Discussion Panel: Beyond Wireframes
Tuesday, August 14, 5:00-5:45 PM
by Dan Brown
Modern web design trends, technologies and practices create new challenges for documenting user experiences. Rich internet applications, for example, have placed an added strain on "traditional" documents like wireframes and flows to capture the depth and detail of these complex interactions. Meanwhile, practices like "perpetual beta" call into question the value of formal deliverables.
Panelists will explore the variety of challenges facing us as we try to document user experiences, sharing work from their own portfolios to illustrate techniques for overcoming these challenges. Attendees will also be encouraged to offer their own examples and suggestions.
This panel will:
- Explore the challenges of documenting user experiences.
- Take a closer look at panelists' portfolios, with an eye on how the techniques they employed might be applied to other projects.
- Give attendees the opportunity to offer suggestions and learn from each other's experiences.
About Dan Brown
Dan is founder and principal at EightShapes, LLC, a user-experience consulting firm based in Washington, DC, that has engaged with clients in telecommunications, media, education, health, high-tech and other sectors. Prior to founding EightShapes, Dan consulted with organizations ranging from the US Postal Service, the World Bank and the Federal Communications Commission to USAirways, FirstUSA and Fannie Mae. Before that, Dan was a Federal employee, leading the content management program for the Transportation Security Administration.
Dan's portfolio includes work on public-facing websites, intranets and extranets, and it addresses most aspects of the user experience, from information architecture and content strategy to interaction and interface design. Dan has published dozens of articles for a variety of publications, and he is also the author of Communicating Design, a book about the ways in which high-quality visual documentation can be used to communicate complex ideas and abstractions. He has moderated panels and led workshops at almost every IA Summit since its inception in 2000, and he is very active in the local Washington, DC, information architecture community, organizing regular workshops and bimonthly reading groups.