A designer at a developer’s conference

Posted by: Rachel Dickinson | 04 October 2007

I am writing this blog from the 'Future of Web Apps' conference in London. I am currently sitting in a seminar about 'Short on Cycles, Long on Storage' in short it's about Application infrastructure! Very interesting I'm sure for a programmer/developer but I have to admit I’m a little lost! After all I am a designer...!

Being a designer at a developers conference is certainly an experience... but one which I am glad to have had the opportunity to attend.

Ok then, my experience so far... This conference is really cool, there have been some great speakers, such as Yahoo, Pownce, Digg, Ability Net, WordPress and Facebook to name a few. I have certainly learned a lot of valuable information even when some of it is not design orientated.

Something else I have learned over the past two days is I am secretly a 'GEEK'! and being at this conference has made me realise! As I sit here with my Mac in had I seamlessly blend in with the other geeks who are all sitting typing/blogging. I am surrounded by 'geeks'! but lets not forget being a geek is cool these days we only have to look at the reception the guys from 'Diggnation' received last night... I have to say that was pretty awesome!

Although I consider myself a designer geek! And an Apple geek at that, I have a Macbook and ipod and of course I am getting an iphone. It seems everyone at the conference owns an Apple computer and most of the American’s that are here have an iphone.

So as designer bods the most techy we normally get is building HTML pages, writing some scripts and a bit of flash now and again. It has been really interesting to learn about things such as building a community, building apps for mobile devices, apps for Facebook and taking apps offline.

One of the most important things I have learnt in developing apps is how important feedback is. Feedback dictates change in many ways. When creating an app you need to plan for feedback, anticipate negative feedback, listen to your audience, and make time for user testing/focus groups. The key with all of this is not to react to feedback immediately, you need to take time for iteration and don't forget you can't please everyone.

Even though it is a developer's conference so far I have found it very enjoyable... bring on the workshops.

Anyway, back to the seminar... its finished and I'm applauding, although I'm not sure what for as this one went right over my designer head!

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