Originally presented by Andy Clarke at IceWeb, Reykjavik, Iceland, 2006 How to be a web design superhero Andy Clarke is a digital designer, speaker, and writer whose designs have helped companies around the world to increase their sales pipeline and revenue, and charities to increase donations. He founded Stuff & Nonsense and has consulted and designed for clients including Disney Store UK, Fairfax Media, Home Office (UK), Greenpeace, ISO, SAP, STV, SunLife, WIPO, and WWF. He works on creative website and digital product designs and provides ongoing creative direction. He coaches agencies and mentors designers on dealing with clients, and delivering creative projects. If you’re looking to design better digital products and websites, develop a design system or style guide, or want to understand how design can help your business, you should talk to him. Stuff & Nonsense Ltd. Eversleigh, Lon Capel, Gwaenysgor, Flintshire, LL18 6EJ, UK For work enquiries go to stuffandnonsense.co.uk or call +44 (0)1745 851848

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License How to be a web design superhero ANDY CLARKE ICEWEB 2006, REYKJAVIK, ICELAND

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO “ what do you want to be ?” web designer or superhero ?

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO a survey of 10 people (apparently) 85% replied that they would rather be a superhero! 85% 14% 1%

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO “ web designers should be heroes ” but what makes a hero ?

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO every hero has an origin a radioactive spider but Peter Parker, Hulk was blasted by gamma rays, the Fantastic Four were bathed in cosmic rays Shaun Inman copied at a copy shop Eric Meyer fried at mcdonalds Molly Holzschlag was an erotic dancer

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO web design heroes need a weapon of choice a trademark weapon

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO web design heroes often form powerful teams adaptive path clear:left happy cog heroes form super teams

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO heroes are selfless web design heroes share their skills and information freely blogs forums projects internal evangelism

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO heroes are motivated web design heroes have special motivations promoting usability promoting accessibility promoting web standards

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO is there a web design hero sitting next to you? heroes lead a double life many web designers are known by their alter-ego, brothercake, malarkey or the man in blue

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO heroes dress in striking costumes with instantly recognizable logos heroes are motif-ated

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO web design heroes also need a logo that set them apart from the crowd heroes are motif-ated

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO heroes need a super web site

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO “ what powers do you need? ”

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to keep pace with new trends: to keep pace with the latest technologies to react when a client says “i want the job tomorrow” super speed

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to stretch themselves very thin: when close to a looming deadline to be flexible in your approach and not fixed to a particular way of working super elasticity

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to see into a clients mind: to understand what he wants, even when he doesn’t know what he wants himself telepathy

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to convince a client that he does not need: a flash splash screen to support Netscape 4 pop-up windows AJAX to be cool mind control

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to understand user needs: understand their goals empathize with their problems design to “get things done” empathy

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need the ability to sense: problem projects problem clients see danger signs ahead of time a sense of danger

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to see into the future: to anticipate new trends in design to think of new ways to use technologies precognition

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO super heroes need to see through visual presentation : to underlying document structure to appropriate semantics x-ray vision

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO sometimes bullets do fly in the comments of design galleries or on design forums super heroes need to take on-board constructive criticism and ignore jealousy and negative comments invulnerabilty

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO superheroes are vulnerable what is your vulnerability?

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO batman has robin superman has jimmy olsen, lois lane and krypto the super dog heroes have sidekicks

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO evil genius planning to take over the world don’t forget the super villain

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO superman the batman wonder woman daredevil mister fantastic spiderman the green lantern captain america supergirl hulk zeldman tantek celik molly holzschlag joe clark dave shea doug bowman shaun inman eric meyer kelly goto john oxton

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO “ I believe that the time has now passed for those working with old fashioned methods. Those still delivering nested table layout, spacer gifs or ignoring accessibility can no longer call themselves web professionals. ” http://accessify.com/2005/11/interview-with-andy-clarke-aka.php

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO “ a superhero never stops trying to learn how to do better ”

HOW TO BE A WEB DESIGN SUPERHERO stuffandnonsense.co.uk/ downloads/ designhero.pdf presentation slides Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License all images are copyright of their original owners and all copyrights, trademarks and ownerships recognised. this presentation is for educational purposes only