Happy birthday to Massive client Acorn Pediatrics! In order to help celebrate their birthday Acorn will be delivering over 50 personalized cakes to other local healthcare service providers. If you’re thinking I could really use come cake today, your in luck as a cake just dropped into our hands. We have a limited amount so its first come first serve. Some please bring milk!

Massive has begun a website redesign for client Archer Construction. While the original site (created by Massive) has served Archer well for the past six years, it’s time for an update. Not only for a refreshing feel but for the vast improvements in website development that have transpired over those six years. Look for the new site to launch later this summer. You can check out the old Archer site in the meanwhile.

An inspiring presentations from Jeremy Keith

Interaction is the secret sauce of the web. Understanding interaction is key to understanding the web as its own medium—it’s not print, it’s not television, and it’s certainly not the desktop.

Presentation Notes:

When creating iconography often times language is better then a standalone icon. When icons have language they start have personality, and actually speak to the users. People find these icons with personality more endearing and creditable. A none web based sample of this can be seen at existentialist chalkboard. The chalkboard is the icon but the language creates the iconography.

Links. In the javascript heavy web world the most basic hyper link can be the best solution as it is the most direct interaction with your site. Don’t every place data behind hidden functionality, however, adding simple design elements to no critical functionality can heighten the user experience.

Forms on the web suck. The problem is we take the day to day paper forms and slap them on the web. Forms in the real world are never associated with good times. We fill out boring and dry forms for taxes, drivers licenses, and credit card applications. There is nothing intrinsic about the way paper form elements should look on the web. Generating unique forms that display personality/functionality can lead to an increase in form conversations.

Recognize patterns, different users navigate the same. Identifying these patterns and repeating them in layouts across multiple websites will start to set a series of universal standards. These universal standards will help to grow usability over the web as a whole.

Feedback, you have to provide feedback to users. A simple indication of where they are in a process. Lightly inform the user without getting in their way. Don’t interrupt the users from continuing onto another interaction.

Emulate, find inspiration in print, desktop application, and digital media but realize that the web is not print, a desktop application, or digital media. Rich experiences are not pixels, shapes, and gimmicks. Authentic user generated materials connect people to create true “rich experiences”.

Douglas Adams on the word “Interactivity”

The reason we suddenly need such a word is that during this century we have for the 1rst time been dominated by non-interactive forms of entertainment: cinema, radio, recorded music and television. Before they came along all entertainment was interactive: theatre, music, sport…

We didn’t need a special word for interactivity in the same way that we don’t (yet) need a special word for people with only one head.

—Douglas Adams, August 29th 1999

Thanks again to all that were able attend our open house last Thursday evening. It was so great to see all of you; so much so we’re thinking we should go ahead and do this every week! A special thanks to our good friend Aaron Hjelt, AKA DJAJ (Your website’s broken, but we know of someone who might be able to fix that for you) for providing the house for the house party.

Here’s a 30 second short time lapse of the evening from beginning until the camera’s battery ran out, check it out!

From the presentation by Aarron Walter, author, Building Findable Websites
The web audience has shifted their overall presence from private to public with the introduction of sites like facebook & twitter. With these sites there is greater emotional involvement across the web as a whole. Aaron recommends incorporating these elements into your site to help trigger an emotional response from users.

1. usable
2. reliable
3. functional
4. pleasurable
5. personality (a platform for emotion)
6. gestalt ( the built-in firmware that humans have. The ability to see difference, contrasts, and benefits)

There is more to development other than just creating a functional site. By incorporating personality element into your interface you can engage a user to display emotional reactions. These reactions can directly be associated with returning users. Think of your site as a magic eight ball, what are your users going to get when they shake it? Everyone gets something different from the same set of messages.

Incorporating “Treats” on your site can also be a way to increase user emotions and stimulate commentary among users. Treats can be funny elements, incentives, or the graphic user interface itself. Basically, any unexpected positive item can be considered a treat.

