All of our workshop spaces have been filled.

Attend a one-day workshop with EightShapes principals Nathan and Dan.

AUGUST 8TH, 2008 from 9am to 5pm

All-inclusive: workshop, materials, and lunch

EightShapes believes in great UX deliverables, whether we create them for you, or help you to do them yourself. This UX Deliverables Workshop is our first public training event, intended to take your wireframes, flows, and patterns from "good enough" to "more than enough."

This workshop is for user experience professionals at all levels who create detailed documentation as part of their work.

Program

Morning Session: Deliverable Basics with Dan Brown

Wireframes wacky? Flows farkakt? These and other information architecture (IA) documents can be difficult to create and use in the best of circumstances, not to mention the tight time frames and politicized organizations in which we work. Web sites and interactive products are becoming more complex and so, too, must the design documentation that describes them.

If you've spent any time pondering the ins-and-outs of any of these documents (or feel like you need to), this workshop is for you. Spend four hours with Dan Brown, author of Communicating Design--the only book on user experience design documentation--as he leads you through an exploration of wireframes and flows.

During the course of the workshop, you'll hone your skills with these two key documents, essential tools for communicating IA concepts. By the end of the workshop, you will have worked through these two deliverables and gathered best practices that you can extend to all your documentation.

Participating in this hands-on workshop, you will:

• discuss success criteria for wireframes and flows
• explore how different circumstances affect the content and format
• define a process for creating documents, large and small
• critique examples from Dan's portfolio and other sources
• create different versions of these documents
• practice presenting your documents

Afternoon Session: Advanced Wireframing and Annotations with Nathan Curtis

Pictures go a long way in communicating experience design, but don't tell the whole story. Words can provide a detailed, thorough description, but lack context without proper visualizations. Pictures and words together? The whole is, indeed, greater than the sum of its parts.

Annotating user experience design is thought of as a simple, straightforward process. But too often such annotations end up as dense prose that’s hard to read, hard to scan, hard to reference, and downright hard to use. This workshop will explore a range of deliverable samples that highlight what works, more often what doesn't, and simple, practical tips we can use to improve our ability to document user experience.

This workshop will engage participants to think about their own design annotations, consider new approaches to annotating their design in a more consistent, usable manner, and integrate their techniques and collaboration with a broader organization of varied perspectives and goals. Topics of this workshop will include:

• looking at the rationale, drawbacks, and systematic approaches of using annotations
• considering planning and workflow in the deliverable process
• examining visual presentation techniques
• creating specifications focusing on content, states, and behaviors

Bonus: Introduction to the 8S Documentation System

EightShapes will be demonstrating the documentation system used by our clients. This version will include many basic assets that serve as the foundation for good documentation. You'll get a sneak peek at the "doc system", and have the opportunity to get the inside scoop from its creators!

Location

The EightShapes UX Deliverables Workshop will be held at the Marvin Center of the Cafritz Conference Center, located on the George Washington University campus in Washington, DC. Directions and parking information can be found here.

Registration Information

Sorry, we are no longer accepting registrations.

For More Information

Have EightShapes come to you! If you are interested in having Dan or Nathan give a presentation for your group, contact workshops@eightshapes.com.