Cennydd: Designing for the Wider Web

Designing for the Wider web, by CennyDD at UX Brighton was one of those awesome presentations which leaves you feeling a little bit scared. It started with the statement: “so.. we sort of realised that we’ve been doing it all wrong in this industry”. And he’s sort of right

What I love about the web is the pace at which it moves. The approach I used 6 months ago is probably not valid today, and thats fantastic; Imagine being in an industry that never changed! “Designing for the wider web” outlined the changes we are going to have to make to our workflow and why

Notes: Designing for the Wider Web

Theres very few editorial decisions gone into these notes, but hopefully theres some useful tidbits here.

• Cennydd stated: Mobile vs desktop is just plain wrong. There is no mobile web, or desktop web… there is only the wider web
• Developers already make important design decisions that designers aren’t even aware of
• Be future friendly, don’t design for iPad, or Android, or iPhone. Deign for the devices of 3 years away
• The static context: A comfy user, in a familiar environment who is still. Think longer tasks
• The mobile context: handheld (usually), unfamiliar environment, more distraction, shorter tasks
• Context affect testing. The user test in a testing room is now outdated
• Physical size difference across devices are huge: 250px to 3000px. 20% of TV’s last year had internet
• Pixel density can vary hugely, but will peak as around 300DPI
• You are part of the problem if you create 1000px wide static wireframes
• More input devices now as well: mouse, gesture, pyhsical gesture (think kinnect), voice (think SIRI), accelerometers, compasses.
• Cennydd asserted that our previous safe assumptions are no longer safe
• Conserve bandwidth, it will become more precious. Cennydd cited Headset hotties as an example of a useless waste of bandwidth
• We should be aiming for coherence across channels and devices, whilst allowing device specific strengths to come to for
• Expand our personas to give the multiple context
• Consider content shifting. Content is no longer confined to its original context
• There is a resurgence of long form content. Oh look! People read online!
• Design deliverables must change, its expensive to create 30 different mockups for 30 different devices
• Deliver design blocks that work cross channel and device, and a rough framework for positioning
• Document how people interact with different channels over time
• Stop mockup and and start prototyping
• UX Designers need to learn to code, Designers need to UX. Only teams with cross diversification of skills will flourish
• Cennydd finished by stating (paraphrased) “We could get depressed, or we could say this is exciting. The wider web is entering its difficult teenage years”

More Notes from UX Brighton

This post is one of 4 posts on the presentations I enjoyed the most at UX Brighton. You might want to check out the other UX Brighton Posts