Pleasure and Pain » Web Development

Future of Web Apps — Miami 2009

whitney — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:07:02 +0000

Last weekend, Orian and I flew down to Miami for BarCampMiami and Carsonified‘s Future of Web Apps (FOWA). Unfortunately I caught a cold and we missed most of BarCamp, but at least we made it to Fraser Kelton‘s presentation on AdaptiveBlue‘s Glue — a browser add-on that lets you see what your friends think about stuff all over the web [I plan to write an in-depth review of Glue soon].

The Future of Web Apps took place on Monday, February 23 (workshops) and Tuesday, February 24 (conference). We only attended the second day, a one-track lineup of some of the biggest names in the business. Celebrity certainly draws a crowd, but I have to admit that the whole day was pretty underwhelming and uninspiring. It seems the only session that actually dealt with the future of web apps — “How to create powerful web app user interfaces using Objective-J and Cappuccino” from 280 North — was the one we missed when we got caught up in a hallway conversation with Fraser, Alex Iskold (founder of AdaptiveBlue), and Alex Hillman (a.k.a. @alexknowshtml). While the conversation was great, it was a bummer that we missed one of the few, if not the only, insights into what’s next.

The lineup was as follows:

Getting Real 2.0 – Jason Fried, 37 Signals
What is the Future of the Browser – Dion Almaer and Ben Falbraith, Mozilla
Open Strategy :: Applied – Dan Theurer, Yahoo
Scaling your tech team – Joe Stump, Digg
Outisde the interface: more words to worry about – Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic
Order from Chaos – Future of the Web – Aza Raskin, Mozilla
Facebook Connect – Dave Morin, Facebook
How to achieve tech team nirvana – Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek
Brand 2.0 – Alex Hunter, Virgin
How to create powerful web app user interfaces using Objective-J and Cappuccino – Francisco Tolmasly, 280 North
Ryan Carson interviews Joel Spolsky and Jason Fried
A typical rant – Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV

Naturally, I did my best to capture it all on Twitter. My wi-fi connection was spotty, so there are more holes here than I’d like, but you’ll get the idea. Overall, it’s safe to say that I wasn’t terribly impressed, and would have greatly preferred to see a series of truly innovative web apps by startups and corporations around the world that are actually changing the game, not just a bunch of product pitches and trite advice from the usual suspects. Maybe I’m too immersed in the conference circuit and I’ve just heard it all before. I hope that’s the case, and that the other 300 or so attendees really got something of value out of it.

My Twitter notes are below:

About to head into the Adrienne Arsht Center for #FOWA Miami
I’m Twittering from the Future of Web Apps in Miami http://events.carsonified.com/fowa/2009/miami
If you don’t want to follow my #fowa tweets, feel free to unfollow. Follow @whitneyhesslive to find out when I’m done so you can re-follow

Getting Real 2.0 – Jason Fried, 37 Signals

Jason Fried of @37signals is on the stage. He was going to give his “Getting Real” talk, but decided instead to do something new
He’s talking about products that are organically built on the byproducts of what we do every day. Getting Real generated $1mil last yr
Jason Fried: @garyvee just owned a wine shop, and was doing all this other stuff to support it. But that other stuff rocketed him
Famous chefs a great example of this. They don’t just cook food. They have books, TV shows, kitchenware, etc. They share themselves
“The best thing to do is share the information” Think about your byproducts, don’t be afraid of your competitor learning your secrets
“Free is the wrong direction for this industry” — Jason Fried. “Free is not the future of business; it’s the future of failure”
Charging for something doesn’t mean you’re going to survive, but it’s a lot easier for services who don’t charge to die
Pownce bought by SixApart, I Want Sandy bought by Twitter. Lots of users left with no service.
Even Google has decided that certain things aren’t worth giving away for free.
“Somehow failure became cool.” — @jasonfried Wouldn’t tell a farmer to fail early & fail often. Why do we think it’s ok in software?
Look for your byproducts. Don’t focus on failure. Pay attention to successes. Start charging for your products — @jasonfried
Most @37signals users on paying plans starting on paying plans. “Free converts, but pay converts better.” — @jasonfried
Don’t focus on the competition. We’re in a world where 100 companies doing the same thing can be very successful — @jasonfried
People are going to start trusting free services less and less. Users want to know that the company has a vested interest in surviving

