The Jeff Beckham Weblog

This week is the deadline for submitting initial ideas for presentations at South by Southwest. After this week, the list will be posted to the Panel Picker for voting. Here are the three panels I submitted this year:

1. Choosing the right metrics when making design decisions: Some companies don’t make a move without looking at the data, others fly by the seat of their pants and make changes based on feel. But there is a core set of metrics that should inform your design decisions, and page views aren’t part of it.
2. How accessible does your site have to be?: Section 508 and W3C guidelines give you the blueprint for making your site usable by people with disabilities. But designers don’t have to give up all of their creativity to meet those standards. There is a way to accomplish both goals. So really, just how accessible does your site have to be?
3. The social implications of living an “always-on” life: Do you text under the dinner table? Browse the web on your BlackBerry while sitting alone in a crowded diner? Humans are social animals, but our face-to-face communications are fading in favor of virtual communities. The panel examines how technology has changed our social interactions, both for the better and for the worse.

The accessibility idea could be somewhat controversial - perhaps advocating you do the bare minimum in that area. The initial submissions were limited to three ideas, but working with our group of summer interns, we had a few more that were interesting:

• Has Google made us brainless?: Got a question? More than likely, Google has the answer. Has the most powerful search engine made us stupid? It’s easier than ever to find a cursory answer to a meaningful question and the methods of intensive research may be falling by the wayside. Also, how do we determine which results are credible and which are not?
• Can experiences be designed?: Designers can give people catalysts to create an experience, but they can’t determine how people will use it. Is it even possible to “design” an experience?
• What designers do vs. what design is: People are affected by design in all aspects of their life, but the process of design remains a mystery to many. Leading designers talk about the hidden process and how their work impacts everyday life.
• The emotional qualities of the immaterial culture: iTunes vs. the record store. eBay vs. the garage sale. Netflix vs. the video store. More and more, Internet services are taking over from physical locations. But what the online experiences gain in efficiency, they lose in emotion and sensory memory. Are we really better off with an immaterial culture?