Jamin Hegeman

SXSW: Holistic Web Design

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by

Jamin
in

These are my notes from this panel, and are not edited very well.

Finding the Creative Balance in Multi-Disciplined Teams

Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of the parts. The myth of separation. In reality, separation is not that easy. Keeping content and design separate.

Want to make sure everyone has their say to address problems early on. Have everyone respect each other. Know when to compromise. Communication is key. Everyone needs to be on the same page.

Respect Everyone. It??????s corny, but true.

Compromise.

Remember the big picture.

Plazes.com. The site they took to try and fix.

Ending up using iChat and email a lot, and using tags to organize things. Group chats with the entire team.

Third party integration is never as simple as you want. They can??????t compromise. They??????re like another member of the team.

Timeline and Dependencies. In reality, the timelines aren??????t as simple or don??????t necessarily work out as planned.

People don??????t take the users perspective.

Dashboard page: Intention, goal, question. Goal oriented perspective. Stassi emphasized respect in handing off to the designer.

Plazes not necessarily a bad looking site. Started with logo. Went to sketch book. Allowed for quick iterations. Included everyone earlier on with the sketches. Helped hammer out what was working and what wasn??????t working.

Grey boxing: not worrying about type too much, not worrying about color too much. We didn??????t expect that the feedback would be integrated. Respected that he would figure it out.

Goals for markup:

  1. valid xhtml and css
  2. less is more
  3. provide hooks for Shaun

sliding doors, faux columns, and sifr

tested with browser cam

Put a comment at the end of the div, and it makes your code easier to read. Use your form container as a div.

Main focus was to make sure the code was modular. Not reliant on predefined HTML elements.

Eric Meyer put together a range of impact of a nuclear bomb using google maps.

Iterate and Enhance.

Problems with Plazes

  1. Login. Wasn??????t obvious where to login.
  2. Register not clear.
  3. Content written from a technical manner
  4. Strange image on the page. Users don??????t know why it??????s there.
  5. Don??????t know what plazes is, what are you going to search for.

Solutions

  1. New logo
  2. Took login page off of the main page.
  3. What is Plazes. Addresses privacy.
  4. Show some relevant info based on your IP location. Does a better job of selling the site as opposed to the random image.

Inside problems

  1. Navigation confusing
  2. Really big iframe
  3. Lots of white space in the middle of the page. ??????Formed a wagon train around it.??????
  4. Meta data not relevant.

Solutions

  1. simplified navigation. Plain language
  2. changed the range finder
  3. Search: made it simple, friendly
  4. Made the map bigger
  5. Ability to filter the information on the map
  6. Updated iframes to ajax approach (buddy list)

Data not represented well. It??????s hard to use and turns people off. None of it relates to the content on the rest of page.

Goal was to see the site as a big picture. See how there??????s no one most important aspect.

Everyone could talk about everyone else??????s part. Everyone needs to understand where everyone else is coming to. Inspires other members.

A lot of team problems are communication. The more educated everyone is, will make others respect your challenges.