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SXSW 2007

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It always takes me so long to absorb SXSW. It seems so large, 8 tracks at once over a very full 4 days. As with last year I did gain a lot from the event, although I do think that some of the panels did not work so well. Personally I much prefer a more presentational style of delivery. Panels need a certain type of chemistry and it is often hard to find even among people who are excellent individual speakers. That said I do think there are many other benefits to the panel format and its part of what makes SXSW feel like an inclusive event.

This year I helped out on the microformats panel “The Growth and Evolution of Microformats” with Tantek, Frances and Mike.

I think it went well. Tantek did the history of microformat’s through t-shirts, it had to be seen to be understood. Mike did a very impressive talkon Operator which is developing into a great tool. Jeremy Keith joined us about half way through, as it is now a tradition for him to be a guest on the SXSW microformats panel. Frances covered the all important community component of microformat development.

So here are some of my favourite sessions. Marked up with hReview and hEvent of course.

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Web Typography Sucks

SXSWi, Tuesday, 13th March /> –

Richard and Mark did a great presentation on the current state of typography on the web and what we can do as web designers to improve the layout of web pages. They tried to demonstrate how traditional typographic principles can still be implemented within the current restrictions of HTML. It was one of those eye opening talks that really makes you reassess the design process. I practically like Richard’s thoughts on creating rhythem with the correct use of spacing and building grids in /> relation to your base text size. All the resources from the talk can be found at Web Typography Sucks.Can’t wait for the book.

Review by Glenn Jones

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Grids Are Good and How to Design with Them

SXSWi, Saturday, 10th March /> -

Over the last few years whilst moving towards web standards I have been fighting against the use of fixed grid layouts in my designs. This is more to do with the fact that the proportions of these designs are often defined by web advertising sizes. Some of the more complex informational structures I now work with could benefit from a more formal approach to grids. Mark and Khoj have really encouraged me to take another look at this methodology.

Review by Glenn Jones

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Helvetica

SXSWi, Tuesday 13th March /> –

The feature-length documentary about Helvetica was the big surprise of this year. What can I say, what a great film. I walked away thinking what strange and wonderful complex relationships we have with typography. Helvetica represents this by being unconsciously invisible to us and yet at the same time being so invasive in our urban environment that people do have strong emotional responses to it. It is truly amazing how different typefaces can convey so many values and emotions. The use of interviews with designers to explore the documentary theme were edited together well. If you like design or are interested in typography see this film. http://www.helveticafilm.com/

Review by /> Glenn Jones

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Design Patterns: Defining and Sharing Web Interface Design Languages

SXSWi, Monday, 12th March /> –

I have been interested in design patterns for a long time, a great deal of Madgex’s design is based on interface patterns that are reused across multiple sites. This concept has been around for some time, but is gaining greater amount of attention as the likes of Yahoo start to publish their pattern libraries. Luke talked about how to define patterns and communicating how they can be applied. What was interesting was that Luke also touched on the usability studies which back up some of the pattern design choices. The extension of documenting patterns with usability research could be very powerful. Made me think about how contextual usability tests have to be and whether you can truly test a pattern in isolation.

Review by Glenn Jones /> on

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Web 2.0 and Semantic Web: The Impact on Scientific Publishing

SXSWi, Saturday, 10th March /> –

This was one of those small sessions on a specialist subject that sometimes just work because of the passion of the people involved. Scientific publishing is a world unto itself, with complex traditions of publishing which are part of the validation and developmental processes of science itself. Building online peer reviews and citing is complex. The session dealt with many of the issues facing Web 2.0 information system design. Do you create top down categorisation or allow users to create a folksomony through tagging? The group seemed to suggest that hybrid categorisation could be the solution. The online scientific publishing seems to be moving into an interesting use of layered document structures to reveal complex metadata.

Review by Glenn Jones

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How to Bluff Your Way in Web 2.0

SXSWi, Saturday, 10th March /> –

Well what can you say about a talk displaying a slide with “AJAX” as “Accessibility Just Ain’t Xciting”. There is a lot of worth in the concept like social networking and user generated content, the problem that a lot of people are coming against is hype around “umbrella buzzwords” like Web 2.0. Sometimes a little humor can be the best tool to cut through prevailing ideas to show true value. The video is well worth a watch

http://blog.viddler.com/cdevroe/sxsw-bluff-20/

Review byGlenn Jones on

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Learning Interaction Design From Las Vegas

SXSWi, Sunday, 11th March /> –

There was something /> about Dan Saffer’s talk on learning interaction design from Las Vegas which I loved. I think it made be the sideways pop at us designers for just designing for an “idealized person–a person that not surprisingly turns out to be someone almost exactly like ourselves”. Dan did a great job of pointing out that the brutal direct nature of Las Vegas has valuable lessons, if we can see pass modern design values.

Review by Glenn Jones

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