Last year's event was a treat - around 90 people attended the weekend - and this year's promising to be at least as good.
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Goodbye Logic+Emotion, Hello Armano Design Group
4 years ago
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
oz-ia 2007 Registrations open
If you're in Australia, New Zealand - or would like an excuse to visit - the Oz-IA 2007 conference registrations have opened! The conference/retreat is on 22-23 September (not much time, I know), in Sydney. There's an interesting and eclectic mixed of presentations & workshops, including one by your's truly.
Last year's event was a treat - around 90 people attended the weekend - and this year's promising to be at least as good.
Last year's event was a treat - around 90 people attended the weekend - and this year's promising to be at least as good.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
FullCodePress - judging over
I've just gotten home from judging the first FullCodePress competition (see the site for details, the winners, and all the action). Two teams - from NZ and Australia - worked for 24hrs straight to design & develop a complete Web site for two different (one each) not-for-profit organizations.
The judging covered 10 characteristics of a Web site:
It was really, really interesting to see how the two teams approached their task, including the use of some very focused, tactical IA/UxD work. The NZ team appeared to be the more process-oriented of the two teams, producing thumbnail-sketch personas, wireframes, site map etc; the Australians worked in a more collaborative, iterative fashion, concentrating on site maps & wireframes.
Without users to interact with, both teams worked closely with their respective clients, relying on their knowledge & empathy with the audience groups to define appropriate site structures, content, functionality &etc.
I was very impressed with the quality of the end result from both teams: they should both feel proud of the work they've done this weekend.
Also, kudos to the organizers - WebStock & WIPA - for a great idea, and a really well-run event. The coverage was also awesome, incorporating live blogging, twitter, videos on youtube, and photos on flickr.
The judging covered 10 characteristics of a Web site:
- Purpose
- Visual Design
- Content
- User Experience
- Functionality
- Accessibility
- Standards-compliance
- Development
- Innovation
- Overall
It was really, really interesting to see how the two teams approached their task, including the use of some very focused, tactical IA/UxD work. The NZ team appeared to be the more process-oriented of the two teams, producing thumbnail-sketch personas, wireframes, site map etc; the Australians worked in a more collaborative, iterative fashion, concentrating on site maps & wireframes.
Without users to interact with, both teams worked closely with their respective clients, relying on their knowledge & empathy with the audience groups to define appropriate site structures, content, functionality &etc.
I was very impressed with the quality of the end result from both teams: they should both feel proud of the work they've done this weekend.
Also, kudos to the organizers - WebStock & WIPA - for a great idea, and a really well-run event. The coverage was also awesome, incorporating live blogging, twitter, videos on youtube, and photos on flickr.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Statistics in the media, again
The last few months have been extremely busy for me - three large UxD projects running concurrently - and I've been holding off writing anything so that I could say something about those jobs, but I saw this in the media yesterday and felt obligated to point it out. (Past readers will know how much this sort of thing bugs me...).
The article in question contained the following quote:
"By 2016 we will spend so much of our discretionary income on mortgages there will be nothing left for putting food on the table. We will be paying 15 times our yearly income to buy a home, if wages, debt and house prices keep growing at the present rate."
Now, there are a few things wrong here, which you should be awake to when reading.
1. Unrealistic assumptions: how realistic is it that wages, debt and house prices will continue to increase at a steady rate over a period of 9 years. These three economic characteristics are fairly volatile - house prices, for example, have been particularly unsteady over the past 10 years, so there should be no real expectation that they'll be anything other than volatile in the forthcoming 10 years.
2. Uncritical extrapolation: at some point, when extrapolating data into the future like this, it is important to take a 'reality check' and see whether the end point makes any sort of common sense. Would, for example, a family buy a house at a price that means they couldn't eat?
3. Definitions: to me, discretionary income is what we have left after all necessary payments have been taken out. So, to my mind a mortgage payment is not discretionary; nor, for that matter, is food.
4. Forgetting the alternatives: since it's not necessary for people to actually own their own home - they could rent - the notion that they would buy a house and put themselves in such debt that the interest repayments would effectively bankrupt them in all other respects is, again, somewhat ludicrous.
Sadly, this undermines an otherwise fairly solid look at the property market & the issue of housing affordability in Australia.
I promise I'll write something about my recent projects soon...
The article in question contained the following quote:
"By 2016 we will spend so much of our discretionary income on mortgages there will be nothing left for putting food on the table. We will be paying 15 times our yearly income to buy a home, if wages, debt and house prices keep growing at the present rate."
Now, there are a few things wrong here, which you should be awake to when reading.
1. Unrealistic assumptions: how realistic is it that wages, debt and house prices will continue to increase at a steady rate over a period of 9 years. These three economic characteristics are fairly volatile - house prices, for example, have been particularly unsteady over the past 10 years, so there should be no real expectation that they'll be anything other than volatile in the forthcoming 10 years.
2. Uncritical extrapolation: at some point, when extrapolating data into the future like this, it is important to take a 'reality check' and see whether the end point makes any sort of common sense. Would, for example, a family buy a house at a price that means they couldn't eat?
3. Definitions: to me, discretionary income is what we have left after all necessary payments have been taken out. So, to my mind a mortgage payment is not discretionary; nor, for that matter, is food.
4. Forgetting the alternatives: since it's not necessary for people to actually own their own home - they could rent - the notion that they would buy a house and put themselves in such debt that the interest repayments would effectively bankrupt them in all other respects is, again, somewhat ludicrous.
Sadly, this undermines an otherwise fairly solid look at the property market & the issue of housing affordability in Australia.
I promise I'll write something about my recent projects soon...
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