Add an eventSessions at SXSW Interactive 2011 with link on Saturday 12th March
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How Progress Bars Change the Way We Live
by Evan Jones
Once upon a time slow connections begat the Progress Bar - bloated sites would taunt us with '15% loaded' screens. High-speed promised to kill the beast and free us from their tyranny but yet it lives! Progress bars are being used MORE lately to direct user actions. Look to Farmville and LinkedIn which push their users to collect 100% of their personal information. Incomplete progress bars are an itch that needs to be scratched. They carry the implicit language that declares 'You are here' but more importantly 'The end is in sight'. Game design motivates us through incremental, measurable progress towards a tangible goal but is this the way real life works? Is the progress bar's ubiquity in technology starting to affect the way we measure progress in meatspace? This panel will reach far across time and space to look at the story of progress bars, why they hypnotize us and what we need to do - slay the beast once and for all, or throw ourselves into its partially-complete embrace...
LEVEL: Beginner
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Agile Self Development
by Dinah Sanders and Marcy Swenson
Know how to use an iterative, incremental framework to create improvements in software? You can use those mad skillz to make your life more awesome too! Come learn and share how agile techniques can be used to achieve personal goals and lower your stress – and even to get the most out of SXSW. Walk away with immediate, practical, positive actions you can take. Ideas to discuss:
• What day-to-day or minute-to-minute techniques will allow me to satisfy shorter-term goals while building up to bigger progress?
• How can I exploit my little monkey brain to get it to actually do stuff that will make my life better?
• How can I stay aligned to the big picture while working on today's challenges?Tags: productivity, agile, lifehacks, happiness, self-development
LEVEL: Intermediate