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MinneWebCon
April 16-17, 2012Continuing Education & Conference Center
& Carlson School of Management
Sessions
9:00 – 9:50 Keynote
What's Your Problem? Putting Purpose Back into Your Projects
Whitney Hess: @whitneyhess
“What do you do?” has become the standard opening line for getting to know someone. But if you were asked, “Why do you do what you do?” how would you answer? We are too narrowly focused on developing solutions for problems that we don't understand, don't care about, or worst of all, don't actually exist. Life is too short to waste our time expertly creating something that matters to no one. Learn to find your “why.” Discover interviewing techniques to build greater empathy with your users, synthesizing techniques to uncover their underlying inefficiencies and frustrations, and tips to continually draw inspiration and long-term product vision from their lives.
Whitney Hess is an independent user experience design consultant based in New York City, and a strategic partner at Happy Cog. She helps make products easy and pleasurable to use, consulting with startups, major corporations, and everyone in between. She writes about user experience and technology on her blog, Pleasure and Pain.
Freelancing since 2008, Hess has also been a part of the design team at Liquidnet, an international financial software company that runs the leading electronic marketplace for wholesale stock-trading. She has an educational background that began in computer science, and resulted in a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and a Master's degree in Human-Computer Interaction, both from Carnegie Mellon University.
Hess is a prolific speaker, taking part in An Event Apart, Interlink, South by Southwest, UX Israel Live, UX London, IA Summit, World Usability Day, and many more. She will be bringing a new talk and presentation to St. Paul in April, and MinneWebCon attendees will be some of the first to hear it!
10:00 – 10:50 Sessions
An Introduction to CSS3 Transitions and Transforms
Tiffany Brown: @webinista
Opera Software Developer Relations
In this session, we'll take a look at the current state of CSS3 Transforms and CSS3 Transitions. We'll talk about how to use them, discuss some optimization tips, and walk through some real-world scenarios.
Tiffany B. Brown is a member of the Opera Software Developer Relations team where she advocates for standards-based development and an open web. She has been a panelist at SXSW in 2005 and 2006, spoken at BlogHer (2006), Open Web Camp (2011), has been a two-time speaker for the HTML5/CSS3 LA User Group.
Your CMS is the Elephant in the Room
Jeff Abuzzahab: @abuzzahab
College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota
What can a designer with a fine arts background do to overhaul software infrastructure and motivate people to design and build websites that actually work in a large institution? Actually, quite a lot. The web is a non-traditional and very important function of most organizations, taking a creative approach to working with people and technology produces fantastic results. Conversely, using standard business administration tactics for the web will fail in spectacular fashion.
Part infrastructure, part management, part design, this presentation covers tossing out the big box CMS software for user-friendly tools like Dreamweaver and WordPress. Listening to the people who actually work on the web, and delivering a single CSS framework that allows for unique designs. And because no good deed goes unpunished, it will also cover some of the surprise problems that come from building a working web environment.
No matter the size of your company, or where you sit on the org chart, you will take away important lessons on collaboration, working from the ground up, and communicating progress to people at the top to ensure continued creative freedom.
Jeff Abuzzahab is the Web and Multimedia Lead at the College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota. A designer with a fine arts background, Jeff works in the Information Technology field where he specializes in design production.
Language and User-Interface Design
Ethan Poole: @ethanp
View Slides (PDF)
Quality user-interface design typically entails notions such as information architecture, user experience, usability, and aesthetics. These notions converge on the end goal of an intuitive interface which is thereby easy to use. Often ignored is how language is central both to these user-interface notions and to the notably vague concept of intuitiveness. As the foremost method of communication, language is the primary means of both conveying and accepting information from the user. An intuitive interface must therefore use language strategically and appropriately.
This presentation approaches user-interface design with a practical linguistic mindset and introduce attendees to the fundamental linguistic concepts that are relevant to designing better user interfaces. The presentation comprises three sections: (1) the importance of language in user-interface design, (2) conveying information via language, and (3) accepting language as input.
