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Webuquerque: Interaction Design & Agile Development

Apr 07, 2009

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Webuquerque

Webuquerque hosted its third presentation last Wednesday, "Interaction Design & Agile Development," with the talented Interaction Designer Kevin Silver.

Once again, we had a great turnout with about 15 attendees, including a bunch of folks who came all the way down from Santa Fe. It is great to see the community expanding beyond Albuquerque!

If you weren't able to join us, here's what you missed.

Recap

I won't even hesitate to say that, for me, Kevin's presentation was one of the best we've had at Webuquerque thus far. Informative, engaging and full of geeky goodness. But geeky goodness that was really easy to understand and, I believe, completely relatable to anyone … not just web developers.

Here are some highlights:

  • What is agile development, and how it allows for rapid development
  • How to take different business processes, like waterfall, and integrate it with agile
  • What is interaction design, and why it is about design rather than architecture
  • How interaction design is more than just the web, but about technology and objects we use everyday
  • How interaction design is about behavior; how people interact with products and services
  • What is user experience, and how simplicity and elegance can deliver an exemplary experiences for the user
  • Understanding context to encourage fit (and avoid mis-fit) in how people use products and services
  • The importance of understanding the different mental models of the user and designer
  • Knowing users and how to meet their needs, including interview and analysis
  • And much, much more

After the presentation, Kevin fielded a number of practical questions about design as it relates to some of today's popular social networks. He discussed some failures, some successes, and offered advice for how to effectively implement design change in some of our attendees' own sites.

Personal Note

Kevin will soon be relocating to Maine, where he has accepted a great job with unlimited opportunity.

This news is wonderful for Kevin and his young family, but sad for our local community. Personally, it kills me to know that such great talent is moving out of state, because New Mexico still doesn't have the job market or opportunities to support this talent.

As I've mentioned before, one of the reasons for Webuquerque is to help the community by connecting web professionals.

Our hope is that the more we meet, talk and teach, the more opportunities that we can create and share with each other. And then, perhaps, jobs and work will stay in state, so our talent stays in state.

Because I, personally, love it here in Albuquerque. But I also know that if I didn't have my current telecommuting situation, it would be unlikely that I could stay and work in state.

This has got to change.

Stepping off my soapbox … for now.

We Got Your Back

For all those folks who weren't able to join us, we have everything to make you feel like you were there (almost).

Presentation Deck

Kevin's deck is available on SlideShare.

Video

We also have the video ready on Viddler for your enjoyment:

Pictures

Finally, we have a few pictures of the event:

  • Webuquerque: Interaction Design and Agile Development
  • Webuquerque: Interaction Design and Agile Development
  • Webuquerque: Interaction Design and Agile Development
  • Webuquerque: Interaction Design and Agile Development

Coming in May

Our next presentation is Standards & Accessibility With Dreamweaver on Wednesday, May 6, 2009, beginning at 6:30 pm at Uptown Sports Bar and Grill.

Virginia DeBolt and Emily Lewis (that's me!) will discuss the principles of web standards and accessibility, and demonstrate how to use Dreamweaver to achieve both. Key demonstrations include:

  • Dreamweaver's CSS-based templates, which have been tested across all major browsers
  • Creating accessible forms
  • Semantic markup and how to overwrite generated markup that isn't semantic
  • Dreamweaver preferences you can set to support accessibility
  • And more!
Mark Your Calendar

Don't miss out on our May presentation. Sign up for reminders from your preferred social network:

2009 Presentation Schedule

While you are at it, mark your calendar with our entire 2009 schedule:

June 3
Topic: Web Workflows in Adobe CS4
Presenter: Jason Nakai
July 1
Topic: Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Presenter: Chris Kenworthy
August 5
Topic: Development Frameworks & Libraries
Presenter: Mark Casias
September 2
Topic: Podcasting & Vodcasting
Presenter: Vincent Ascoli
October 7
Topic: Microformats
Presenter: Emily Lewis
November 4
Topic: Web marketing
Presenter: Reid Givens
December 8
NMAUG holiday party (time & location TBA)

Add 2009 Webuquerque schedule to Google Calendar

Please note, these topics and presenters are subject to change.

Be Our Friend

Stay up–to–date about Webuquerque's activities and other local web-related events. Become our friend (or follower, as the case may be):

What Do You Think?

We are about four months into this new experiment of Webuquerque, and Jason and I would love to know how we are doing. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Webuquerque is for the community, so speak up and help us make Webuquerque what you want it to be

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

I hope it goes without saying, but thank you to everyone who has joined us for any (and, for some of you, all) of our events. The success of Webuquerque relies entirely on the community, and Jason and I are forever thankful to everyone who participates and supports us.

See you in May!

HTML5 Cookbook

Interested in HTML5?
Get the Cookbook!

I was a contributing author for HTML5 Cookbook, available for sale on Amazon! Get yours now! (I hear chapters 1, 4 and 5 are particularly good.)

P.S. Don't forget my book Microformats Made Simple is still for sale!

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Zerek's Gravatar

Zerek opines:

04/08/2009

I am so angry I missed this one I could kick a baby penguin. I will just have to watch the video and pretend. I am very happy that you all have the videos going up! Thanks!

Emily's Gravatar

Emily responds:

04/09/2009

@Zerek - We missed seeing you too! But don’t go kicking baby penguins. Although, if you could find one in New Mexico, it probably would need a swift kick … I mean, hello, WTF is a penguin doing in the desert!?

Seriously, though, glad we can provide you the video and other resources so you can still enjoy the presentations, even if you aren’t able to be there physically.

Hope to see you at the next on on May 6!

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The Coolest Person I Know

Emily Lewis

Yeah, that would be me: .

I'm a freelance web designer of the standardista variety, which means I get excited about things like valid POSH, microformats and accessibility. I ply my trade from my one-person design studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico 87106 USA.

A Blog Not Limited is my personal blog where I pontificate about web design, web standards, semantics and whatever else strikes my fancy. Head on over to Emily Lewis Design if you'd like to see my work or, even better, hire me.

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