Who You Going to See at 9AM on June 1st?
When you go to the Big Design Conference 2012, the 9AM hour is your first “power hour” of speakers. Yes, you have to choose to between a seasoned UX professional, a panel of experts, a typeface historian, and an author. The topics include managing design(ers), lessons from a design library, web typography, and UX principles of Jim Henson. Managers, nerds, design snobs, and puppet lovers have something to see. Details are below. Choice #1: Lessons from the DELL Design Pattern Library The Dell Design Library is run by Global Site Design (GSD), Dell’s internal interactive design group. GSD is responsible [...]
February 25: Responsive Web Design Workshop
Responsive web design allows you to design flexible sites that look good and work beautifully on phones, tablets, laptops, and giant TVs alike. You can take a quantum leap in your skills as a web designer or front-end developer. In this full-day workshop, Ben Judy will teach you how to employ fluid grids, flexible images, and CSS3 media queries, while avoiding common pitfalls and covering the blind spots. Finally, Ben leads us through the process of building and testing a responsive site, while we explore related Web design concepts and enable ourselves to make brilliant sites that work for all of our users [...]
Featured Stories
Five Innovations from the Civil War
Great innovations often appear during times of hardship and stress. Constraints of time, money, and resources can be the catalyst for new inventions and expressions of creativity. Such constraints are often found in the midst of war. We recently took a look at Five Innovations from World War II wherein we saw the development of modern computing and advances in medicine and science. The technological achievements of World War II have shaped the world we live in today. Let’s rewind the clock another four score to see how technology shaped “the first modern war”: the American Civil War of the 1860’s. [...]
[Video] The Wisdom and Folly of the Crowds by Jessica Keup
Jessica Keup never has been sure where she fits in – too artsy for the technical crowd, and too analytic for the designers. She holds a lectureship in the Computer and Information Sciences Department at East Tennessee State University, teaching courses in web design and human-computer interaction. Jessica has a Masters in HCI from Carnegie Mellon, where she produced new navigation style that was patented. In her spare time, she manages a number of university department websites and web applications. Jessica is a big fan of computer-facilitated creativity, and she’s currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation on artificial intelligence that [...]
May 31: Guerilla Research Methods Workshop by Russ Unger
This hands-on session will cover a number of low cost, yet powerful research methods to help you make better data-driven design decisions. Russ Unger will provide you with a number of techniques for recruiting research participants, creating better research questions, and what to do with your data once you’ve conducted your research. Russ Unger is a User Experience professional in the Chicago area who has worked with some pretty impressive companies, including Happy Cog, a well-recognized web design firm. He is co-author of the book “A Project Guide to UX Design” for Peachpit Press (Voices That Matter) and is co-authoring a book on guerilla research [...]
Videos
[8 Minute Video] Overview of Adobe Lightroom 4 Beta Features
In this episode, A.J. Wood (and his lovely daughter) provides you with an overview of the new features in Adobe Lightroom 4. According to Adobe, the Lightroom 4 Beta features refined technology for superior shadow and highlight processing, expanded management capabilities, including enhanced DSLR video support and the ability to create beautiful photo books from within Lightroom. NOTE: If you are in Dallas on January 28th, you will want to join AJ for his Photoshop Boot Camp, which is a full-day of Photoshop tips and tricks. Designers, photographers, bloggers, and just about anyone would benefit from this interactive workshop. We do expect [...]
[6 Minute Video] Watch a Student Video of Big Design Week 2011
Yukiko “Snow” Jones is a student at the University of Texas at Dallas in the Emerging Media program. Yukiko created this video recap of Big Design Week 2011. Yukiko developed this short video for one of her classes. The video consists of interviews from most of the workshop teachers–Preston McCauley, Brian Sullivan, J Schuh, and AJ Wood. Big Design Week 2011 from snow_jones on Vimeo. Yukiko was a real worker, too. She shot this video,while she was finishing up a couple of classes. You will probably see Yukiko “Snow” Jones shooting some more video at the Big Design Conference 2012, [...]
[4 Minute Video] Add SEO to Your Photoshop Images
In this episode, A.J. Wood shows you how to edit metadata for search engines using Photoshop for posting to the Internet. Running time is a little over 4 minutes. NOTE: If you are in Dallas on January 28th, you will want to join AJ for his Photoshop Boot Camp, which is a full-day of Photoshop tips and tricks. Designers, photographers, bloggers, and just about anyone would benefit from this interactive workshop. We do expect it to sell out fast. Register today. The cost is just $79 with lunch provided. Related articles [4 Minute Video] Assign Brush Colors with a [...]
Reviews
Extended Deadline for Submissions to February 15th
If you have been waiting to get your talk submitted to Big Design 2012, don’t fret. We have extended the deadline for submissions by a few weeks. It is time to be brave,step up to the microphone, and share your ideas with the friendly folks you will find at Big Design 2012. It is a safe, friendly crowd. Format of Your Submission We really don’t ask for too much. When you submit, use this simple format: Title of your talk Brief description (2 paragraphs is great) What the audience will learn (5-6 bullets) Your name Brief bio Examples of previous [...]
The Case for Horizontal Scrolling!!!
In the last few years, I’ve noticed alot of websites using horizontal scrolling for their navigation. From a design perspective, horizontal scrolling is a type of navigation that is still not widely used. But, it seems to emerging (or-re-emerging) on some websites now. In some respects, horizontal scrolling may actually offer a better alternative to standard vertical navigation. From a usability perspective, horizontal scrolling is generally considered a poor design choice (sources: Usability.gov, Jakob Nielsen). In usability circles, there is a funny story about how Jakob Nielsen demonstrated his thoughts on horizontal scrolling by nodding his head up and down saying, [...]
Stephen P. Anderson is Big Design 2012 Closing Speaker for Day 1
Stephen P. Anderson will be the closing speaker on Day 1 (Friday, June 1) at Big Design 2012. Yes, you still have another day on Saturday, June 2. Stephen is a perfect bridge between these two days. Stephen has spoken at the Big Design Conference each year. His talks are easily some of the most popular ones, too. If you have never heard Stephen talk, you will be affirmed by what you already know and you will be inspired by what Stephen says about the things you don’t know. Stephen P. Anderson has many talented gifts. In my mind, Stephen’s [...]
