Last Saturday, I attended IIDCon. The primary event was the four speakers. These speakers included Liese Zahabi, Victor Yocco, Brian Crumley, and John Halfpenny - who all came from different backgrounds. Before even attending the event, I knew that I would likely find value in what each speaker presented.
Victor's presentation was first. He specialized in psychology and its relation to design. I have always been fascinated by psychology, and knew there were many aspects of it which could be powerful in benefiting a design or application. Perhaps one of the most basic things in terms of design that he related to psychology was the use of hierarchy. Displaying information in a meaningful way is always crucial in terms of having a good design. His example of a site that did this poorly, was a student loan repayment site. Many of the subcategories didn't necessarily correspond with their headings in a meaningful way. In fact, two of the options that could've been placed under another category, had their own heading of "Other". Victor explained how this kind of design would leave users frustrated because they wouldn't necessarily associate what they were looking for with where it was placed. He also discussed the idea of give and take. An example of this is when you receive a free trial, and then at the end of it are asked to purchase the full service. This type of transaction helps to make a user feel, even if it is subconsciously, that they should return the favor - especially if they enjoyed the service. I found Victor's talk not only interesting, but also beneficial and it is something that I would like to do more research on.
The next speaker was Brian, who presented on the idea of a living style guide. This talk actually played in very well with what we are doing in class - especially since we had a style tile/guide due the following Monday. He believes that these living guides - which incorporate working code and styling - are essential when communicating between a business and its customers/users. The living style guide goes beyond a traditional one because it really allows the designers/business/users to understand exactly how the final product will look and behave, without it actually being finished. Beyond this, it also allows for the styling and code to be reused and applied with ease across multiple pages of a website. Although a lot of what he spoke on felt a little ahead of where I was in terms of learning design and application, I felt that it was a nice primer for my future in these fields.
Liese Zahabi spoke on the idea of evolution of the search box. Her presentation felt very philosophical in comparison to the others. She primarily spoke about how we must transition our metaphor for search in order to facilitate a more successful evolution of search. The metaphor that she felt was most effective was that online search and the internet is like an ecosystem. She said this was more accurate than previous metaphors because it took into account the fact that the web is comprised of content which is old and new. It is constantly changing and constantly being added to at a rate much greater than ever before. I found that this metaphor lined up with my own personal observations about content creation on the internet. However, Liese helped to expand on what I had previously thought and has left me thinking about the internet in a new way.
The final speaker was John Halfpenny who specializes in personal branding online. His presentation primarily spoke about what a person should be doing if they would like to have a presence and stand out online. He used a few examples of people we likely recognized and knew the brand of - including Donald Trump. He explained that these people were effective in creating a brand for themselves online because we knew what to expect from them - good or bad. Some of the things he said that we should be doing starting now to begin creating a brand was to expand our social media outreach. Specifically, having an account on all major social media accounts, defining ourselves on those accounts, and linking them to and from each other. John also said that the most important thing was to use our names as both usernames and in our personal website domains. This tied into his bigger picture of his speech - which was inserting yourself into search results and optimizing your exposure. I felt that John's presentation was very beneficial and something that I felt I should start doing before I exit college in the coming years. After his presentation, I felt equipped with knowledge that could help define my online presence.
Overall, I felt that IIDCon was a beneficial experience. My knowledge on the topics that were presented felt expanded and my interest in them has also increased. Many of the topics presented were helpful to me now, and will likely be helpful as I continue in this field. I will likely continue my own independent research on some of these topics and hopefully learn even more as time passes.
