[ANN] Experience and Style: The Design Conference for FileMaker Developers, October 21-22, Chicago

[DonLevan]

Experience and Style: The Design Conference for FileMaker Developers

October 21-22, Chicago

 

Register by October 1 and Save $100. 

 

 

 

Exceptional software balances a delightful user experience and a rich style. To create a great experience, you have to understand the problem, the people who would use your solution, the scenarios they face, and their goals in those scenarios. To create a stunning interface, you have to know about color, layout, typography. 

 

Unfortunately, most FileMaker developers do not have design training and few have access to a skilled visual designer to help us polish our interfaces. If you are a FileMaker developer with an appreciation for design but feel like you are missing necessary information, Experience and Style is the conference for you. 
 

Your registration gets you two full days of sessions, audio recordings of all sessions, and all of the audio recordings from the FM Product Conference which will be held concurrently in the same hotel. Plus you will get to hear Ryan Singer, Product Manager at 37Signals talk about what the 37Signals team has learned from the ten years designing BaseCamp, Highrise, and Campfire. 

 

 

 

Conference Schedule 

Monday, October 21 

 

9:15 - 10:00  A Product Designer's Instinct 

Ryan Singer, Product Manager at 37Signals 

Great product designers cut to the essence of a problem. They have an ability to sniff out what really matters and focus in on what the user wants. How do you do that? Ryan will share a model of the product development process that encapsulates the intuition he built up after ten years of designing easy-to-use software products.

 

 

 

10:45 - 12: 00  The Foundations of Great Design

 

Dr. Don Levan, Lead Designer at Vanguard Custom Software

 

Examining apps that get it right and those that get it wrong Dr. Levan will discuss the key principles and best practices of interaction design, the cognitive abilities and limitations shared by all people that designers must keep in mind, and the modern trends that impact user’s expectations.

 

 

1:15 - 2:-00      The Design Master Class for Custom Software Developers

 

Albert Harum-Alvarez, Lead Designer, SmallCo

 

Step into the Design Master Class and get honest and direct design criticism about your current project. Presenters have one minute to explain the goals and roles of the existing application and answer the question, "Who uses this tool, and what do they want to accomplish?" After the one minute intro, Albert will facilitate a live critique of the solution.

 

 

2:00 - 3:15       Designing for Mobile: What we Can Learn from Twitter's 140 Characters

 

Steve Abrahamson: Technologist, UX Designer

 

Designing for today's mobile environment requires you to balance constraints. This can be frustrating, but it can also challenge you to greater clarity – cut out the noncritical and deliver only the core message with brevity and grace. Steve will examine how the user experience and user interface conventions, of the past and present, can inform our designs for mobile devices today, and look at where mobile is heading and how this can help us create design plans for tomorrow.

 

 

3:45 - 5:00       After the Sketch: Using FileMaker Pro to Validate your Designs

 

Ernest Koe, President and co-founder of The Proof Group

 

After sketching and low-fidelity mockups are complete, higher fidelity prototypes can help validate the UI design and how it works with the data model. Ernest will explore how he uses FileMaker to validate the visual design and the solution's data model.

 

 

 

Tuesday, October 22

 

 

9:00 - 10:15     Applied Color Theory: Using Color, Gradients, and Translucency in Applications to Direct Attention and Enhance User Experience

 

Colin Keefe, Visual Artist, Curator, and Project Manager at IT Solutions

 

Colin will discuss Color Theory first in the context of the underlying science, fine art applications, usage in web and application design, and then specifically in the framework of the FileMaker Platform. 

 

 

10:45 - 12:00   Designing with Type: Lessons Learned from Advertising, Newspapers, and the World at Large

 

Bob Shockey, President, Alchemy Consulting Group

 

Typography is a primary element of graphic design. While choices are more limited in FileMaker, there are core typographic skills that every developer should have. Join Bob Shockey, from Alchemy Consulting Group, on a journey through the key aspects of this important subject. Examine what can be learned from magazines, newspapers, and advertising. Learn the essential elements of typographic design. See hands-on techniques for organizing data for a design, and how to arrange, differentiate, and standardize data on a screen or printed page.

