I'll not get into the whys and wheres (it's well summarised above) but it was presented by Front a Belfast-based web design studio. When I attend an event like this, the first thing I look for is to be challenged (mentally, not physically)! There's nothing worse than a "look at us, we're all web guys, aren't we great" presentation. I'm pleased to say that the Front guys did an excellent job in pushing the often over-looked design aspect of web site development.
As an IT guy, design means architecture mostly - which of course is important. But, when dealing with web sites, the whole experience of the site is something that is extremely difficult to describe and get right. A great architecture won't do it and a great graphics guy won't do it either. A lot of the techniques described by Front where similar to a talk I heard from Gerard Meszaros at Agile2008 called "From Concept to Product Backlog. What Happens Before Iteration Zero" slides here. He spoke about all the things you need to have covered before you start coding and Front pretty much came up with a lot of similar tasks. I suppose it's the solid design theory that's coming through here and is so often skipped over in pure IT houses. This is something that IT guys are becoming more aware of, thanks to people like Alan Cooper, but it's great to see a local company like Front pushing boundaries.
Paul McKeever and Jamie Neely both gave great talks on the importance of the design phase and how Front are very committed to strategy and social aspects of the web instead of just firing up a load of images and links. Very admirable. A mention must also go out to Andy McMillan who seems to be organising a load of good solid Web events in Belfast! More power to him as this is the kind of stuff we need to be doing to start innovating as opposed to surviving.
P.S. Thanks to Paul McK for the encouragement to blog this, I need someone to poke me every week... Blog now!