Additionally, throughout the presentation, I will incorporate tips for developers working on non-English and/or multilingual websites.
Ethan Poole is a Minneapolis-based linguist, web developer, and Scandinavian enthusiast.
11:00 – 11:50 Sessions
Responsive Design: One Site, Many Devices
Matt Ryan | Nathan Dirks
Carleton College
Responsive Design is an emerging technique that allows a single site to gracefully scale from the smallest mobile device to the largest desktop display. See examples of Responsive Design in action while learning basics, such as CSS media queries, fluid images, and responsive layout approaches. Discover how this simple CSS approach to device optimization can play a significant role in your mobile strategy.
Matt Ryan is the Associate Director of Web Communications at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. He is the college's lead web designer and user experience advocate, and helped to create the open-source Reason CMS.
Nathan Dirks joined Carleton College as a designer and front-end developer in 2011, and has worked as a freelance web developer since 2009.
Communicating Change
Scott Kubie: @scottrocketship
Q: What did the developer say to the users in the changelog?
A: Minor bug fixes and enhancements.
Whoops, sorry, that's not a joke. It is unfortunately common, though. Far too often, changes in software and websites are communicated to users with a cavalier attitude – if it all.
In this session, you'll learn why it's important to communicate clearly about change, why we usually don't, and how to do it better. We'll explore examples of industry best and worst practices, from the successful rollout of #NewNewTwitter to the bizarre PR backpedaling of the Netflix/Qwikster saga.
- Should the first team to design a new website be responsible for planning how to communicate a future overhaul of that design?
- How much user anger (or even revolt) is related to change, and how much is related to the way change is communicated?
- How do you break “bad news” to your users?
- Do we have to explain everything? What changes are best left unexplained?
- Does user testing making us overconfident about the reception our changes will receive?
- What steps can we take to better document and communicate change on fast-moving projects?
- Are we having two-way or one-way conversations about change? How can dialog improve the process?
BONUS: Be prepared for a lightning round of comically-curt changelog text collected from apps and sites across the web. No brand is safe.
Scott Kubie is a Content Strategist and User Interface Writer at Wolfram Research in Champaign, IL. He's part of a UX team working on products that span desktop, mobile, and the consumer web.
Practical User Research: Debunking the Myths & Empowering the Masses
Matthew Doty: @matthewjdoty
Life Time Fitness
As web professionals, the term “User Research” often elicits two very strong reactions. 1. Excitement at the prospect of really engaging our audiences. 2. Frustration that we never have the time or budget to do any! This presentation argues that quality user feedback is not only essential to success in the interactive space but is also within the reach of any organization, project, budget, or schedule and offers practical insight into establishing iterative user feedback into a variety of work models.
Matthew Doty has spent the better part of the last 20 years pursuing and continually refining his understanding of human behavior. Over the last decade, he's been able to bring his fascination with behavior together with his technical savvy, business acumen and artistic leanings to create compelling interactive experiences for a broad variety of organizations ranging from smaller operations to fortune 500 companies. Doty's passions currently center on helping organizations understand and then adopt the principles and methods of user-centered design.
1:00 – 1:50 Keynote
Broadcast Spectrum: a great big complicated physics issue that just so happens to hold the key to the future of everything
John Moe: @johnmoe
Spectrum is both one of the least covered stories in technology and one of the most important. John Moe, host of American Public Media’s Marketplace Tech Report, walks through some of the most pressing issues and biggest stories related to the dividing up of the broadcast spectrum, as wireless carriers, the GPS industry, the military, and the media attempt to position themselves to be heard and profit in the age of ubiquitous instant communication. Fortunately, Moe will explain all this in a way that doesn’t require a physics degree to understand.
John Moe is the host of Marketplace Tech Report (formerly Future Tense) for American Public Media, and handles web content for the program. Every day, he provides an insightful overview of the latest tech news using his witty and approachable style of reporting.
