Web App Masters Tour Summary

by July 16, 2010

After four great stops, the UIE Web App Masters Tour came to a close in Seattle, WA this week. Throughout the tour, I took extensive notes and wrote up a couple of articles on what I learned from the experts on this conference tour.

Web App Masters Tour

Some talks on the tour were only given once, others were presented at each city. I included several links for the presentations that were either updated by speakers or further documented (with more details) by me as the tour went on. Enjoy!

Where Worlds Collide

In his opening presentation, Jared Spool outlined how design organizations can deliver the holistic experiences Web applications users increasingly expect.

Serious Play: Designing Seductive Business Apps

Stephen Anderson's Serious Play talk outlined how principles from psychology could be used to motivate Web application users.

Escaping Navigation Hell

Hagan Rivers walked through several strategies for getting people around Web applications with lots of screens including application maps and four distinct kinds of navigation.

Designing The Social In

Christian Crumlish provided an overview of social design principles and patterns.

Design Lessons from 350 Million

Julie Zhuo described how the Facebook design team creates experiences for Facebook's users.

Backstage with 37signals

37signals founder, Jason Fried described how 37signals solves design problems and collaborates by showing four days worth of chat transcripts about an ongoing redesign project at the company.

Designing for Interesting Moments

Bill Scott outlined several rich interaction design principles and showed them in action within several Web applications.

Care of a Corporate Cash Cow

Ken Kellogg discussed the challenges inherent in The Care and Feeding of a Corporate Cash Cow by sharing his experiences managing user research for the redesign of Marriott.com.

Input: Moving Beyond Forms

I discussed several ways Web applications can collect user input, through both mobile devices and desktop software, without forcing users to complete a lengthy sequential forms.

A Simple Ladder of Engagement

Mark Trammell outlined Twitter’s approach to helping new and one-time users become loyal repeaters by discussing the company’s focus on engagement.

Turning Back to the Future

In his closing keynote, Jared Spool outlined the role of an experience vision in keeping design teams focused and innovating.