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Writing Content and Mapping UX Flows

with Stephanie Hay

A process for building trust

Many products and services promise to be the easiest, smartest, and best things ever. The problem is, they’re not—and this disconnect between marketing and reality is building a web of skeptics. But you *can* build trust with users by setting realistic expectations, meeting them, and maintaining users’ confidence even when you “fail.”

What will you learn?

Writing honest content through a cohesive UX flow is a great place to start. So that’s what we’ll do in this workshop, and you can expect to:

• Write real content and a UX map for whatever project you want
• See tons of real-world examples of content, forms, and flows that work (and don’t)
• Get tips and processes for persuading clients or teams to go “content first”

What should you bring?

Bring something to write with (paper/pencil, laptop, parchment/feather pen) and prepare to leave this half-day workshop with a renewed sense of confidence that being genuine is actually the best.

Steph Hay is into BBC programs, CrossFit, and sandwiches. She makes content and UX work together for awesome clients like Happy Cog and UIE. Steph also edits Workspace Design Magazine, which she co-launched in 2010. She wants to marry Vancouver. @steph_hay | www

The Intimacies of Pricing Your Customer

with Jason Blumer

Why Pricing and Working with Awesome Clients Begins Before the Work Begins

The intimate act of pricing your customer is very holistic. That is, realizing whom you should be serving, how you should be serving them and the art of pricing them should all be considered when doing your best work. Pricing (as opposed to the term billing) begins before you price. And to be sure, Seeking out the right customer, and then pricing, both should happen before you even do your work. Do you want to serve well? Do you want to price high and deliver huge value? Then consider serving believers, not just clients. In this workshop, we’ll explore the intimate act of pricing believers, and how that can make you a world class creative entity.

What will you learn?

In this workshop, you will learn how holistic your view of client service should be. We will explore the behavioral economics behind pricing, changing lives, keeping clients out of your firm and how value perceptions shape the price you deliver to your client. This is a workshop on strategy, not execution. Practical tips will be given on execution, but that will not be the main thrust of the workshop. You will be challenged as you are introduced to a whole new methodology to serving your customers. This is not a class to teach you how to set an arbitrary billable rate. We will discuss value, it’s relation to your price and why you should be a high priced creative firm.

What should you know?

You should be running a creative business. Some of the concepts that we will cover relate deeply to running a firm yourself. Employees can not typically implement the deep strategy we will discuss in this workshop.

What should you bring?

Your laptop to take notes on, yo! Also, a willingness to ask questions. Questions from business owners will deepen the topic covered and help everyone to learn more from real-life examples.

Jason Blumer is the Founder of the Thriveal CPA Network, and the Chief Innovative Officer of his CPA firm, Blumer & Associates, CPAs. He is the co-host of the Thrivecast and The Businessology Show and speaks and writes frequently for CPAs and creatives, his firm’s chosen niche. Jason loves to watch documentaries on just about anything (including skateboarding, China, glue, politics and sea turtles). He lives in Greenville, SC with his wife and their three children. @jasonmblumer | www

Streamlining, Improving & Automating Your CSS Workflow

with Kitt Hodsden

Including how to get started when you're already on your way

You know how to write CSS. You’re using best practices, avoiding !important, reducing the depth of applicability, modularizing your selectors, and aggregating your CSS files. But what about the processes outside the writing of CSS?

Let’s work through those processes to streamline your workflow and automate common tasks in a best CSS workflow scenario, then adjust the process and tools to specific cases brought by attendees.

What will you learn?

Automation basics: command line, scripts, hooks and source control systems Best practices: organizing CSS, preprocessors, linting, sprite generation Workflow enhancements: live-reloads, packaging, aggregation and compression Testing setup: tools to automate testing

What should you know?

How to write CSS. How your current workflow works, and areas you’d like to improve.

What should you bring?

• You
• Your laptop
• A workflow task you do frequently that we can automate.

Kitt Hodsden is a co-founder of CodingClan LLC, a small development firm specializing in rapid development and deployment of Drupal-based community websites. She is credited on both Antz and Shrek, for work during her Hollywood phase. As a founding director, she is active at the Hacker Dojo, a community space for hackers, tinkerers and programmers in Mountain View, California. @kitt | www

Responsive Discovery

with Steve Fisher

Creating success for any web project

Responsive web projects can be daunting, especially with big systems. Your discovery process will make or break the project.