What is the Future of the Browser – Dion Almaer and Ben Falbraith, Mozilla

Up now: Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith of Mozilla on “What is the future of the browser?”
Ben Galbraith & @dalmaer showing old Netscape browser. Audience chuckles. They’re saying that browsers are actually getting simpler
@jjg gets a shout out for coining the term “AJAX”– Web has come a long way since the invention of AJAX. Expectations are much greater
We all thought Mapquest was cool until we used Google Maps. Once something better comes along, your expectations are changed forever
All that browsers really give us are text, rectangles and graphics. But lots of technologies have been built on top to do so much more
The Mozilla guys are talking about Canvas — games, image manipulation in the browser. In Chrome, Firefox, Opera, but not IE
Fast JavaScript totally changes what you can do in your web app. “It can power really expensive algorithms in the browser”
Ben Galbraith showing a video of internet latency. “This is something we need to guard against”
Twitter timeout for geeky stuff I don’t understand
@orian next to me getting turned on by talk of the Palm Pre
Mozilla Labs working on Bespin, v1 launched last week. High-performance code-editing environ in browser https://bespin.mozilla.com/
Delicious Library http://delicious-monster.com/ lets you scan your books into your comp using iSight camera
Mozilla guys just showed photo of Jared Leto looking hot, and another looking fat. “Different interface, same implementation”
If you don’t want to follow my #fowa tweets, feel free to unfollow. Follow @whitneyhesslive to find out when I’m done so you can re-follow

Open Strategy :: Applied – Dan Theurer, Yahoo

Dan Theurer @dantheurer of Yahoo! on the stage now talking about openness. Unfortunately his slides are corrupt so he’s winging it
Carsonified is building a new web app called Truvay http://truvay.com Top secret, Ryan won’t tell us what it does. Silly

Scaling your tech team – Joe Stump, Digg

Joe Stump @joestump, Digg’s lead architect, is up now talking about “Scaling your tech team”
@joestump saying that all developers are stubborn, lazy, whiners :-P
Developers are eccentric. @Joestump telling story about dev who required shower installed in his office – does his best thinking there
How to scale your dev team: Lower barriers. Recognize that Jedis are rare, & you need to keep them focused on their core competencies
Digg has four dev teams. They use Basecamp to collaborate, Track to track bugs. They’re semi-Agile and have daily scrum

Outisde the interface: more words to worry about – Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic

@kristinahalvorson taking time out of her presentation to discuss why there are so few women on the speaker circuit
@orian gave me his computer so that I could tweet this, my wifi is all f’ed up
@halvorson asked Ryan Carson @ryancarson & Chris Messina @factoryjoe to sit on the stage w her to talk about the lackof women speakers
I don’t think that the lack of women speakers is the conf organizers fault. I think it’s the women’s fault. Put yourself out there!
@ryancarson asking people to send him ideas for great women speakers tagged with #fowaspeak
@factoryjoe: we need more diversity throughout. Been an issue for BarCamp as well. Friends need to encourage each other to contribute
Thanks to @orian for being so selfless. I’m out

Order from Chaos – Future of the Web – Aza Raskin, Mozilla

Rule #1 for running a conference: make sure speakers can show the slides they spent weeks working on
Aza Raskin of Mozilla is on the stage talking about “chaordic” nature of open source
Aza proving that it’s very difficult for us to talk about people without personalizing them — so why do computers dehumanize us?
@azaaza says we need to stop thinking of things as technical problems and start thinking about them as people problems
“IM is people with the web tacked on. The browser is the web with people tacked on.” — @azaaza
Since the presentation is broken at FOWA, @azaaza isn’t able to demo Ubiquity. Check it out here: http://is.gd/1Wns
The concept of Ubiquity: web content is disconnected, and *you* have to go to it. Instead what if everything came to you?

