From the Front 2016: Day #2
(I would have liked to open this post with a loud ‘See you next year!’ but, SPOILER ALERT, this was my first but sadly it was the curtain call for the From the Front conference)
After not being able to sleep properly, maybe for the amount of ideas that was buzzing in my brain or maybe because the espresso i drank at 22pm after dinner, and waking up at 6.30, that is my usual time on working day, i had a good breakfast and finished the editing of the first part of this report.
I’m quite new at this stuff, i always liked writing but i always delayed or postponed writing an article about tech stuff not in my language. But attending to this event was one of the steps that leads to new interesting roads and so here i am.
I have to say that receiving a mention of the article in a tweet of Sara Soueidan was an instant confidence boost.
Enough Let’s go on with day #2!
I was waiting for the talk by Denys Mishunov (@mishunov) titled “Psychology of Performance” because it’s an argument i’m really into now and Denys had an amazing article series about that on Smashing Magazine.
The talk didn’t go far from what is exposed in those articles but told in a presentation with examples and funny cartoons is more addictive. We went through concept and techniques like active vs. passive wait, preemptive start, early completion, optimistic UI and critical path organization. To sum up in one sentence: “Don’t fight for the seconds, fight for the user!”
After that it was time for the talk i’ve found to be more ‘tech-ish’ in all the conference, “HTTP/2: What, where, why and when?!” by Patrick Hamann (@patrickhamann). He went through some history about HTTP/1.0, HTTP/1.1 and TCP/IP to explain better the reasons that brought HTTP/2. He then went in details on how it works, suggesting why and when we should use it now and how in the future it will benefit largely the mobile connections.
Ben Sauer (@bensauer) talk, “Open the pod bay doors, designer” was about designing VUI (Voice User Interfaces). A lot to explore on this new territory, having in mind that we have to shift the design mindset when it comes to vocal interfaces. Based on his experience with the Amazon Echo, he underlined the strength of that product that gives the user an hand-free context and a focused feature set. Showing how now Siri can recognize songs like Shazam do and citing Jobs (‘Dropbox is a feature, not a product’), he explained how sometime in the future brands will be obscured by product features. VUI are one of the next big things but with some caveat about security and privacy but mostly the limit of recognition of natural breaks in language or (frustrating for us Italians) gestures. Kudos for the amazing references of the movie ‘Her’, ‘Fawlty Towers’ (Siri, un, dos, tres) and the ‘It’s a UNIX system!’ scene of Jurassic Park.
After lunch it’s the turn of Alla Kholmatova (@craftui), with “The modular design process”, a talk about how at Future Learn she implemented a pattern library and how it became a solid reference for everyone involved in the design process. First she suggested to search for a consistent expression of the function that modules have across the pages, splitting (also physically if possible, with printed version) the element based on their purpose until the tiniest part, look for similar function across the pages and then group them. Another interesting point is to try to find a shared language upon naming elements, and be creative with them (loved the example of the buttons: minion for every button on the page and boss for the main CTA). Then she went on about creating variations to compensate designer needs, making every element able to adapt to the situation (margins and typography based on the content). But be aware that ‘no pattern library will fix bad design’.
The thing i liked the most about her talk, was the final idea of starting a pattern library and then enjoy the positive ripple effect it has on other people that work on the project.
Hugo Giraudel (@hugogiraudel) talked about “Local Styling with CSS Modules” and i have to admit that i had struggled to follow the presentation probably because i don’t get at first the utility of this methodology on developing static layout. But moving to another perspective and apply what Hugo explain on JavaScript application components or on the upcoming web components, it’s easy to get how avoiding global namespace can positively help keeping CSS more maintainable. Again, a funny reference ‘Everything is local!’, LEGO style.
We are approaching the end of this fantastic conference. Varya Stepanova (@varya_en) talks about “Doing nothing for visual regression testing”. Some months ago i’ve read an article about this argument and i stumbled upon the same problem presented by Varya: do we have to test all the page for regressions? With a tool based on screenshots it’s more clear that visual regression testing is more useful for atomic components. Integrating it in a styleguide will help apply this technique in terms of continuous integration or doing heavy refactoring without much worries.
Last talk, “Emotional Intelligence in Design” by Beth Dean (@bethdean) was a real test for my english comprehension, she is a really fast talker, Gilmore Girls style, and i think i got less than a half of what she said! But after a long introduction about her work experience, the last part of the talk focused on how sometimes products can be harmful to the users, like the Year in Review feature of Facebook that showed as highlights of the year sad memories for some users. But i really regretted of not having taken the real time translator, sorry Beth!
Just before the end of the event, while i was enthusiastically thinking ‘I will come back every year!’, the host told us that today would have been the last day not only of this edition but the last From the Front ever.
I hope that the Italian community can have other possibilities to experience event with such an international appeal and outstanding quality.
See you at the next conference!
