Guerrilla Research Methods

This hands-on session will cover a number of low cost, yet powerful research methods to help you make better data-driven design decisions.

We'll provide a number of techniques for recruiting research participants, creating better research questions, and what to do with your data once you've conducted your research.

Topics covered in this Masterclass:

• How to sell guerrilla research into a project from the start
• How to recruit better participants
• How to form better research questions
• A number of inexpensive, quick, but highly effective research methods when time and/or budget are limited
• Valuable "how-tos" to execute the research

Questions answered in this Masterclass:

• How do I get my boss or client to buy into doing research for my project?
• What is guerrilla research and how is it different than traditional research?
• What are some guerrilla research methods and what kind of results can I expect?
• How do I pick the right method(s)?
• What's the downside/shortcoming of guerrilla research methods compared to other research methods?

Cross-device JS development lightning bonanza

Be prepared for a three hour super fast, fully intense Masterclass on how to build cross-device apps using JS/HTML5 and CSS3.

We will touch the "frameworks" and pick backbone.js, look at stuff like less, use PhoneGap as our wrapper for targeting app-stores, will look at setting up mobile architectures and finally piece it all together using apparat.io.

It will be useful if you have JavaScript knowledge, but you can follow this Masterclass also without deep knowledge and take the material as your points of reference.

Get ready for some mobile action!

Introduction to Drawing with HTML5's <canvas>

With the introduction of the <canvas> element into the wonderful and magical world of HTML5, we now have a drawing API that can help us create experiences that we imagine and make them real on the web.

In this master class you will:

• See examples of fun <canvas> apps ranging from casual games to data visualizations.
• Learn the fundamentals of <canvas> and how to manipulate it with JavaScript.
• Compare <canvas> with its cute sister <svg>.
• Learn the fundamentals of game and animation mechanics.
• Find best practices and real-world lessons in <canvas> performance and how to stay away from anti-patterns.

Don't make me change: How to make your websites responsive with the least possible effort

You've been a web designer for years now. You've got your own way of working and you're happy with it, but then some "guru" comes along and tells you you've got to learn a new technique.

First you had to ditch tables for CSS, then you had to make your sites accessible, and now it's "Responsive Web Design". Can you honestly be bothered?

In this hands-on session you'll learn how you can easily adapt you current design process to responsive web design, the one line of CSS code you need to know to make that happen, and how RWD can actually take away your Internet Explorer nightmares!

Dive into Strobist Photography and learn to create stunning, well-lit portraits with your speed-lights

Topics covered in this Masterclass:

• Drawing easy-to-understand diagrams explaining flash exposure and the inverse square law
• Shooting live portraits demonstrating real world examples (via Lightroom's tether or HDMI to HDMI compat projector)
• Talking about the basics of one-light portraiture
• Lending advice on inexpensive solutions to making the jump into creating your own lighting kit

Pencils before Pixels: Storyboard Experiences with Customers First

Changes to the user experience can be costly if you are already in the development cycle. Storyboarding your ideas early allows for scrappy experimentation on what's really important to your customer.

At Intuit, Joseph uses a variety of storyboarding methods allowing him and his team to test ideas with customers before spending time developing code – the result is a history of millions of satisfied customers.

In this hands-on session, you'll practice expressing your ideas with storyboards to elicit valuable feedback from your most valued customers. He'll share his experience iterating on ideas with lightning speed to uncover what works, what doesn't, and what will truly delights customers (hint: it's usually not your first idea). Come ready to get your hands dirty.

Note: Lack of drawing ability is a plus.

JavaScript, jQuery and APIs

A lot of very popular web applications allow access to their API via JavaScript.

This masterclass will go over how to create the AJAX calls to get content, how to read the documentation provided, security, what to do with your JSON objects, and how to organize your content.

Sketching for Thinkers

Sketching is a great tool for designers to understand problems, to explore design solutions and to communicate their thinking to clients and colleagues.

This Masterclass gives an introduction to basic sketching principles and explains how you can use sketching to structure problems and to communicate ideas. We'll look at how to approach sketching objects and people by combining simple shapes and how to use simple techniques to improve the clarity of your sketches.

The Masterclass will encourage and enable you to add sketching as a tool to your daily work and build up confidence in thinking, designing and communicating with pen and paper.

The Masterclass is a mixture of explanations and live sketching demonstration for you to sketch along as well as some simple and fun exercises to practice the explained principles.