But don’t be afraid! This is your chance to find the humanity in your project: the emotional, political, cultural and functional issues that make the difference. Get cozy with your customers, stakeholders, and content authors. We are all allies in the fight to make the web a better place!

Learn from successes and failures with practical examples from a discovery process that works.

What will you learn?

• How a responsive discovery process impacts team dynamics and workflow
• How to encourage collaboration across departments and silos
• How a responsive discovery will change a project (and why that’s okay)
• Creating and using in browser design communication (style guides and dynamic style tiles)
• What are some horrible ideas I’ve tried?
• What are the great successes I’ve seen?

What should you know?

A basic to intermediate level of either content strategy or UX work is recommended. We’ll be throwing around items like wireframes, contextual interviews, stakeholder mud wrestling, and team therapy. Fun!

What should you bring?

• Enthusiasm!
• Your heart
• Laptop
• Yellow pencils, markers, and paper will be supplied

Steve Fisher is the creative team nerd-herder at Yellow Pencil in Canada. He leads the charge on coordinating research,  visual and interaction design, and content strategy. On the global stage he’s a sought-after speaker on topics like responsive web design, UX, open source, design thinking, and web process. He also loves Twitter (maybe a little too much). @hellofisher | www

Just My Type

with Dan Mall

Be the typographer you were born to be

Wanna take your type game to the next level? We’ll skip the basics and jump into the nuances of great typography: assessing what gives type personality, drawing type, choosing and pairing typefaces, comparing the classics to the new kids, and lots more. We’ll wrap up applying our new typographic superpowers to the web: evaluating webfont services to find the right one, the differences between typefaces for print and web, and using modern tools to take your type skills to the web. Type-rrific! (I’m so sorry.)

What will you learn?

• How to appreciate and critique typography
• How to choose typefaces
• How to pair typefaces
• What to look for in good web fonts
• How to work with webfonts and webfont services like Typekit, Fontdeck, Google Fonts, and Typecast
• How to win friends and influence people

What should you know?

A basic to intermediate level of typography is recommended. If the words “x-height”, “counter”, and “em” are foreign to you, you should probably brush up on your type skills before you show up. This ain’t no disco!

What should you bring?

• Brain
• You
• Laptop
• Pencils, markers, and paper will be supplied

Dan Mall is an award-winning designer from Philadelphia, an enthralled husband, and new dad. As the Founder & Design Director at SuperFriendly, Dan and his team defeat apathy and the forces of evil with heroic creative direction, design, & strategy. He’s also co-founder of Typedia and swfIR, and sings/plays keyboard for contemporary-Christian band Four24. Dan was formerly Design Director at Big Spaceship, Interactive Director at Happy Cog, and a technical editor for A List Apart. @danielmall | www

Making Things Move with CSS3

with Val Head

A workshop on making the most of your standards-based interactions.

In this workshop we’ll look at how to use CSS to create efficient and meaningful motion design. Whether you’re bringing illustrations or interfaces to life on the web, CSS has the power to make it happen. Val will show you how CSS-based animations can enhance the design and user experience of your websites and apps.

We’ll cover the basics of CSS animations, borrow techniques from traditional animation, and tackle what make animating UI elements a special case for us to consider. We’ll dig right in with some code (CSS and a bit of JavaScript) and create concrete examples for you to take home and experiment with further.

What will you learn?

• How to evaluate animations and transitions from a design perspective
• All the wonderful helpful things easing can do for you
• The basics of CSS animations and working with multiple animations
• Which tasks CSS animations are especially good for
• How to use animations to improve UX and connect with your audience
• How to combine CSS and JS to build more compelling interactions

What you should know?

• Experience with HTML and CSS
• Some Familiarity with JavaScript or jQuery is helpful, but not required

What should you bring?

Val Head is totally into design, type and code. She is a designer and consultant currently based in Pittsburgh where she works with agencies and small businesses to make fun and effective web sites. She speaks internationally at conferences and leads workshops on web design and creative coding. She also runs the local creative coding meet up, Loop, and helps keep Refresh Pittsburgh going strong. She likes people. @vlh | www