Devign

This week we launch into the galaxy of User Experience design.

Why begin with the challenges of the end user? How can this help achieve business goals?

In order to create a meaningful experience, it’s critical to understand the person we are designing and developing something for.

Joining us is the legendary Caroline Lam, a digital designer and strategist driven by a fascination with human behaviour.

This week we lean in to our fears. We shine a light on one of the scariest subjects - F##kups.

We all make them, they are a natural part of being human. But what do you do when the poo poo hits the fan?

On this episode, we are joined by special guest Kody Deretic, co-founder of boutique agency Child In Me and drinking card game Cup of Kings.

This week we take a look at the bones of a website, Information architecture. In the final episode for season one, we give tips on how to set up a framework that maintains continuity throughout your site. We take into account user behaviour as we discuss the best way to represent hierarchy and relationships between elements on a site.

For those playing the DEVIGN drinking game, make sure you take a sip every time Nick says the word; semantics…

We focus much of this week's episode around using grid systems as an aid when designing for the web. We discuss the use of CSS grid and Flexbox when creating layouts taking into account how each can be used to organise content groups. This allows designers and developers to build a website that is more easily digestible for the end user.

Finally, special attention is paid to creating contrast in visual hierarchy by using multiples of 8 pixels when determining the size of elements.

Space: the final frontier. These are the musings of the podcast, Devign. It’s 45-minute mission: to explore strange new grid-systems. To seek out new techniques and new tools. To boldly code where no semantically linked elements have been coded before!

Need guidance on managing client relationships? Unsure what to charge for your work? Want to improve your process? Then this is the episode for you.

Full to the brim with insights, we discuss what we wish we knew starting out in business.

Nick highlights the benefits in both operations, and in mindset, that can be gained from using a task management system. Timelines, calendar usage, and efficiency metrics are all discussed, taking into account the balance between urgency and achievability.

Throughout the episode, we observe how employing a task management system can lead to; transparency with your client, scalability across projects, and provide continuous process improvement.

This week we discuss what role colour plays within the ecosystem of branding. Nick explores additive vs subtractive color, while Tom stresses the benefits of going beyond colour generators.

In all cases we observe that it is the context in which colour is displayed that gives it meaning.

This week we reflect, looking at the roads that led us to where we are today.

We explore themes of patience, persistence, and working on live projects.

Special attention is paid to the relationships between mentors and mentees. How important are they? How do you cultivate these relationships? And when is the student ready to become the master?

We assess the current CMS landscape noting that:

1. Template based solutions tend to be cheaper but more limiting.

2. Custom solutions are more expensive but have the ability to solve more complex problems.

Tom emphasises establishing the clients budget up front – managing expectations for what is achievable before beginning the design and development process.

Nick mounts a defense for Wordpress which he feels has unfairly become the “Nickleback of the CMS world.”