Facebook Connect – Dave Morin, Facebook

Dave Morin @davemorrin from Facebook is up now.
@davemorrin talking about Facebook connect. “Web isn’t about information anymore, it’s about people.” Wasn’t it always?
Facebook Connect is the first step in enabling everyone on the web to break down walls between applications and around Facebook
Facebook Connect: identity, friends and feed
Why is a Facebook Connect pitch part of the *Future* of Web Apps? Facebook Connect is in the present. What’s next?

How to achieve tech team nirvana – Joel Spolsky, Fog Creek

Joel Spolsky @spolsky is now on stage talking about “How to achieve team nirvana” http://www.joelonsoftware.com/
@spolsky just showed this hilarious Best Buy image making fun of Circuit City: http://is.gd/kI7R
“Stop making social networks. They’ve all been made. There’s only going to be one micro-blogging platform: Twitter” — @spolsky
@spolsky is showing off his very cool Fog Creek offices http://fogcreek.com with private offices for developers to concentrate
@spolsky showing pic of the Mahalo office, all open desks. “If you ever happen to get in the zone, you’ll quickly be taken out of it”
Mahalo offices: http://is.gd/kIfV
At Fog Creek, meetings are always scheduled for right after lunch. Lots of snacks in the office. Showers. Flowers in the bathroom.
@spolsky justifying his $849 Aeron chairs for each developer by showing that they’re only $1.63 per dev per week cuz they last 10 yrs
Breaking bread together every day is critical for team dynamic. Daily team meal keeps them all motivated, connected — @spolsky
Sucks that #FOWA Miami website has already been taken down. I was using the schedule to tweet. @RyanCarson are you aware of the problem?

Dave McClure, surprise guest

@davemcclure is on the stage now with his AARRR presentation http://tinyurl.com/2gxq4q
If you don’t want to follow my #fowa tweets, feel free to unfollow. Follow @whitneyhesslive to find out when I’m done so you can re-follow

Brand 2.0 – Alex Hunter, Virgin

Alex Hunter @cubedweller from Virgin is now on the stage talking about “Brand 2.0″
@cubedweller asks the audience: “How are you going to get us [consumers] to love you [brand]?”
@cubedweller just showed the “JUMP! You Fuckers” sign outside the NYSE http://is.gd/kIuJ
@cubedweller says about our generation: “We’ve all been fitted with bullshit detectors.” We know when we’re being marketed to
@cubedweller is demo’ing new Virgin.com feature to the public for the very first time. It’s essentially a community reputation system
@cubedweller just gave a huge shout out to http://rokkan.com, the agency who helped develop this upgrade to Virgin.com

Ryan Carson interviews Joel Spolsky and Jason Fried

@spolsky & @jasonfried on the stage w @ryancarson, but I’m not finding the Qs particularly probing. Wish I could interview these guys
Really disappointed that there weren’t any user experience practitioners on the presenter lineup at FOWA today. We cannot be ignored!

Aza Raskin back to demo Ubiquity

@azaaza finally giving his demo of Ubiquity http://tinyurl.com/5lf7n7 Looks pretty damn sweet!

Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV

“Most people in business are thin-skinned, have no passion for what they do and are in it for the money” — @garyvee. Dead on
@garyvee says that the sucky people are going to lose jobs and people with real skills are going to flourish = “market correction”
“Go back to your hotel room, look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Why am I at this company that sucks straight shit?’” — @garyvee
“If you don’t know where you want to end up, you’re broken.” — @garyvee
@garyvee says he needs to hustle more. He’s doing too many speaking gigs and videos, and neglecting other projects
“Everyone needs to stop crying, stop worrying, and [do something].” Stop talking about failure. Who’s the judge?
That’s all folks. I’m done live-Twittering from the Future of Web Apps in Miami. Thanks for listening!

