« Plaxo Pulse: No Thanks | Main | It's a proud day... »

November 10, 2007

Future of Web Design 2007 - a review

On Wednesday, I attended the Future of Web Design conference in NYC.

I was happy to have won a ticket, and was generally excited to go...however, I think I was left unimpressed, which was too bad. Overall, I was left thinking that I was glad I didn't pay to go...which kind of made me feel bad because it was clear a lot of effort went into planning the event.

The most glaring (har) complaint I had was the venue. This was my first time attending something at the Javits Center, and I really disliked the hulking, monstrous, ugly building. The conference was in an upstairs glassed-in cavernous area with attendees facing the stage and the river as a backdrop. A glaring (har) problem was that until about noon (after starting around 9), the large projection screen used by all the presenters was bathed in sunlight...meaning, no one could see anything. An LCD screen was brought in and placed at the head of the crowd...but still. This seemed like it should have been...expected? Thought about?

The acoustics of the 10-story room we were in were...bad. I'm not sure if it was just me, but depending on the speaker, I could barely make out what was being said (coupled with not being able to see presenters' slides...I missed a lot). At times, talks sounded like echo-y, muffled, bass-y mumbling...like a subway announcement.

And not only was there no free coffee...there was Javits Center no-other-option $3.50/per cup brew ($4 for a bottle of water). Lame thing to mention, but it just added to the experience.

The talks themselves were ok. Some were really great (Josh Davis' introductory talk about design inspiration was fantastic...a shame we couldn't really see it), while others just seemed really basic, overly simple, and kind of rushed. I'm not sure what could have been done better, but it didn't really feel like "the future" of anything (and I guess i'm not alone in feeling this way).

It was too bad, overall. I was excited to take things away that I could further investigate or bring into my project work...but I really couldn't get past the production values (I think I was also comparing it, sort of, to the An Event Apart I attended earlier this year...which had lengthier, focused talks, and a polished, well-oiled feel to the whole day).

Clampants | November 10, 2007 11:50 AM