Tag: team

An Event Apart: “Leveling Up Your Design Communication”

Aarron Walter speaking at An Event Apart Orlando 2018 on October 10, 2018

Design is a medium for communication, and to do it well, we must cultivate our own communication skills. Within design teams, we do our best work when we create a culture of feedback shaped by our creative space and our design review process. Beyond the design tribe, our work thrives when it’s communicated in language that aligns to the goals of the business and invites participation early and often. In this presentation, Aarron will share the experiences of real design teams at Apple, Spotify, and other organizations to show how to improve the communication of design both inside your team and with key outside stakeholders. You’ll see how to run effective design reviews and retrospectives which will help you create a culture of feedback that produces better work, helps designers sharpen their skills, and communicates the value of design by making it more transparent and inviting.

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An Event Apart: “’Til Launch Do Us Part”

Dan Mall speaking at An Event Apart Orlando 2018 on October 9, 2018

From one designer to a front-end developer: I’m so grateful for you. You take my pretty pictures and turn them into real-live websites and applications; you convert ideas and sketches into real things that people can use. And even despite that superpower, you rarely get the respect you deserve. It’s time for that to change. No longer will I throw my comps over the proverbial wall for you to blindly build. I’ll change my process for you. Let’s sketch together more to be more efficient and effective as a team. Let’s decide in the browser more. I’ll learn to write JSON for you. Let’s share stories about new, more modern ways of shipping products at higher quality in record time. This is gonna be great!

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An Event Apart: “Why Design Systems Fail”

Una Kravets speaking at An Event Apart Orlando 2018 on October 9, 2018

Design systems are hot right now, and for good reason. They promote a modular approach to building a product, promote organizational unity, and ensure stability via reusable code snippets and utility styles. They make prototyping a breeze, and provide a common language for both designers and developers. But sometimes design systems are underutilized within organizations. Why is that, when they’re so darn useful? In an engaging hour, Una will draw on years of experience to explore what makes design systems successful, analyze real examples of success and failure, and show how to make sure your design system has the building blocks it needs to grow into a successful product.

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An Event Apart: “Inclusive UX: Techniques for Everyone”

Derek Featherstone speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 4, 2018.

You and your teams are doing the things that need to be done to create inclusive designs. You’ve been using meaningful, semantic markup from the get-go. You stopped using light grey on slightly darker grey text years ago. Designing and building your apps and sites in an accessible way is just how you work now—you have to try really hard to make things that don’t work with a keyboard. So, what’s next for you? How can you make sure that you’re delivering on the promise of the web by delivering an inclusive design that can be easily used by people with disabilities? In this talk, Derek will tackle the tougher problems through design approaches and practical development techniques that you need to create accessible, modern web sites.

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An Event Apart: “Navigating Team Friction”

Lara Hogan speaking at An Event Apart Seattle 2018 on April 3, 2018.

Friction is a common, and necessary, part of team growth–but when left unchecked, team friction is unhealthy for you, your coworkers, your company, and ultimately your end users. In this engaging talk, Lara will draw on her experiences at organizations large and small to illuminate the sources of team tension, how you can better understand and manage unexpected teammate reactions, and the best ways to give actionable feedback without escalating drama. You’ll walk away with tactics you can employ immediately to address and improve your relationship with your teammates. Your coworkers, your organization, your users, and you will reap the benefits.

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