RIApalooza 2 - Aftermath

Written by David Charney
Posted: May 8, 2009 (10 months ago) | 1 comment

I just got back from RIApalooza 2 (and felt the need to drink around seven liters of Mountain Dew). There were 100+ people who attended and ranged from Silverlight, Flash, and Flex developers to UI/UX designers (and everyone in between).

The speakers were UX evangeilsts, platform evangelists, evangelist evangelists, consultants, and developers, who came from Adobe, Microsoft (Alphabetical order on the first two - no favorites), Clarity Consulting, Digital Primates, Magenic, The Iona Group, and Roundarch. Their ideas, theories, and best practices were all very different but they all had in common the desire to create better RIA today and in the future. Here is a list of what went on:

Kevin Hoyt [Platform Evangelist at Adobe] kicked off RIApalooza covering smarter approaches to UX through smaller data transfers, creation queuing, and security. Some of the info is often glossed over when designing/developing. It is good to get a kick every once in a while to remind us there is so much more to UX and RIA that we need to think about when defining the solution.

Steve Holstad [Development Consultant at Clarity Consulting] discussed custom apps using public APIs, accessing data, and dealing with cross-domain issues. He had a few good examples.

A panel gathering of speakers took turns answering audience questions just prior and continuing through lunch. Potbellies (thanks Microsoft!) was delicious. Wish I still had a few of those cookies. Anway… back to the event…

Josh Holmes [Microsoft] and Mike Labriola [Digital Primates] focused on the top 10 questions about RIA that you never had the courage to ask. In an audience involved presentation they discussed UX, user-centered design, understanding measurements, understanding your audience, and the list could go on and on. A lot of great stuff.  “Vomit is a gauge for success.” was a great (and confusing) comment/approach to measuring success.

My good buddy from college [Purdue] Corey Miller [Magenic] did a great job covering quite a few principles involved in developing strong UX. He hit up the process, personas, seven UI principles, and many other ideas and theories that define good UX. Corey is also a co-founder to CD2 with Anthony Handley and me.

Chad Udell [The Iona Group] talked a bit of shop. From wireframes, to mood boards he walked us through the process he takes when defining RIA. They related their process through a project example. I always enjoy hearing about how the pros decide on the approach, the technology, and the problems they have to solve along the way. Nice job Chad and The Iona Group.

Pek Pongpaet and Adam Flater [both from the amazing Roundarch] gave us a glimpse of what is over the horizon by showing the future… today. They showed off how input/haptic devices, past the mouse and keyboard, are changing the way we interact with everyday life. Through several examples we were shown how we can interface between input hardware and software apps. Very cool. Very nice way to end the presentations.

We finished off the day with pizza, beer, and the panel of speakers continuing discussions on RIA now and in the future.

I have to give a quick shout out to my friends in the audience. John, Chad, Sandy, Richard, and Jennifer - Thanks for coming out.

To all the sponsors and the guys who put it all together, thanks so much. You all did a fantastic job. I look forward to RIApalooza 3.