Workshops.
Andy Budd is the User Experience Designer and CEO of Clearleft – one of the UKs largest web development studios. Andy helped pioneer the adoption of web standards in the UK through his client work, the writings on his blog, and the publication of his best selling book - CSS Mastery: Web Standards Solutions. Andy has also been instrumental is setting up the training and conference program at Clearleft which is now responsible for dConstruct and UX London, the UKs largest usability and user experience event.
Workshop: Guerrilla Usability Testing
Usability tests are an excellent way of discovering problems with a product or service. Commissioning a dedicated usability lab will provide a high degree of scientific rigour but obviously comes at significant cost. Instead of a single academic evaluation, why not bring your usability testing in-house and run it alongside your design and development process? Two or three quick-and-dirty usability tests will not only provide better results but will also allow you to iterate your product between tests, ultimately leading to a more refined product.
Usability testing needn't cost the Earth. In fact, there's no need for all that expensive equipment, a dedicated lab and or even expert evaluators. It's entirely possible to run a test at your own office, a cafe or even your subject's home.
In this workshop, Andy Budd will show you all the tricks of guerilla usability testing. You'll learn how to plan a test, recruit users and set up your testing environment. You'll also learn how to moderate tests effectively and evaluate the results. By the end of this workshop you'll have all the ammunition you need to run your own guerilla usability tests.
Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson are lecturers in interactive design at the University of Ulster at Belfast, where they have been active in promoting a web standards-based curriculum, in addition to being practicing designers and developers. Their recent book on friends of ED - 'Web Standardistas' - has received critical acclaim, along with their regularly updated web site which is rapidly establishing a growing readership and following.
Topic: HTML 5 and CSS 3
HTML 5 and CSS 3 offer exciting new opportunities for forward-looking designers and developers to push the boundaries of their design for the web. Support for both is growing rapidly as leading browser manufacturers embrace the future and cutting edge designers begin to implement HTML 5 and CSS 3 features.
In this practical workshop, Christopher Murphy and Nicklas Persson - the Web Standardistas - will explore the possibilities HTML 5 and CSS 3 can offer the adventurous designer with a firm grasp of web standards. We'll provide some historical context and give an overview of the current state of the web, looking at what can be achieved using these technologies right now.
In a hands-on morning session, we'll walk participants through the process of creating an HTML 5 site. We'll cover: a variety of new elements introduced in HTML 5, exploring their potential; we'll look at current browser support; and we'll start building HTML 5 pages, learning by doing.
Once we've crafted some HTML 5 pages, we'll use an afternoon session to explore a variety of selectors introduced in CSS 3. We'll consider: the use of 'progressive enrichment' (a term introduced by Dan Cederholm); we'll explore the idea that web sites might not look exactly the same in every browser; finally we'll explore some of the exciting new selectors CSS 3 offers.
Phil Strain is a co-founder of Ecliptic, a user experience consultancy based in Belfast. Before starting Ecliptic, Philip previously worked for the Royal Mail Group's accessibility team and as part of Google's User Experience Research team, where he conducted a number of studies on web accessibility strategy. In addition, Philip has just completed a PhD in Web Accessibility and has published over 12 papers in the field of accessibility.
Topic: Accessibility 2.0
This full day workshop will provide attendees with an opportunity to gain a practical appreciation of accessibility from a wide range of perspectives. The following three areas will be addressed —
1. How does assistive technology benefit people with disabilities? Several motivational speakers will discuss how access to assistive technologies has changed their life.
2. How do people with disabilities use the Web? An interactive session will be run where workshop attendees will get a chance to spend time with users of a wide range of assistive technologies. Attendees are encouraged to suggest sample websites to be used in this session.
3. How can I make my website more accessible? This session will discuss accessibility guidelines along with examples of best practice and code samples. A review of accessibility checking tools will be conducted, with an overview of their advantages and disadvantages. More advanced accessibility topics will also be discussed, such as the upcoming WAI-ARIA framework for building accessible AJAX applications.
The workshop will conclude with a short discussion on accessibility.