Day 3: Latest Perspectives in Web Applications
January 23, 2007
On Day 3, we explore the important innovations from the Web 2.0 phenomena. We've chosen the experts behind these approaches to give you a full spectrum of techniques and insights into how to integrate these with your designs. We also have a special treat: we've invited web app pioneers to share their perspectives on what it takes to build successful, industrial-grade applications. You'll have much to report when you return to your office (which is why we'll supply you with an extensive set of materials to take back).
8:30am - 9:45am
Developing a Great User Interface: A Netflix Case Study
Netflix, the world’s leading online DVD rental service, has a long history of delivering one of the most simple and elegant user experiences on the web. It has proven essential to provide a highly personalized web experience to millions of Netflix members. Netflix invented the now ubiquitous 5-Star Rating widget interaction that is used across the web today. The continued use of Ajax and other rich web technologies has been core to the Netflix experience ever since.
This presentation will detail many of the innovative Netflix website features and how they came to be a part of the user experience. Following a handful of features, this will take you through the development process, from concept to user testing, to website testing out to launch. Learn about which design patterns have resonated well with users (and why) and which ones were left on the cutting room floor.
Rich Internet Applications: Why Do "Rich"? What is "Rich"?
David Malouf, Symbol Technologies
There’s been a lot of talk about Rich Internet Applications (RIA) over the last few years. When the topic was first raised through the release of Flash MX’s change in focus from an interactive animation development studio, to an application development environment there was an early conversation about trying to define what a RIA is. Then as other players tried to enter the field a bit more ferociously the conversation has turned towards how. Not in terms in of design, but rather in terms of technology. Little care has been given to the more sensitive topic of what and why.
In this presentation, David is going to move beyond the usual story of patterns, code, and tips and tricks, and talk more about aesthetics, experience design, brand, and total environmental context of use. He's going to layer those elements over a discussion around trying to define “richness” in the context of general application design and then try to apply it to a continuum of various types of computer and network based solutions.
10:00am - 11:15am
Flickr: How a Bright Star Changed the World of Web Applications
Jared Spool, User Interface Engineering
Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path
Web 1.0 applications were monolithic. Usually they were composed completely of HTML, using the very clumsy capabilities of the page-based model. This made for a frustrating user experience, in most instances.
Occasionally, we'd find an application written completely out of Flash, but it was stand-alone and lived in its own world, separate from the rest of the web site. Often these experiences had moments of delight, but because they were isolated from the rest of the site, their functionality was necessarily limited.
Flickr changed everything. For the first time, elements of Flash and AJAX were combined in a seamless form, along with the HTML page. It all fit together. It all flowed nicely. And it changed the way we'd look at web-based applications, forever.
Tagging in Your Web World
In the past several years, there's been a huge growth in interest around tagging. The idea is simple. Just ask users to free-associate words and phrases with every piece of content you have. Soon you have a site organization that’s completely user-driven, making it easy to find everything in a heartbeat. This is ‘tagging’ – letting users decide the categorization of the content on the site. Sounds straightforward, but does it work?
Many questions arise around tagging as development teams implement tagging services. In this presentation, Thomas Vander Wal, an expert information architect, will discuss the current state of tagging and will show you how tagging can augment your existing practices and provide new avenues of discovery.
In this presentation, Thomas talks about the difficult challenge of organizing content on web sites. He discusses how tagging may help alleviate content challenges and refindability problems by allowing users to organize the information all by themselves. He will also examine how some of the big players on the Web are embracing tagging to augment their offerings by allowing personal user perspectives.
11:30am - 1:00pm
LUNCH
1:00pm - 2:15pm
Games-Inspired RIA Design
Games provide examples of some of the best interactive experiences available. They are fun to use, addictive, and engaging. What techniques can rich internet application designers borrow from the world of game design? Jonathan Boutelle, CTO of Uzanto, will walk you through how his company used design techniques from online casual games as a basis for the design of two web applications: MindCanvas, a game-like online survey application and SlideShare, a social sharing application for slideshows.
Principles of Social Design
Joshua Porter, User Interface Engineering
New web applications focused on social interactions are growing like wildfire. MySpace, Facebook, and Craigslist all sit in the top 20 most used web sites in the world. What is the secret to their success? What can we learn from them to apply to our own applications?