 

 

1:15 - 2:00       The Design Master Class for Product Developers

 

Albert Harum-Alvarez, Lead Designer, SmallCo

 

Step into the Design Master Class and get honest and direct design criticism regarding your current project. Presenters have one minute to explain the goals and roles of the existing application and answer the question "Who uses this tool, and what do they want to accomplish?" After the one minute intro, Albert will facilitate a live critique of the solution.

 

 

2:00 - 3:15       Planning and Designing the Complex Application to Run Across Multiple Platforms

 

Dr. Don Levan, Lead Designer at Vanguard Custom Software

 

Designing apps that will run on more than one platform can be very challenging. How do you create an environment that is familiar without requiring all elements to look and behave the same way on each platform? Dr. Levan will present a process which developers can use to design the interactions, user flow, and functionality of a complex app that will run with feature parity on more than one platform. 

 

 

3:45 - 5:00       Styles, Patterns and Experience - a Case Study of Visual Interface Design

 

Chih Hsiao, Senior User Experience Designer, FileMaker

 

Beauty is more than skin-deep. To develop an effective visual style requires an understanding of what humans see, what cues we're used to seeing, and how to apply this to your unique application. Chih will use a FileMaker case study to illustrate the theories, choices, and iterations in creating a visual style guide for your projects.

 

 

 

About the Speakers

 

 

 

Ryan Singer, Product Manager at 37Signals

 

Ryan Singer leads product design at 37signals. In 2003, he worked on a team of three to design Basecamp, their flagship app. As the company gained a reputation for making easy-to-use software, Ryan shaped their development process and made core design decisions on new products. In 2008, he became the company’s first Product Manager and led a complete redesign of Basecamp in 2012.

 

 

Dr. Don Levan, Lead Designer at Vanguard Custom Software

 

Don is president of Vanguard Custom Software, LLC., a New York based FileMaker consulting firm, and is the founder of the Design Studio - an intensive, three day, hands-on workshop that teaches a formal process and set of practices for designing exceptional applications. Dr. Levan is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and a former photojournalist. He is an accomplished presenter and teacher and has provided design consulting to FileMaker, Inc.

 

 

 Albert Harum-Alvarez, Lead Designer, SmallCo

Albert Harum-Alvarez is lead designer at SmallCo, an original FileMaker Business Alliance Platinum Member, whose clients include Apple, AFLAC, BNP Paribas Investment Bank, Fidelity Investments, Harvard University and other small and large companies on four continents.

 

 

Albert offers counsel to software developers looking to improve the quality of their designs. Albert has taught his Design Master Class in Miami, New York, London, Paris, Mumbai, Auckland, Los Angeles and other locales, and offers the same kind of design counsel offered in the Master Class to individuals and development teams through onsite visits and design retreats. For more info, call 877-66-small, or visit smallco.net.

 

 

Steve Abrahamson, Technologist, UX Designer, Ascending Technologies

 

Steve Abrahamson is the founder of Ascending Technologies. He has been working with computers and FileMaker for over 20 years, has received numerous awards from FileMaker, Inc. recognizing his efforts in the FileMaker community, has presented multiple times at the annual FileMaker Developer Conference, and co-founded and led CAFDA, the largest professional FileMaker developers' group in the central United States. These days he writes cool FileMaker solutions for a small handful of clients.

 

Ernest Koe, President and co-founder of The Proof Group

 

Ernest is the president and a co-founder of The Proof Group. Ernest brings over 10 years of experience with database and web technologies. He is a veteran FileMaker DevCon speaker, a founder of PauseOnError, (the un-conference for FileMaker developers) and a co-host of the FMCraft Interaction Design Seminars (with Don Levan).

