of times where using a table makes sense according to the data being presented. One of the most common approaches to tabular…
As designers, we often fix a client’s budget and timeline, and we effortlessly work within deadlines to get them what we’ve told them they’d receive by the end of it. What ends up happening is the client doesn’t realize how their slew of requests eats away at their budget to the point that either the service provider is losing money, or the client is needing to go over-budget. Design and development are a lot more alike than we make them out to be, and if we take a moment to assess best their practices, we may be able to find better options in how we bill clients.
Yes, I said it. We focus way too much on the quality of a logo that we never spend enough time on the brand. In an article I posted on the DesignInformer a week ago I spoke about what a brand is – something people often get confused about. But it’s too often that we take brand and logo to be one in the same. Here’s my challenge: take the logo out of the mix, and focus on developing the brand properly.
We’ve all been in this situation before. We start working for that “perfect” client who seems to agree with you on everything. Everything is hunky-dory, and then they do something that pisses you off. Now, this is fine when that something comes later in the project when you don’t have to hold the grudge for too long, but what happens when it happens in the beginning? What happens when you put in that something extra they didn’t even pay for, and it ends up being a project in itself?
I’ve recently been acquired by an online community to work as their editor. My job, while managing writers and their articles, promotion, et cetera, is to improve the community. So now that I’m starting and looking out into the future of where the blog is going, I realize that there are certain things that we need to know as editors, bloggers/writers to do our job properly.
So you’ve built all this knowledge of usability. You’ve read and keep up to blogs like UX Booth, UserFocus, et all, and you’ve built up a nice little toolbox of all these tricks and tools you want to use on your next client. You feel inspired and you’re excited to put all this extra time into the next big project, but then when you pitch it to a client, they give you a blank stare.