As the host of Wits, a stage and radio series of interviews and music, Moe has helped expand the concept audience participation at live events through social media. Paste Magazine ranked him at #7 in its “Best 25 Twitter Users of 2010” list, which is below Kanye West, but above Steve Martin. Moe tweets at @johnmoe.
Moe holds a bachelor's degree in Dramatic Arts from Whitman College, but because he gained such a broad education at the small liberal arts college, he considers himself a degree-holder in the school of “Being Curious.” He has a long history in radio, formerly hosting Weekend America as well as hosting and producing programs at KUOW, the National Public Radio affiliate in Seattle. Moe has humor pieces for McSweeney's and the New York Times Magazine, been a senior editor at Amazon.com, worked on projects for Microsoft, and written scripts for video games.
2:00 – 2:50 Sessions
Mobile Web Development: The Challenges and How To Meet Them
Tony Thomas: @truetone
Student Unions & Activities, University of Minnesota
The mobile device market is projected to hit 10 billion users by 2020. At Student Unions & Activities, mobile devices are beginning to eclipse older versions of Internet Explorer on our websites. It's time to take this seriously.
Learn from my mistakes and jump into mobile web development. I'll give you a high-level overview of the challenges mobile web development presents and then dive down into some specific techniques like media queries, responsive design and the JQuery mobile framework.
Tony Thomas is a father of two, husband to one, musician and web developer at Student Unions & Activities. He's been working in web development for over 11 years.
Embracing Chaos: An Interactive Project Management Survival Guide
Nancy Lyons: @nylons | Meghan Wilker: @irishgirl
Geek Girls Guide
Interactive is different. It's not print. It's not software engineering. It's different. And yet we rarely take the time to discuss what makes it so different, the complexities of digital projects, and the unique process and approach that's necessary for getting digital done. Our industry continues its rapid evolution and yet there are still no real standards in place for process management and delivery of work product. In this session we'll discuss the challenges and barriers to successful delivery of digital projects and the simple framework the Geek Girls have developed to establish the industry standard for project management. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of the role of interactive Project Manager, a basic overview of a real and applicable interactive process and an understanding of the importance of the right documentation that will align clients and project teams and assure shared goals and priorities.
Nancy Lyons and Meghan Wilker launched the Geek Girls Guide in January 2008 as a place to publish their perspective on the Interactive industry and demystify technology for non-technical audiences.
Their mission is to make web technology accessible and exciting and cultivate a movement of empowered women and men online by:
- hosting safe, welcoming places to ask technology questions online and in real life
- educating non-technical audiences on the practical applications of Internet technology
- creating opportunities for women and men in software and web development to socialize and network
- advocating for our audiences at software and web industry events
In April of 2012 their book Interactive Project Management: Pixels, People and Process is coming out via Peach Pit Press.
The Joneses: Communication Networks to Do Your Dirty Work
Tonya Oaks Smith: @marleysmom
UALR Bowen School of Law
Keeping up with the Joneses… That idea is an integral part of selling anything – whether it's a car or a spot in an upcoming freshman class.
We all know that we have to have conversations with our audiences and more importantly listen, but why is this approach so important? Does this engagement approach directly oppose the traditional idea of marketing our wares? Do folks actually listen to what we have to say when we tweet, Facebook, email? How do we engage them – and convince them to do what we want?
The answer is often not in how we engage, but in how we help communication networks develop. In this session, you'll learn the characteristics of a strong communication network and of great opinion leaders as well as what communication behaviors individuals bring to social media. Finally, you'll find out best practices for engaging with opinion leaders and how to *use* them wisely. (Yes, that's a wicked laugh you hear…)
Tonya Oaks Smith serves as Director of Communications for the UALR Bowen School of Law. In this role, she manages the communications, marketing, and public relations strategies of the law school in accordance with its mission, objectives, directives, and policies. Smith is particularly interested in developing Bowen's communication and marketing strategies through the use of new media. She recently completed her master's degree in applied communication studies, and her thesis research was on the use of Twitter to persuade individuals to seek vaccinations in the wake of the H1N1 virus outbreak.