 

 

 

Colin Keefe, Visual Artist, Curator, and Project Manager at IT Solutions

 

Colin Keefe is a project manager for IT Solutions Consulting, Inc.  He is also a curator and visual artist based in Philadelphia, PA.

 

 

 

At ITS, he’s responsible for managing all application development projects, including iOS, .NET and FileMaker efforts.  Prior to Colin’s PM role at ITS, he spent 17 years as a FileMaker developer.  Colin is also an Authorized FileMaker Trainer and carries FileMaker Developer Certifications for every version from 7 through 12.

 

 

He’s done speaking presentations at Apple Stores, FileMaker DevCon, Pause on Error and various user groups in the Northeast US.

 

 

Colin’s education and background is in the fine arts and he maintains an active studio practice.  Recent solo exhibitions include Robert Henry Contemporary, New York, NY; Abington Arts Center, Jenkintown, PA; and RHV Fine Art, Brooklyn, NY.  His work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Village Voice, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia City Paper, Toronto Globe and News, LA Times, Sculpture Magazine, and theartblog.  

 

 

In addition to his studio practice, Keefe has been curating since 1995 – first, as co-director of 57 Hope in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY (1995-2001), and currently as co-director of Mount Airy Contemporary Artists Space (2009-present).

 

 

 

IT Solutions Consulting: www.itsolutions-inc.com

 

Colin Keefe: www.colinkeefe.net

 

 

 

Bob Shockey, President, Alchemy Consulting Group

 

Bob is a graduate of Otis Art Institute of Los Angeles, where he studied Communication Design. He worked in the field of newspaper, magazine and advertising design for well over a decade before moving into technology. Bob has worked with FileMaker Pro since 1989, and is a FileMaker Certified Developer in every version possible. In 2004, Bob earned the one and only FileMaker "Idol" award. As CEO of Alchemy Consulting Group LLC, he and his team continue to innovate for the FileMaker platform. Bob is a fine artist and a music enthusiast.

 

 

 

Chih Hsiao, Senior User Experience Designer, FileMaker

 

With a background of fine arts and human-computer interaction design, Chih has over 13 years of experience in the consumer web industry and is currently a Sr. User Experience Designer at FileMaker, Inc. Prior to joining FileMaker, he worked in the digital media industry at companies including advertising agencies, technology startups, gaming and media companies as a producer and designer (notably Electronic Arts and Yahoo) and has been designing interactive digital content across media types on devices and environments such as TV, browser and mobile and desktop operating systems.

 

 

 

The Venue

 

Hotel Sax Chicago is a stylish luxury hotel in downtown Chicago, Illinois, featuring elegant rooms and suites, an eclectic restaurant & wine bar, a lounge, spa services, and flexible meeting and event space - the perfect downtown Chicago hotel destination for business and vacation.

 

 

Hotel Sax has arranged special room rates for attendees of Experience and Style: just $209 per night. Book online or call 877-569-3742. Request the special rate with the code “FileMaker Conference”. Limited rooms are available at this rate, so don’t delay. 

 

 

Recordings

All sessions will be recorded. All attendees will receive the audio recordings at no additional charge after the conference. 

 

 

The FM Product Conference 

Experience and Style will run concurrent to the FM Product Conference.  Experience & Style attendees will be able to attend the FM Product Conference sessions (space permitting) and will also receive all audio recordings from the FM Product Conference at no extra charge.

 

 

Relevant Links

 

Experience & Style, https://experienceandstyle.com

Vanguard Custom Software, http://vanguardcs.net/

Hotel Sax Chicago, https://HotelSaxChicago

 

--
Dr. Don Levan
President, Vanguard Custom Software

 

"We design simple solutions to complex problems"
Learn our process at the next Design Studio

http://vanguardcs.net  |  http://fmcraft.com  |  (917) 842-2911