In this talk, Joshua Porter will build upon the elements and principles of visual and interation design to highlight principles of social design. In a world where great-looking interfaces are only part of the battle, Josh explores what these socially-oriented sites have done to reach such success.
One of the tensions in building these social web applications, and in networked software in general, is the tension between building for personal value vs. building for social value. Josh will talk about how the most successful applications tend to focus on personal value first, while not neglecting the social value that virally spreads to others.
2:30pm - 3:45pm
H&R Block: Creating Tax Returns Without Taxing The User
Chris Whelan, H&R Block and Gregg Almquist, Human Factors International
Imagine this scenario:
Your boss walks into your office and tells you that he needs you to build a web-based application will ask the user hundreds of questions. Those questions will be based on the arcane rules set up by the US Government and 50 separate states. The questions will have to make simple some of the most complex subject matter in the free world. And you have to completely rewrite it every single year, because of the rule changes. Oh, and by the way, the application deals with a facet of people's lives they absolutely dread and your mission is to make them love it so much they tell all their friends.
That's the challenge the folks at H&R Block face every year, as they produce the world's most complicated web-based application: Taxcut Online. Did we mention they not only produce one version, but three each year, to meet different levels of customer needs. Also, did we mention that they've done such a wonderful job, millions of satisfied customers come back to reuse the package, year after year, singing its praises every step of the way.
Gregg Almquist and Chris Whelan will share with us the history of H&R Block's amazing Taxcut application, telling us the challenges they've encountered on the way. They'll talk about how H&R Block changed the way we think about large applications with complex business rules, proving to use they power of the web to transform how businesses approach their most serious problems.
Design Strategies for Web-based Recommender Systems
Rashmi Sinha, Uzanto
Finding "things that I will like" in an information space requires a different type of user experience than when searching for items related to a particular topic. Recommender systems (RS) are a popular solution to this problem. One approach to RS design, popularized by Amazon and Netflix, is the use of collaborative filtering algorithms to match users with similar tastes and recommend items of one user to another. I will explore the role of factors such as trust, transparency and control in designing such systems.
More recent approaches to RS design rely less on algorithms, and more on encouraging social sharing and discovery within the system. Good examples of such systems are del.icio.us, Last.fm and Flickr. Such systems can also use tagging as a way to encourage social sharing, and directly connect people to each other. Other systems such as Live365 and Newsvine recognize the role of smaller subset of users who act as trendsetters / trendspotters due to their expertise, social connectedness, or motivation to act as curators. I will discuss a range of approaches to recommender systems, different types of data and social participation, and design strategies for building such systems.
4:00pm - 5:15pm
eBay: Transactions On A Massive Scale
Christian Rohrer, eBay
At first glance, eBay is a very simple site: sellers post products and buyers bid on them. A little application originally built to sell PEZ dispensers, it is elegant in how simple it works.
But dig a little deeper and one quickly realizes how incredible the eBay system really is. A series of tightly coupled web-based applications, eBay provides a system that can handle selling practically any object, from office supplies to automobiles, from computer equipment to software companies. (Recently, a company named KIKO put itself up for auction and sold on the system for $258,100 -- using the same interface as someone selling a used Sony Playstation for $28.)
Building an application where users can buy or sell practically any product, anywhere in the world, redefines how we think of how our designs can scale. Anyone thinking their application is large only has to look closely at eBay to see what "large" really is. Yet, eBay continues to innovate and show the world what large-scale applications can be.
In this presentation, Christian Rohrer will explore how eBay has innovated and share some interesting growing pains. He'll talk about the challenges his user experience team faces every day and the approaches they use to deal with the massive scale they constantly battle.
A Star to Sail Your Ship By: Developing an Experience Strategy
Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path
The complexity of contemporary products leads designers and developers to focus on fulfilling requirements, losing sight of the big picture. In this talk, Peter Merholz will stress the importance of developing an Experience Strategy. He'll show how experience strategies are distinct from brand strategies, how they provide vision that serves to guide a team as it navigates the choppy waters of shipping products, and why you need to stop designing "products" and instead think in terms of systems and experiences.
Register
by January 16th for only $1,999—a savings
of more than $400 off the final walk-in registration price. Register
now!