FOWA Dublin
Posted on 09. Mar, 2009 by Chris McQueen.
Phew! That was a hairy landing! I have just returned from the Future of Web Applications event in Dublin and I can be completely honest in revealing that it was excellent. FOWA is an event run by the team over at Carsonified, and credit where it is due, they all did a brilliant job!
Kicking us off was Carsonified’s founder, Ryan Carson, revealing his lessons learned from the aquistion of DropSend.com… and it did exactly what it said on the tin -14 tips to help any young and energetic entrepreneur prevent catastrophic meltdown!
Perhaps the most revealing and inspiring talk with regards to good design was presented by Eoghan McCabe and Des Traynor from Contrast. A two-headed presentation (at lightening pace) discussed how many conventions born out of unimaginative web design had transferred to the design of web applications. This raised a very interesting question – why aren’t web application designers taking advice from software application designers since common to both is the creation of successful applications?
A subject very close to my heart -that of an accessible web for all- was discussed in (a notably accessible manner) by Robin Christopherson from AbilityNet, a charitable UK organisation dedicated to helping disabled adults and children use computers and the internet. This particular presentation focused on how the ill implementation of Captchas (those boxes containing the funky lettering used for sign-ups that are intended to prevent spam) actually renders screen reading software useless.
All in all – an excellent, and incredibly well organised day! Top marks to Carsonified!
Continue Reading
A Fresh Start
Posted on 04. Mar, 2009 by Chris McQueen.
Some news… After a fair old chunk of time doing “whatever it is you I do”, I will be leaving the Xerox Technical Research Center based in Welwyn Garden City, UK. It’s been a while in the making but isn’t -thankfully- a result of the current financial crisis. From here on, I’ll be taking on smaller projects and any interesting work I can get my mitts on through my company, User Solutions.
For development sometime in the near future – I’ve purchased two domains that I hope to turn into fully fledged community sites focusing upon usability, accessibility and design issues. The plan to date is to create two sister sites aimed at slightly different target audiences. More details will be revealed in the coming weeks!
Incidentally, the picture is of one of my finest achievements – my 10 foot (floor to ceiling) cup tower! This feat of engineering took me over 6 months of hardened coffee consumption – so you see kids – the late nights do pay off!
Continue Reading
Hello!
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by Chris McQueen.
Welcome to chris-mcqueen.com! This is my personal website where I intend to share information and shamelessly promote myself! Hopefully you’ll find this to be in some way useful.
So, what comes next? ..I still need to figure that out!
Continue Reading
Happy New Year
Posted on 01. Jan, 2009 by Chris McQueen.
Happy New Year! Warmest wishes and New Years cheers for an absolutely spanking 2009!
I’m looking forward to the new opportunities that 2009 will bring… At the minute, I’m working furiously on getting some previous work together in a Portfolio – so keep your eyes open for that sometime in the near future. Also, I’ve been looking at ways to deliver a little bit of content for free. Perhaps some deliverable examples; persona templates, wireframe ideas, designs mockups, or similar…
Suggestions welcome!
2009, I’m sure, is going to be a blast!
- Chris