3:00 – 3:50 Sessions
Building HTML5 Apps for iPad and Android Tablets
Mike Bollinger: @mikebollinger | Sam Kirchmeier: @skirchmeier
Livefront
Tablets are an increasingly important and ubiquitous platform, and nearly every organization is either implementing, or trying to understand, their mobile strategy. Tablets are an inspiring medium on which to build applications given their incredible computing power, screen size, and portability. Most applications built for tablets are native apps (using platform-specific code) which means development can be costly and redundant. While there always will be a place for native apps, there has been a lot of interest of late in building cross-platform applications using HTML5.
In this presentation we'll demonstrate the capabilities of HTML5 and show when and how it can replace a native tablet app. We'll provide high-level strategy and context and dive into the details by walking through how to build a cross-platform HTML5 app for iOS and Android.
(The presentation will be geared towards people who have a working knowledge of front-end development.)
Mike Bollinger is a designer, coder, entrepreneur, and explorer. He is founder of Livefront, a mobile software design & development firm, and co-founder of TECHdotMN, a media group covering technology news in Minnesota. Mike has been designing and building mobile and web software for 14 years with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups. He is a leader in the Minnesota technology community and on the Board of Directors for two non-profit organizations: Cheerful Givers and BizLounge.
Sam Kirchmeier is a software developer, speaker, and teacher. Sam has over 10 years of experience building mobile apps for iOS and web apps with a variety of technologies like Ruby on Rails, ASP.NET, and handcrafted HTML/CSS. When he's not writing the next big iOS app at Livefront, you might find him teaching at Hennepin Technical College or out on the disc golf course practicing his technique.
Standing Out and Moving Up in Web Design
Abbey Tosic: @AbbeyNormal
Perficient
A lot of what makes us successful in the web design field doesn't always have to do with our actual skill set or what we learn in any class. In this presentation, Abbey Tosic, a Senior User Experience Designer, breaks it down into 3 key aspects that can help you stand out and move up in your career. You'll get tips on how to incorporate this winning recipe into your own routine that you can start using your first day back in the office or for your new career.
Abbey Tosic has worked in design and online marketing for over 8 years and is currently a Senior User Experience Designer for Perficient, a leading information technology consulting firm. She has worked with global brands including 3M, Post-it, Hallmark and Coke. Abbey's passions include creative strategy, user experience, writing, teaching through speaking engagements, and rather cute cats.
Social Media: The ‘Hostess with the Mostest’ for Your Digital Strategy
Jennifer Kane: @JenKaneCo | Kary Delaria: @karyd
Kane Consulting
Running a Facebook Fan page, tweeting up a storm, and Google Plus-ing yourself silly are all fine ways to spend your time. But, in the end, those are just social media parlor tricks. It's when you integrate social media into a larger digital strategy that you really start to see the magic happen. That’s when social becomes your digital, “hostess with the mostest” – that key element that can get the party started, keep the conversation moving and make everyone want to come back for more. In this session, we'll discuss how to transition social media into that role, from determining goals and objectives to developing the content. 
We'll also talk through the logistical challenges of pulling all of the pieces of your strategy together using social media, especially when those various digital channels are owned or managed by different teams.
Jennifer Kane is principal of Kane Consulting and a marketing and communications strategist with more than 15 years of experience working with B2B and B2C companies. She speaks nationally on topics related to social media, is developing the social media curriculum at Concordia University, St. Paul, MN (where she is adjunct faculty), and is a frequent contributor to the show “Content Marketing 360” on the Next Stage Business Radio Network.
Kary Delaria is a digital PR strategist specializing in social media monitoring & measurement for Kane Consulting.
4:00 – 4:50 Sessions
Intro to PHP Security
Michael Stowe: @mikegstowe
CaringBridge
The most important aspect of any application is security. Any application that isn't secure opens up your server and business to irreparable harm. Fortunately, there are a lot of security tips on the web, and unfortunately, there are a lot of misconceptions. In this session we are going to cover some of the most dangerous security risks and common misconceptions, and show you how to correctly sanitize data to ensure that your application remains “hole” free.
