An Event Apart - Content First

27 Dec 2011

This is the first in a series of posts summarizing my notes from the extraordinary conference An Event Apart, held December 12-14, 2011 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

Jeffery Zeldman: Legendary Web Standards Guru, @zeldman, Zeldman.com, Author: Designing with Web Standards, Co-Founder: An Event Apart, Founder: Happy Cogg, Founder: A List Apart, Publisher: A Book Apart. Description

The rules of design engagement are changing. You may no longer be in control of the user’s visual experience. Learn the number one job of every web designer, how to persuade clients and bosses not to subject users to dark patterns, why the days of “Best Viewed With…” are finally behind us, and how a mobile (or small screen) strategy can help you improve your content, rethink your web experience, and put the user first.

Quotes

Design that does not serve people does not serve business.

Responsive design is progressive enhancement taken to the next level

Content is a design problem

Design in the absence of Content is not Design, it's decoration

Notes

• Content is a design problem
• Sites are often hostile to content
  • Plan for contingencies, overall ux
  • Often an afterthought to relates links, seo, nav, etc

We can't control the display

• We've been in a consensual hallucination that designers control the display.
• The days of "Best viewed with.." are over
• Your content will live outside your precise design, if it's not readable, users will find a way
• ex: Instapaper/Readability/Flipbook, accessibility tools (screen reader, text zoom)
• Users fitting content they way they want to experience it (time, style)

What's the designers job then?

• Still to server the customer
• User experience design not designer experience
• Design that doesn't server people doesn't serve business!
• Don't spam users, don't create misleading interfaces, no tricks

Content BEFORE design

• Design without content is decoration
• How do you make a cake if you don't know if its for a wedding or a funeral
• Design succeeds when it supports the content,

Solutions

• Progressive Enhancement & Responsive Web Design
  • PE is a universal smart default.
  • Adaptive Web Design by Aaron Gustafson and Responsive Web Design by Ethan Marcotte
  • Today's web has many devices with many ways to interact with content
  • RWD is PE taken to the next level. Layouts adapt to devices.
  • Fluid grids, flexible media, media queries are just one way to implement the idea.
  • Responsive sites react to the needs of the user through screen size and other contingencies
  • RWD is small screen design vs. a mobile strategy
  • e by Luke W
  • Content Strategy: What did they come here for? Get rid of the rest
  • Half our users are on a mobile browser
  • Mobile browsers are advanced, webkit/HTML5/CSS3
  • Limited screen size and utility force us to put user needs first.
  • Explore your existing search activity to see what users are looking for.
  • Users expect and accept a different experience on mobile.
• Typical workflow vs. Content First workflow.

• Existing workflow is backwards, leaving content till the end.
• We should start with and experience and content strategy instead of a turf battle over technology and features.
• The result is better content, and design tailored to that content.