Limits… attention is finite. When you add something to site you lose some of that attention. Ocham’s Razor states when you have multiple solutions to one problem the simplest solution is often the best. You can drive a user down the right path with simplicity. Giver your users some credit, often times with just a little push you can get them to choose the desired path.

Presentation Notes

• Create a user experience with the best technology possible.
• When creating for the web we are essentially sending out a message in a bottle.
• Adding to the story and enriching the message should be a developers goal
• Do websites need to be experienced the same in every browser? Nope.
• Three things to keep in mind… experience, style and markup!
• Don’t change the critical site elements… branding, usability, accessibility, and layout
• Add CSS3 to none critical elements to enhance the user experience.

CSS3 Examples
As used on css3exp.com/moon this site will display different in IE then any other webkit browsers. Dan used css3exp.com as the sample site throughout his presentation.

Hover Class:
Check out the top navigation that uses a fade to highlight the navigation as you scroll over it.

Opacity Swapping:
Cool rollover approach as seen in the “TOP CATEGORIES”

Multiple Backgrounds:
Stacked backgrounds to create a 3-D look. www.silverbackapp.com (Scale your browser window)

Forms:
Enhance form elements as seen in the “NEW THINGS ALERTS”

Button Magic:
Gradients, Text Shadows, and Box Shadows

Focus States:
Animate elements to better show users where to navigate. Check out the “Submit” button on the Moon site from. Did you see it pulsate? Pretty cool!

Scale Transform:
Scale images with only CSS to create animated elements much like a Flash animation.

Rotation:
Rotate elements like the sun on www.outsideapp.com

True to form, Zeldman gave a great presentation on client interaction & experience. If your in the design industry I think you will appreciate this post! If you’re a client close your eyes!

Presentation Notes:

• Don’t let your wishes and excitement for a client put your instincts in the closet.
• If you have a constantly indecisive person as a client they and you will not succeed.
• When your in client services its always your fault, but your integrity is the most important thing.
• Define roles and responsibilities. Who is your primary contact on the project, does this person have the authority to make decisions and sign off on the project.
• Plan for change and contingencies. You can always refund fees or add additional features with available/reaming funding.
• Think in advance for when things don’t work.
• Never avoid the client tell them immediately that there is an issue. Tell it like it is. Don’t wait until you have reached a situation where you can’t solve the problem and move forward. The client may not understand the language in which you are speaking so explain it to them in terms they can understand it.
• Create escape clauses in the contract that allow both the agency and the client to remove themselves from the project. Set a series of milestones that can become the stages in which the client and yourself can terminate the contract.
• The little painful decision that you make today help grow the culture of the your company.

Zeldman’s 10 Steps for Success

1. Know before you go. (Define the scope of the project and create a tight contract)
2. Keep expectations on track and in sync.
3. Constantly course correct
4. Tell the TRUTH
5. Phrase it from the clients POV
6. Report bad news before the client notices it. (Disarm your clients)
7. Have a recovery plan
8. Apologize-but never denigrate yourself or your team
9. Have an exit strategy
10. Know when to quit

Cheers-
Lyle

One speaker I am excited to hear from is the events founder, Jeffery Zeldman. Most of you don’t know who Zeldman is, but he is considered the godfather of web standards. It looks like Zeldman is set to speak on; blunders as a designer, entrepreneur, creative directors, and how to turn blunders into positive lessons.

I will leave you with an image from our stop in the town of Wallace, Idaho.

Cheers-
Lyle Hebel/Pixel Jockey

An Event Apart is an intensely educational three-day learning session for passionate practitioners of standards-based web design. Founded by web visionaries Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, and dedicated to the proposition that the creators of great web experiences deserve a great learning experience, An Event Apart brings together twelve of the leading minds in web design for three days of non-stop inspiration and enlightenment.

Please check back as Lyle will be adding additional posts throughout the event.