This year’s Northern Voice was the first time I’ve ever had the opportunity to speak in public, and holy buckets that room filled up fast! If you attended my presentation, thank you very much. I hope I kept you entertained.
There were a few things that I wanted to say that didn’t quite pass my stuttery lips, and there were a few things that I’d like to articulate further. Since I can’t mulligan the presentation, I’m just going to clear the air:
Let’s first talk about iteration in the context of designing for Web 2.0 because I feel like a big meanie for digging up old wounds. When it comes to poor design, though, I think that the dot-com crash was a perfect example of companies who didn’t look before they jumped into the bowels of the internet, at that time. I like the point that Kris Krug mentioned at the end of my talk, about how design is an iterative process. That was something I failed to bring up about the design process as I was running out of time. This might seem obvious, but as a web developer, you need to consider the prototype testing phase as an absolute essential stage in the completion of our designs. In the case of the companies who were building pre-Web 2.0, the opportunity to test their work didn’t really exist and thus they weren’t able to test their prototypes fully. To their credit, many of these companies took a hell of a chance, and some walked away unharmed while others failed miserably. In a way, the ailing companies could have learned from some of the finer examples of corporate negligence, but as always, hindsight is 20/20. For the sake of positivity, I’ll leave it at that- learn what you can from the past, apply it to how you’re going to plan for the future, and test, test, test.
Second, I want to mention the importance of brevity in defining your career. I know that I stumbled over a lot of my conclusion when I was discussing job descriptions and self-awareness and I want to make some sense of this. When I was discussing the major difference between communication designers and designers who communicate, my point was to consider how deep you’re willing to dig into your own process in order to define yourself. During Megan Cole‘s very very very interesting discussion about creating a system for easier communication between independent consultants (that was all too short, alas!) I was inspired to consider what we could do to maintain professionalism in our careers when it comes to defining our role as communication designers. My conclusion was that it becomes all too easy to assign ourselves with multiple titles that, while concise, do too much to broaden the scope of what we do. And while my greatest fear as a designer is to pigeonhole myself, I want to be able to discuss my job with another person using the least amount of word static. The rule of thumb, in my opinion, is to be concise and choose your words carefully. Use language to your advantage.
In the end, realize that this is all on you- you make the choice on whether or not you think it’s appropriate to follow the design method to get your job done. Though I know that I’m still a young designer, I’ve learned from my experience that projects work out better when protocol is followed. I should hope that I’m living proof that you can still maintain your credibility as an artistic and creative designer, despite using mechanical and tested methods to do your work. I hope that the information that I wanted to share at Northern Voice can help you to be a better designer, and do a better job of solving your design problems. The perception of beauty and eloquence that so often walks hand-in-hand with spectacular designs is the product of this kind of due diligence to your craft. If you want to be a better designer, feel free to make your own rules- but always remember to follow them.
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Comments ( 3 )
As per usual, I attended way too few sessions at NV. I had to bail part way through yours to take care of things, but what I saw, me likey. Slides up on http://slideshare.net tagged with nv08, please!
Boris Mann added these pithy words on
Feb 24 08 at
03:55
i think you did awesome!! It is tough to get up and talk in front of a tonne of people and you did awesome!!
The Jerk added these pithy words on
Feb 24 08 at
22:52