Who coined the term “wireframes”?

whitney — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:17:38 +0000

Wireframes, wireframes, wireframes. It’s one of the those “insider” terms that gets thrown around the user experience design community all the time. We go to great lengths to explain what they are — to our colleagues, our clients, and our friends (“What exactly do you do again?”). [Dan Brown's explanation on Boxes and Arrows; Sarah Harrison; Paul Boag]

But why do we use the term in the first place?

About a month ago, I tweeted that I was working on some wireframes:

And then I got this response from Matthew Van Horn, whom I had met a few days prior at a dinner for New Work City:

Matt later sent me an e-mail expounding on the term.

Whitney,

I seriously think I coined that term, but I am not 100% sure. In 1993-94 I was working with a group (Snickelways Interactive) that was transitioning from interactive television to web e-commerce. While we were doing ITV, I was doing some 3d animation and rendering for them. In early 1994 as the web work started taking off, I began pushing the idea of designing the structure of the page separately from the look & feel. I described this to my coworkers as analogous to a wireframe model which shows the basic shape, but no shading/color/texture. The name stuck, within our company at least. I know at least a few designers who first used the term (to refer to web mockups) at Snickelways and later went to work for shops like Razorfish, Scient and Sapient, etc.

So I like to think I coined the term, but any documentary evidence is long gone with my old hard drives. It’s possible several people began using it simultaneously, but I don’t remember seeing it in use as early as I remember using it.

Coincidentally all of this took place a block away from where I met you, at 180 Varick St.

– Matt

After talking to him again last night at the New Work City opening party, I thought I’d help Matt get some corroborating evidence. Or perhaps some dissenters. Do you think you actually coined the term? Got any proof? Let me know about it in the comments!

Developing a Website

whitney — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 21:39:52 +0000

I am a designer and not a developer, but every now and then I like to tinker with code — you know, just to prove that I made the right career choice. I started out as a computer science major after all. Sometimes when I get a side job to design a website, I end up building it myself. Primarily I do it to save money, but I also think it’ll be fun and easy. I usually curse myself for it later.

About a year ago at my full-time job, I volunteered to work on the website for an organization we’re supporting through our corporate philanthropy program. We threw up something quick last May using a WordPress template, and since October of last year have been working on a legitimate redesign.

I drew the wireframes while Liya, another designer on my team, did the visual design. That should have been enough, but no, I offered to put the site together in my spare time. I was feeling charitable.

At first I pieced it together pretty quickly. Liya was surprised by my speed and I played it off like it was nothing — yeah, HTML and CSS are easy. But while it only took a few hours to get 70% of it done, it’s taken four weekends to get the last 30% right. And I still don’t even think I’m there.

The real time-suck was the work involved in making the website cross-browser compatible. Because the site is for an organization that supports orphans of the Rwandan genocide, I wanted to ensure that it could be accessed on machines that aren’t exactly modern. Anyone who has done this work knows what a pain in the ass it is, and I’m reminded now of why I gave up CS all those years ago: hours of mindlessly hunting for a semi-colon out of place. In this case, it was a couple extra pixels of padding between divs that made one of them drop half-way down the page. The newer browsers accommodated for it, but the site was a mess in IE6 and it had to be fixed…I had to fix it.

Last night after much trial and error and some help from a few Twitter friends, I finally got it to work. As I put my head down on the pillow, feeling oddly satisfied and pleased with myself, yet simultaneously annoyed about having wasted all that time, I had a revelation. I jumped out of bed and drew it on a post-it note. And now I share it with you.

Have other people experienced this? Does it get easier after your hundredth website or should I just plan to send it out from now on?