Sessions at Web Directions South 2011 on Thursday 13th October in Design Track

When we think about what the Web is, and what it can be, we tend to focus on interactions between people and computers, or between people and other computationally-enabled things. But what happens when these “things” are animals?

In this talk, Anne will discuss the role that animals have played in shaping the Web so far, how the Web is enabling new ways of interacting with animals, and what we might expect from a future of human-animal-computer interaction.

Covering everything from online farms and product traceability to animals that tweet and epizoic media, this talk will demonstrate that the Internet isn’t just made of cats, but also cows and birds and sheep and cockroaches and…

Change is never a smooth process. How do know when disruption is useful and how do you cope with the feedback on it? Recently news.com.au, a national news website with large numbers of daily visitors, underwent a major upgrade which tore down existing and perhaps “expected” ways of presenting news. At the heart of the redesign was a desire for change that motivated and challenged every aspect of the team’s design thinking and process. In this co-piloted session Simon and Scott will fly you over the territories of change they encountered on the project, ones common to many redesign projects. They’ll descend through the experiences that came out of the redesign: fundamentals like stakeholders, requirements and their process for user experience architect and designer working side by side. Sprinkled with some of the twitter and facebook feedback the project received, they’ll touch down on the sticky issues of dealing with feedback and how to suck it up and utilise passionate user and stakeholder feedback.

Throughout the years, the Swiss Army Knife has been the trusted companion of scouts and explorers alike, and for front-end developers, CSS has been a trusty, if sometimes frustrating, companion. And just as blades, scissors and sundry tools have been added to the Swiss Army Knife, with CSS3, we have new tools and implements of creativity, and some tried and true tools have been honed and sharpened. Of course the key to success is knowing which of the many tools to use and how to wield them in a given situation. Join Stephanie Rewis as she explores some shiny enhancements to favorite old tools like backgrounds and borders, as well as slices and dices with new tools like CSS masks and more!

No longer is being connected limited to the constraints of the traditional desktop environment. Devices, networks and the Web are maturing and evolving at a fast rate. Our expectations about what we want, how we want it and when we want it are more complex.

Designing experiences for web for the “desktop” environment is something many of us have been doing for a while. Toss in “mobile”, sprinkle that with some social integration, a native app or two and things suddenly start getting a bit more interesting. How do you approach designing experiences that span multiple platforms and devices, contexts and roles to meet the evolving needs of our audiences?

A new generation of touch devices have proven to be exciting playgrounds for app designers. And with every new product we create, we have the opportunity to offer the most clear and efficient experience for our users. Recent UI trends often lean to realistic, faithful representations of analog controls and features. These designs can offer advantages, but also come with their own set of hazards.

In this session Aaron will lead you on a tour of current trends and practices, examining the strengths and drawbacks that realism brings. We’ll talk about things like mental models, innovation and usability as they relate to lifelike UI. Finally, Aaron will share some pragmatic guidelines to keep in mind as you build the next wave of mobile and touch apps.