Michael Stowe is a software engineer for CaringBridge, a non-profit that makes each health journey easier by providing private, online journals. Having over 7 years experience as a developer, Michael has developed applications for use by law enforcement and the American Red Cross, as well as many smaller e-commerce, and open-source applications.
Discovering the E-World of People Who Live with Disabilities (PANEL)
Lynn Wehrman | Ken Rodgers | Bill Libberton | Nina Phouthasack
WeCo
A view inside the world of people living with disabilities, focusing on how they use computers and access the Internet. We will discuss the challenges and advantages of assistive computer technologies and demonstrate how the most commonly used devices interact with software programs and the Internet. These include: screen readers, voice recognition software, non-handheld pointer devices and modified keyboards. Highlighted will be how these technologies interact with online forms and applications and how visually and hearing impaired people access video and audio communication online. This will be a panel discussion with an opportunity for attendees to ask questions.
Lynn Wehrman, President, WeCo (The Wehrman Collaborative, LLC)
WeCo, a “for-profit-with-a-purpose” or mission-based company, was formed by Lynn Wehrman in February 2011. WeCo provides web site, form and document user-experience testing for businesses, organizations and governments regarding compliance to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which mandate access to individuals who live with disabilities. WeCo provides unique usability test teams, staffed entirely by people who live with disabilities, for clients who want to learn how to create, not only compliant websites and documents, but ones that translate into accessible and useful sources for all members of the public.
Prior to founding Weco, Lynn worked as the Accessible Communications Specialist for the State of Minnesota Department of Transportation. While at the DOT, Lynn worked as a web designer, redesigning Mn/DOT's Americans with Disabilities Act web pages (“Accessibility” pages) for better access by people living with disabilities, by conducting user-experience testing in the homes of consumer stakeholders. She then took this knowledge, combined with her training as a professional writer, and used it to created internal training and processes for project managers, document authors and communications staff regarding making websites, forms and documents accessible in accordance with access legislation. Part of the work that Lynn did for Mn/DOT also included making large legislative studies and documents, being posted on the web for public comment, accessible to people living with disabilities. Lynn also performed relationship development work with Mn/DOT's Americans with Disabilities Act consumer stakeholder committee.
Ken Rodgers: WeCo Advisory Board Member and current President of the American Council for the Blind of Minnesota
Bill Libberton: WeCo Certified Test Consultant and Web Developer
Nina Phouthasack: WeCo Certified Test Consultant
Ending the Web vs. Native Debate
Kevin Whinnery: @kevinwhinnery
Appcelerator Inc.
The web browser is an increasingly powerful platform for delivering amazing cross-platform mobile applications. However, many applications can benefit from escaping the browser, integrating deeply into the mobile platform's OS and taking advantage of native APIs. Build native? You're shackling yourself to a proprietary technology or platform. Build for the web? You're sacrificing features and deep platform integration that benefit your users.
Titanium Mobile, the cross-platform development tool for building mobile apps in JavaScript, is set on ending this debate with deep platform support for Android, iOS, and the mobile web – all from a single codebase. But we're not talking about cramming a web page into a thin native shell – Titanium provides a unified JavaScript API which is translated directly to native platform APIs for user interface, data access, and more.
Kevin will briefly examine how Titanium Mobile works at a high level and solves the cross-platform problem differently, then walk developers through a real Titanium codebase which produces not only a feature-rich mobile web application, but also a production-quality native iPad, native iPhone, native Android and native e-reader (NOOK and Kindle Fire) application. Developers will gain knowledge of how JavaScript code is structured and re-used in Titanium to deliver a great experience on multiple mobile platforms. Titanium experience is not required, but a good working knowledge of JavaScript is helpful to grasp the code in the project walkthrough.
Kevin Whinnery is an engineer and Platform Evangelist for Appcelerator Inc., husband, father, and gleeful front-end hacker. He is also the founder and a co-organizer of JavaScriptMN, Minnesota's first JavaScript user group.
2012 Sponsors
